CB apology accepted, nicely phrased by the way.
In America the single most attractive form of power to a young man under 25 y/o is an automobile. The single largest killer of young adults in this country is (I believe) NOTE DISCLAIMER, the automobile. I point this out not because it is some new breakthrough statistic, but to highlight what I believe is a cultural bias. Let me explain, my Dutch brother-in-law, educated in England, living in America, goes on a rant about the danger of guns to children (<25 y/o) in America. He says this as his two teenage daughters climb into their 4WD midsize SUV (inherently unstable mind you) for a night on the town. He cannot name anyone of his childrens peers killed by a gun, he knows of many of them hurt, killed or arrested for failure to operate a auto safely, but the gun is more dangerous in his mind.
CB, I still don't know if my 80% number is wrong, the stats you cited came from a poll of <2000 Americans in a land of 285 million people or 0.0007%. STOP I took stats in college too. The reason I don't trust your number is that the sample size is too small to overcome the following problem which is that if a pollster calls me at home and says "do you own a firearm?", As a gunowner, I am not going to be inclined to answer that question honestly, there is no benefit to me to do so, and some real or perceived risk. Also did the polling occur in a major metropolitan area, or the farm country of Iowa? even worse, did they restrict the polling to the New England states, or did they call the Southwest too. These two population groups are not even close to homgeneous in their basic makeup.
There is no question that too many people die by gunfire because even on death especially if it is someone you know and love is too many. The question is always "What do we do about it?