If the attempt is to understand the roots of homicide, rather than just bash one nation or another, it's more instructive to look at homicides [0], rather than homicides of a particular flavor. A careful look at that list will make it clear that elevated homicide rates are a legacy of colonization, at least as much as legal policy. Those in the Americas or Africa can't really be blamed that they were colonized by Europeans. Therefore, nations in the bottom, say, third of the table for those continents really aren't doing such a bad job.

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

The US? People can own more than one gun. The 1:1 ratio is for privately own guns. Doesn't include military or guns for export.

Mandatory execution sees offenders only as their offence, rather than human beings, and denies offenders the opportunity to change for the better. It is cynical and pessimistic.