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Homicide rates in the US are still significantly higher than other developed nations, so there's a long way to go:

    US 4.8 per 100,000 in 2012
    UK 1.2
    France 1.1
    Germany 0.8
    Japan 0.4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...

I wonder why this paper doesn't use the statistics from 2012, which show an uptick to 4.8?

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It's unfair to compare the best state-sized countries with the entire United States, which has several states 7+ but also several 2 and under. It would be better to compare the US to the closer-sized Europe, which is 3.5. Still a legitimate difference, but not nearly as stark.

Why are you comparing based on size? Surely it is sensible to try and compare economically similar. Western and Northern Europe is probably the best comparison, with a combined population of something like 280 Million, not too far from the US. The murder rates are 1.0 and 1.5 respectively, far lower than the US. The whole of Europe includes Eastern Europe which is much less similar to the US and has a higher murder rate.

The figures are adjusted for population, so I don't see why size would affect the figures, and as the other poster said comparing recently joined Eastern European states with the US is not very useful as they are at a very different stage of development. If you break it down by states almost every US state has statistics far worse than Western Europe, to which they should be fairly comparable.

There are lots of variables here, including varying gun ownership, gun control, and states like Switzerland show you can have ownership without high rates of killing (though they restrict ammo), but widespread private ownership for self-defence in the US does seem to correlate with high rates of homicide (inc. suicide), and other countries with tighter restrictions and a different attitude to guns have far lower rates of death associated with firearms.

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