I posted this six years ago. The numbers will have changed, but only slightly:

"You can't talk about American murder rates and gun laws without talking about race. There are 2 million people where I live in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC -- an area mostly suburban but that also has urban areas, including a large Hispanic working class. With almost wide-open gun laws, we had 17 murders last year. Our murder rate would fit in quite well in Western Europe. Cross a bridge into Washington or its Maryland suburbs, with substantial black populations, and the murder rate increases ten-fold. Nationwide, the black murder rate is about seven times the white ("other races" are lower than the white rate). Blacks are about six times more likely to be murder victims."