Firearms-related crimes pose serious threat to U.S. citizens: report

BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The United States was haunted by serious violent crimes in 2012 with frequent occurrence of firearms-related criminal cases and with some shootings leaving astonishing casualties, says a report on the U.S. human rights record released on Sunday.

According to statistics released by the FBI in September 2012, an estimated 1,203,564 violent crimes occurred in the U.S. in 2011, about 386.3 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants, says the report, titled "the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2012," which was released by China's State Council Information Office.

Aggravated assaults accounted for 62.4 percent of violent crimes reported to law enforcement. And firearms were used in 67.7 percent of the nation's murders, 41.3 percent of robberies, and 21.2 percent in all crimes in the U.S., the report quotes the FBI figures as saying.

Figures from the USA Today's website showed that the violent crime rate went up 17 percent in 2011, the report says.

Statistics from the website of the Congressional Research service showed that an estimated 14,612 people fell victims of murder in 2011 and 9,903 of them were firearms-related murder victims, according to the report.

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