Nice attempt at debunking the study but your statistics in the second graph only take account from 2007. The study is over the course of 20 years of data and the trends are massively downward. Your percentages cover 5 years of steady percantage of gun deaths but blatantly leaves out that 2000 less deaths occurred.
Also, a suicide is not a crime or homicide. Accidental shootings are not homicides. Therefore, the findings of the original stand don't they? It correlates actual data to public perception of homicides.
I think there's cred to both yours and @tmonster's stats
Overall crime in general has gone down in the past 20 yearsand sseveral theories that correlate to that cause come to mind
- Increase in technology thwarting or discourages crime (comparing now to twenty years ago).
- More technology related crimes probably being more appealing to criminals
- Media and social awareness on gun violence and crime
And there also has been a strange uptick in mass shootings over the past five years (2 per month on average)
but that would just be a casual masturbation of strawman