Bert wrote:

If "the murder rate in Japan, with weapons other than firearms,
is 3.2 per hundred thousand" and "in the U.S., there are about 3.2
murders per 100,000 people each year by weapons other than firearms",
how is it that "we would still have three times the murder rate of the
Japanese" if firearms were eliminated?

Because a murder is a murder whether it's done with a firearm or
not....eliminating firearms will never eliminate murders. The same
demographics will apply and those "3.2 per hundredK murders with
firearms" will simply translate into "6.4 murders per hundredK without
firearms".

The key point being that eliminating firearms can never and will never
eliminate "crime". Criminals will simply switch to the next best
weapon. Machetes seem to be quite popular in the rest of the
world....they might catch on in the US some day.

ral