America is a violent place by any standard. The national firearm-related death rate has held steady at 10.5 per 100,000 people since 1999, well above the global average. Some of its cities exhibit epidemic rates of gun death on par with crime-affected urban centers in Latin America and the Caribbean. Hard as it might be to believe, levels of lethal violence are actually at historic lows. Declines occurred after the passage of specific legislation designed to prevent... (GunPolicy.org)