Dan, are the Michigan state Police statistics and the 2003 FBI homicide data report on the web? If so, please could you post links to them, because I wish to pass these stats onto some British liberals who will not believe that the murder rate in Glasgow (where they are trying to ban the sale of sporting and combat knives), is over 5 times higher than the murder rate in Austin, Texas (where there is CCW) - unless I cite official reports. Thanks for your help.
The FBI one is http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_03/pdf/03sec2.pdf - It starts on page 123 and has most cities with 10,000 or more people. I tried using cities about the size of Glasgow for most of my examples.
You also may want to tell the liberals that NYC, Chicago, and Washington DC all have handgun bans as well. DC is the nations murder capitol almost every year.
States have varying laws on guns. Massachusetts, Illinois, Maryland, and California are strict. Michigan is in the middle. Texas, the Dakotas, Alaska, Vermont, New Hampshire and Kentucky are very lenient. The Michigan state Police one is http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Offenses03_106249_7.pdf
The FBI one has almost all US cities.