Have rates of gun violence in the U.S. improved in the last 20 years? A surprising 82 percent of Americans surveyed said "no." They're dead wrong.

The fact is that gun violence rates in America - while still the highest in the Western World - plummeted 49 percent between 1993 and 2011, according to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice. Gun-related deaths dropped from a three-decade high of 7 deaths per 100,000 annually in 1993 (up from 6.6 in 1981 and 6.5 in 1990), to 3.6 by 2010. In the same period the rates of non-fatal violent gun crimes also dropped 69 percent, and non-fatal victimizations by 75 percent, according to DOJ and the Centers for Disease Control.

In fact, in most categories violent crime is down.

Only 12 percent of those surveyed by Pew Research Center believe it. Worse, the results released in May show 56 percent believe the opposite is true - that gun-related violence is higher than it was 20 years ago.

So why the big discrepancy between perception and reality? As has become usual, few research the facts (instead using unbiased sources) before forming an impression. We seem to prefer fearful feelings, generated from high-profile events, to the security of boring stats.

"The public doesn't get its feelings out of crime statistics," urban systems professor Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University told USA Today. "The public gets its feelings from particularly notorious events."

OK, maybe just a few facts, and maybe that's the problem - forming feeling on few. Mass shootings such as those in Newtown, Conn. and Chicago, and stories like that of a 5-year-old in Kentucky who shot his little brother, leave a lasting impression, isolated though they may be. One doesn't need intimate relationships with victims to feel a lasting pain after such tragedies.

Ironically, women feel it more. The survey found that women and the elderly were less likely to be victims of crime, but more likely to believe gun crime had increased. Men are more likely to be victims and more likely to know that the rates dropped.

A few high-profile court cases also seem to reinforce perceptions, even if the bases of Supreme Court justices' law-making are focused on rights to own and carry. Perhaps we think subconsciously if it's important to have them maybe it's because we are likely to need them, or something along those lines. Statistically among western countries, we own the most guns and use them to commit the most crimes, according to an article on the same survey in The Christian Science Monitor. U.S. gun-related deaths in 2010 totaled 12,343. We have the most guns per capita (up to 400 million firearms in circulation, with an average population of 314 million). In this way we still seem like the "Wild West" to outsiders.

Sometimes I wonder which is the chicken and which the egg - fear or perceived prevalence. Perhaps that psychology alone affects demand, or is at least more responsible for fear than are the facts.

The court-reinforced Second Amendment is and should stay secure, but one can't help but be reminded that when human beings want something - anything - we tend to rationalize the need for it (in this case, for protection). Maybe simply knowing crime statistics don't support the perceived risk could help reduce misperception and restore a feeling of security.

Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her at sholeh@cdapress.com.