> But there is a geographic correlation between the relatively unregulated presence of devices well-designed to kill people and people getting killed with said devices.
The murder rate in the U.S. has been high since the get go. Guns do not explain that.
"The American homicide rate has been higher than Europe’s from the start, and higher at just about every stage since. It has also fluctuated, sometimes wildly. During the Colonial period, the homicide rate fell, but in the nineteenth century, while Europe’s kept sinking, the U.S. rate went up and up. In the twentieth century, the rate in the United States dropped to about five during the years following the Second World War, but then rose, reaching about eleven in 1991. It has since fallen once again, to just above five, a rate that is, nevertheless, twice that of any other affluent democracy."
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/11/09/091109crat_atlarge_lepore
http://www.earlyamericancrime.com/reviews/american-homicide
http://cjrc.osu.edu/researchprojects/hvd/index.html