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  | Different estimates suggest that there are between 192 million and 250 million guns in the USA. Of these, 65 million are handguns.
There were, on average, more than 30,000 deaths from gun violence each year during the 1990s.
During the whole of the 20th century, the federal government enacted only eight laws regulating firearms nationwide.
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 | In 2002:
Firearm homicide was the main cause of death for 15-34 year-old African Americans.
The firearm death rate for African Americans was more than twice that of whites.
An African American male under 30 years old was nearly nine times more likely to be murdered than a white male in the same age group.
African American males accounted for 47% of all homicide victims. They make up 6% of the entire US population.
Source: Robert Singh, Governing America: the Politics of a Divided America, Oxford (2003).
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 | In 1998, women were 100 times more likely to be murdered with a handgun than use a handgun to kill in self defence.
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 | Alma believes that tighter gun laws would have saved her sister. But Brad would argue that most guns bought by criminals are obtained illegally, so more laws would have had little effect.
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 | Africa n Americans represent:
12.7% of the US population
15% of US drug users
(72% of all users are white)
36.8% of those arrested for a drug abuse violation
48.2% of American adults in state and federal prisons and local jails
42.5% of prisoners under sentence of death
24% of African Americans 25 years and over have not graduated from high school (compared to approx. 16% of whites).
26.5% of African-Americans live below the poverty line (compared to 11% of whites.)
Source: Prison Activist Resource Centre
http://www.prisonactivist.org/factsheets/racism.pdf
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