Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: I think this paragraph from The New Yorker really sums up the gun control debate here on DU [View all]Shamash
(597 posts)The FBI definition from the links considers non-negligent deaths separate from homicides and has separate totals for accidents, manslaughter and justifiable homicide (and adding these in any combination to my previous figures does not alter the conclusion reached).
If as you suggest, we listed all actions resulting in loss of life as a homicide we would count every motor vehicle death in in this country as a "homicide" and we would also count every self-inflicted loss of life as a "homicide". The former would not clarify the issue for either side in a gun control context and the latter would probably (pun intended) shoot gun control advocates in the foot, since it would instantly make Japan's "homicide rate" skyrocket to more than that of the United States (Japan's suicide rate per 100,000 (21.4) exceeds the United States' suicide rate (12.5) plus our murder rate (4.7, if you use the high number suggested elsewhere). Ditto for South Korea, which also has negligible firearms ownership and an even higher suicide rate than Japan.
The FBI, whether correctly or not, uses "homicide" as synonymous with "murder" (probably because they did not feel like saying "intentional homicide on someone other than yourself" every time), as the following cut & paste from the UCR page illustrates: "The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program of the FBI collects supplementary homicide data that provide the age, sex, and race of the murder victim and offender." In this sentence, a "homicide" is assumed to result in a "murder victim".
Last, many dictionaries include "murder" as an alternate acceptable meaning for the term "homicide". From dictionary.com:
homicide: noun
1.the killing of one human being by another.
2.a person who kills another; murderer.