The rate rises and falls, but the US is always the world champion of murders. Its murder rate (c. 1991) was twice that of Germany, 4x that of Norway and the UK, 5x that of Sweden, 7x that of Japan, and 12x that of Finland; the disparities in armed robberies are even greater. Guns don't kill people, Americans do. And it's the gift that keeps on giving - birth defects and stillborns in Iraq, the US, and UK due to the radioactivity of depleted-uranium weapons. And what of Serbia?