It does not include shootings during the commission of a crime, domestic violence, accidents, or suicide. I don't know the exact yearly death count, but it is the same order of magnitude as the yearly number killed in automobile accidents, or our battlefield deaths during the entire Vietnam War. (No doubt Tom will locate some statistic to prove how full of shit I am.)

I used to think that "common sense" gun laws such as registration, background checks, and regulation of ownership and gun types could at least cut the death toll in half, but now I'm starting to have second thoughts. We, as a people, are gun nuts, we're addicted to them. And I'm no exception, I'm afraid to be unarmed myself. But the more guns good people have, the more guns bad people have access to, which means more good people will want guns. A critical mass has been reached, a threshold, and the situation has started feeding on itself, a sort of positive feedback death spiral. And since it is a very lucrative business for the gun industry, any attempt to disrupt the loop will be met by a well-funded political opposition.

I can't think of any solution to this problem now except zero tolerance, the immediate and total outlawing of all firearms and their immediate confiscation and destruction, no exceptions, with severe penalties to back it up. It won't work overnight, but perhaps in a generation or so the killing will taper off to Western European levels. That's not likely to happen as long as a substantial minority of the population has convinced itself (or has been convinced) the country is on the verge of being taken over by a leftist dictatorship, or a leftist foreign invasion (the villains are always lefties) and these weapons are needed to defend our freedom. Any attempt to confiscate firearms would lead to armed insurrection and fighting in the streets. Conservatives and criminals, terrorists and rebels, fighting side-by-side, arm and arm at the barricades, for LIBERTY.

It seems ironic, but the steps taken by so many Americans to arm themselves for protection against civil unrest or lawlessness are precisely the means by which criminals and potential insurgents will also equip themselves. The death spiral will continue. In the event of an actual breakdown of the social order, the country quickly will look like Beirut or Falujah, split into warring militias, except the army and the police will be too busy protecting their own homes and families to come help.

And if there are indeed terrorists "Trojan horsing" themselves amongst foreign refugees or immigrants, legal or otherwise, at least their masters will not have to worry about arming them when they get here. Getting guns will be the least of their problems.