The stats in the article don't isolate "gun murders" from all murders. We can't tell from this data whether one country or another has more people murdered with guns, as opposed to by other means.
...and here I thought the United States was the gun murder capital of the world. Could the unbiased news have lied to me???
Yes, but the usual way I see the claim is something like: "U.S. Leads Richest Nations In Gun Deaths" - AP article originally featured in CNN interactive U.S. news.
The stats in the article don't isolate "gun murders" from all murders. We can't tell from this data whether one country or another has more people murdered with guns, as opposed to by other means.
Scroll down that link, and Voila! Too bad I can't format with HTML.
Country Year Population Total Death Total Homicide Firearm Homicide (Death rates are per 100,000)
Brazil 1993 160,737,000 25.34 19.04 10.58
United States3 1993 257,783,004 18.57 5.70 3.72
But it doesn't really matter. If the ability of law abiding citizens to own firearms lowers murder and other crimes, does it matter if so called "gun crimes" dropped more or less than others? The important thing is that overall crime dropped. Less people were murdered, and I'm sure those who weren't murdered could give a fig whether their murderer would have used a gun, knife, ax or garrote to do the deed, if only he hadn't been concerned about them having the most effective means to protect themselves.