Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?
This is a great read from the "Front Site, Press" blog.
"International evidence and comparisons have long been offered
as proof of the mantra that more guns mean more deaths and that
fewer guns, therefore, mean fewer deaths.1 Unfortunately, such
discussions are all too often been afflicted by misconceptions and
factual error and focus on comparisons that are unrepresentative.
It may be useful to begin with a few examples. There is a compound
assertion that (a) guns are uniquely available in the United
States compared with other modern developed nations, which is
why (b) the United States has by far the highest murder rate.
Though these assertions have been endlessly repeated, statement
(b) is, in fact, false and statement (a) is substantially so…
…If the mantra “more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal
less death” were true, broad based cross-national comparisons
should show that nations with higher gun ownership per capita
consistently have more death. Nations with higher gun
ownership rates, however, do not have higher murder or suicide
rates than those with lower gun ownership. Indeed many
high gun ownership nations have much lower murder rates.
Consider, for example, the wide divergence in murder rates
among Continental European nations with widely divergent
gun ownership rates…"
Posted 02:34PM Jul 23, 2008 by MCSA
