Neither do so-called "assault weapons." You're statistically more likely to have someone beat you to death with their bare fists and feet. Do you go around worrying about that every day? I don't.

Nothing is gained by conflating unrelated topics like suicide, gang violence, domestic violence, and the occasional deranged lunatic spree killer just because they all abused the same tool to commit murder.

But if you don't muddy the water like that how are you supposed to demonize guns??

Unfortunately, most people are more interested in the simple answer than in recognizing there is no simple answer. And people are remarkably poor at recognizing that those who are muddying the waters are almost certainly arguing a false position.

You know, it probably kills way more than that.

HIV transmission is way higher among men who have sex with men.

US annual HIV deaths are like under 5000 total. It's gotten way, way, way better than earlier decades.

Thanks for the info. I was imagining the whole world. I look a little above, and maybe it's Washington State really?

In any event:

1) Guns don't kill people. They don't even make the people-killing appreciably more likely.

2) Washington has about 1,000 gun murders per year

3) About 2/3 of U.S. gun deaths are suicides, so we might expect about 333 gun murders in WA in a year.

I'm really glad U.S. HIV deaths have fallen off a cliff!

The 45k number is for US total (as is the <5k number above)

WA state has about 300 murders a year, up significantly from 200-ish pre covid.