Two sociocultural differences that result in widely different murder rates are: (1) the fact that "family suicides" are excluded from Japanese murder rates; and (2) that Europeans turn their violence on themselves rather than others, resulting in higher suicide rates than Americans. Historical evidence refutes attributing differential international violence rates to differences in gun laws rather than to socio-institutional and cultural differences. People who attribute low violence rates in Europe to banning guns are apparently unaware that low rates long preceded the gun bans. Although increased gun ownership caused American murder rates to rise in the 1960's, in the 1970's and 1980's handgun ownership continued to rise although handgun homicides decreased markedly. Declining American homicides are concealed by combining suicide and murder statistics which produces an "intentional homicide" rate that is claimed to be caused by widespread gun ownership. Despite reliance on international murder comparisons, none of the anti-gun academics who apply the combined murder-suicide approach (in describing American figures) follow the combined approach when making those international comparisons. 18 notes