I always thought crime was low in Netherlands. However, if the stats are right, then it's higher than in the U.S.

http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/default.aspx
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_01/01crime2.pdf

The UCR keeps track of gun use in three kinds of crime in the U.S.: murder, robbery and aggravated assault. In 2002:

5.6 murders per 100,000 people in the US, 63.4% involve guns
Robberies 148.5 per 100,000, 42.0% involve guns
Aggravated assault 318.5, 18.3% involve gun use

That averages to a gun related crime rate of 124 per 100,000 people.

Now, I thought the argument was that lowering gun ownership would lower crime overall. I don't think so. Granted the overall rate in Netherlands is reported as 30 per 100,000 for the Netherlands (a higher number of 72 per 100,000 in Amsterdam), but look at these statistics:

violent crime rate in the US: 504.4 per 100,000
property crime rate in the US: 3656.1 per 100,000

The Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics has crime reports 101,143 violent crimes and 919,262 property crimes in 2001. Okay, if the population is approx 16,171,520, (the U.S. population in 2002 was estimated at around 300,000,000) isn't that 625.4 violent crimes per 100,000 and 5684.4 property crimes for every 100,000? Isn't the violent crime rate in the Netherlands 24% higher and the property crime rate 55% higher?

If those numbers are correct (hey, I could be having a bad math day :o), then that suggests that more gun control does not lower crime rates overall.