Using this http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_cr... as my primary source, figures by specific instruments or methods (with about as many US murders unspecified as U.K. murders total, the unspecified not used), I get a 1.34 per 100,000 rate of non-firearms but otherwise specified murders in the US in 2004, compared to a 1.45 per 100,000 for all of the U.K.

For better or worse, we're a violent people.