PTT - I suggest you read my post again as you appear to be under the mistaken belief that the 173 figure for children under five refers to UK figures - it in fact refers to US children under five years of age in 2008 and 2009.
Ah, ok, it wasn't clear to me. In that case the figure is meaningless as it is contextless.
That said, I mistyped the final ratio, which, had my interpretation been correct, should be 173:1116 instead. Thanks for pointing it out though
As far as the 120000 figure is concerned it is quite feasable as in an average year 23000 die from gunshot wounds in the USA.
No source, no belief. I can't find a single source to suggest that almost 2,800 under-5s die a year from firearms related causes. Similar rates are quoted for under-20s, but not under-5's. The only reference I've found to under-5 death rates in 15 minutes of searching is
this, which states 73 under-5s were killed by firearm in 1999. Extrapolating that (and we have no reason to accept that is reasonable give that we have only one data point) we would get just over 3,000 deaths in a 43 year period. Not quite the 120,000 you mention.
That said, the US firearm related death rate (
source - original source for that article is a pdf from
CDC) is 10.2 per 100,000. With a population of 310m that makes for 31,620 deaths by firearm in 2010. The homicide rate is 3.6, making for 11,160 homicides by firearm that year. It's worth noting that the US has the 3rd highest suicide by firearm rate.
The fact is unlike any other industrialised nation,the citizens of the USA shoot each other and themselves at an extremely high rate. What can be done about it? absolutely nothing as the guns are already in society and impossible to remove. In my little country we suffered one school massacre in Dunblane - we may have another as you cannot account for every maniac in society but at least we have tried to minimise the risk. If we need a gun we can legally get one but we do not have to fear our fellow citizens the way it seems to be in the US. School massacres seem to happen at regular intervals in your country - next time have a serious think about how to reduce them - the solution is not more guns.
I don't disagree. All I'm saying is that in order to make the argument and prevent people from picking niggling holes it is wise to shore it up with citations and be aware of the limitations of the stats you quote.