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The United States ranks third in the world for homicides after only Mexico and Russia.Italy, our nearest competitor, has one quarter the homicide rate. Occasionally, dramatic events such as the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, brieflyhighlight some aspect of this problem, but the truth is that the U.S. homicide rate has beenconsistently high over the last 25 years—between 8 and 10 per 100,000 population per year.1 Sixty percent of these deaths involve firearms.