Comment by cratermoon

It's really the only variable differentiating the US homicide rate from other developed countries. The US homicide rate is 4 times the UK, 5 times more than Germany, 4 times that of France and thrice that of our neighbor to the north. While Mexico has a higher homicide rate, the gun crime rate in the US is 6 times higher. (All numbers are round approximations. Different sources and ways of calculating the data may result in variances but the relative rates don't change that much.)