US: 12,000 vs. Japan: 11

This is a comparison in which the U.S. will always prevail.  I'll go with the Japanese any day.

From The Atlantic...

Friday's horrific shooting at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater has been a reminder that America's gun control laws are the loosest in the developed world and its rate of gun-related homicide is the highest. Of the world's 23 "rich" countries, the U.S. gun-related murder rate is almost 20 times that of the other 22. With almost one privately owned firearm per person, America's ownership rate is the highest in the world; tribal-conflict-torn Yemen is ranked second, with a rate about half of America's.  

But what about the country at the other end of the spectrum? What is the role of guns in Japan, the developed world's least firearm-filled nation and perhaps its strictest controller? In 2008, the U.S. had over12 thousand firearm-related homicides. All of Japan experienced only 11, fewer than were killed at the Aurora shooting alone. And that was a big year: 2006 saw an astounding two, and when that number jumped to 22 in 2007, it became a national scandal. By comparison, also in 2008, 587 Americans were killed just by guns that had discharged accidentally.  

Almost no one in Japan owns a gun. Most kinds are illegal, with onerous restrictions on buying and maintaining the few that are allowed. Even the country's infamous, mafia-like Yakuza tend to forgo guns; the few exceptions tend to become big national news stories.

So what does cheese have to do with this? Well, in the U.S. it's easier to buy a semi-automatic weapon than a wedge of raw milk cheese which is easily available in almost all of the rest of the world.  The impact?

From AmericaBlog...

"Two people died over fifteen years from eating raw milk cheese," Aravosis writes. "Significantly more died over that period from guns, about 450,000 people."

Go figure.