Switching from suicides to homicides doesn't really help the case for gun control.

That page's neutrality on the subject is also under dispute. You should read the comments about that, they are interesting.

If we're talking homicides, does that include legal homicides as well as the illegal kind? If it does then the number is misleading. Since homicide is defined as a person killing another person then many shootings are listed as homicides but are not considered crimes. A police officer shooting someone attempting to kill a person is considered a homicide. A woman shooting her rapist to defend herself is considered a homicide. It depends on how the data was collected and labeled.

If you dig a bit deeper into the statistics you will find many places with tough gun control laws that have high rates of gun murders. You can also find examples of low gun ownership with low gun murders. The thing is you cannot look at the US as a whole with stats like that, the stats can vary wildly from state to state if you break it down that way. It is not as simple as saying guns bad, gun control good.

If one is willing to do so, break down homicides by race in each state and you often see interesting numbers. But I'm sure that's racist to suggest such things...

If you dig deeper into state statistics you may find that the majority of some of the states with the highest gun murders also happen to have high levels of gang activity. Look at Chicago in recent years. I wouldn't consider the entire state of Illinois as a crime-ridden state with murders in the street every day just because of Chicago's problems. You can find such findings on the Wikipedia page you linked. If one were to remove gun crimes committed in low-income urban areas, the number gets cut roughly in half. Heck, it wasn't that long ago that Washington D.C., where Congress can run things almost as strict as they want, was the murder capitol of the country.

How come that most gun control advocates use AR style rifles as their go-to evil gun example when the stats show almost no gun murders happen with that type of weapon? Because of mass shootings that get immediate national news coverage, it has become a tool to prey upon the emotions of people to further their agenda. If they were serious about helping people through gun control they would try to do something in Chicago where tough gun control has failed people for years. But they don't because mass shootings is where the news is and that's where the people who need to grandstand go to push their agenda. They often push an agenda that wouldn't have prevented the tragedy that they are taking advantage of in the first place.

You also can't compare homicide statistics internationally because often times it's an apples-to-oranges comparison. It's my understanding that in some countries a homicide may not listed as a murder, or whatever crime, until someone has been convicted. If that's the case then numbers can't be compared with the US where normally a non-accidental death caused by another human being is considered a homicide, regardless of court findings. Even then, it could vary from state to state.

Plus, this type of attitude is just attempting to treat a symptom instead of facing the social issues that cause such symptoms. If only the guns would go away then everything would somehow be okay.

That's an interesting stat on the shot/stabbing to the heart, but also rather expected. But it's just a rather specific statistic that almost sort of supports one-side of an argument. For instance, right before that statement it is speaking in terms of victim and assailant, such as your attacker deciding to shoot you specifically in the heart while being mugged. It's an attempt at an emotional response without discussing the problem as a whole.

Finally, the last I heard is that our crime statistics show a downward trend in violent crimes despite any real national level gun control legislation. By the way people talk you would think every American is constantly on edge waiting for someone to shoot them, which for the vast majority of America is simply not true. As discussed elsewhere in this thread, you are more likely to shoot yourself than be shot by someone else.