[jessaustin]

If the attempt is to understand the roots of homicide, rather than just bash one nation or another, it's more instructive to look at homicides [0], rather than homicides of a particular flavor. A careful look at that list will make it clear that elevated homicide rates are a legacy of colonization, at least as much as legal policy. Those in the Americas or Africa can't really be blamed that they were colonized by Europeans. Therefore, nations in the bottom, say, third of the table for those continents really aren't doing such a bad job.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...

[sjwright]

If your argument is that America's problems are caused by Europe, that's pretty embarrassing.

[ptaipale]

Well, I didn't read the argument like that. More like that the homicide rates are a legacy of the process of colonization; in a country that was first colonies and then a nation expanding across the North American continent, sometimes meeting hostile original inhabitants who were mercilessly and violently overrun, there was violence, and that violence necessitated self-defence, which in turn means the people traditionally rely on guns they use themselves, not the authorities and legal process - because the authorities weren't there.

Plus that in Europe, the powers-that-be have largely wanted to avoid revolutions, which means that the public's access to firearms as well as right to self-defence is restricted and police, gendarmerie and similar organisations have true monopoly on (lawful) violence. America, in turn, is a child of revolution and is revering the overthrowing of powers-that-be who were perceived as tyrants.

That's just my understanding of the history how the United States has come to this situation, not a value statement that it's how things should be.

(Just for comparison, compare to other countries colonized at the same time or earlier, like Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Honduras, Colombia, Nicaragua - they all have much higher homicide rates than the U.S.)