http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GUN_VIOLENCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-05-07-19-27-18
A study released Tuesday by the government's Bureau of Justice Statistics found that gun-related homicides dropped from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011. That's a 39 percent reduction.
Another report by the private Pew Research Center found a similar decline by looking at the rate of gun homicides, which compares the number of killings to the size of the country's growing population. It found that the number of gun homicides per 100,000 people fell from 7 in 1993 to 3.6 in 2010, a drop of 49 percent.
Both reports also found that non-fatal crimes involving guns were down by roughly 70 percent over that period. The Justice report said the number of such crimes diminished from 1.5 million in 1993 to 467,300 in 2011.
This is what makes events like Newtown so scary. When horrific events like that occur, they make people abandon all rationality and plead the government to further restrict rights in the name of security. I know we've hashed this out, but just like the PATRIOT Act post-9/11.
The truth is, gun violence/homicides are way, WAY down, and they have been steadily declining for the last 20 years. The vast majority of current gun homicides tend to be black-on-black crime, and that's not a gun issue, it's a cultural issue.