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« New Supreme Ct case on standing | Main | Ted Cruz to run for Texas Atty General »

International comparisons

Posted by David Hardy · 5 March 2009 08:36 AM

Howard Nemerov raises an interesting point. If we take UN claims as to firearms privately owned per capita, and national homicide rates, and divide countries into quartiles based on firearms owned per capita...

The quartile with highest gun ownership had a homicide rate of 1.6. The second quartile (with under half the first's gun ownership) had a homicide rate of 2.5. Third quartile (with gun ownership a fifth of the first quartile) had a homicide rate of 2.7. Fourth quartile, with gun ownership near zero, had a homicide rate of 3.5.

· non-US

3 Comments | Leave a comment

fwb | March 5, 2009 11:08 AM | Reply

Yep. Funny how it works out. When you are unarmed you are unprotected. Those without power are always at the mercy of those who have it or those willing to do anything to gain it.

Dominus providebit!

6Kings | March 5, 2009 4:20 PM | Reply

Man, that is golden! Wonder how that is going to get spun by the anti-gunny bunnies?

Carl in Chicago | March 6, 2009 7:25 AM | Reply

My comment on Howard's article below, Howard's response far below. All I can say is ... we should be glad to have Howard and his intellect on the right side of this issue:

Carl in Chicago says:
Thank you Howard. Your columns are always stimulating and well-done.

That homicide rates correlate negatively with gun ownership rates is not surprising. There is much evidence, in fact, that government-sponsored homicide is much lower in countries where the citizenry is armed. And we know that criminal persons and organizations possess weapons and often operate freely and without resistance in nations with strict gun control.

But I should point out that these correlations, and more importantly the phenomena that they reflect, are confounded by numerous compounding and interacting variables. In the instant case, it is also quite likely that gun ownership rates (like ownership rates of most durable goods) correlate strongly and positively with average annual income. And we know that income rates correlate with all kinds of social indicators, including crime rates, legitimacy rates, literacy rates, etc.. It might be that lowered homicide rates are also simply a function of the financial status (and corresponding variables) of countries that experience low homicide rates.

But, at any rate, and in the United States of America at least, the right of the people to own and carry guns shall not be infringed.
March 5, 3:28 PM


Howard Nemerov says:
Carl, you make some good points. I plan to address your points in future articles. Consider this a warm-up act. As far as confounding factors, notice one of my concluding points: "The UN’s own reports prove that other factors besides gun control play a larger role in homicide rates." If you wait for point-of-cause proof that more guns means less crime, that is as likely to happen as the anti-rights people proving that more guns means more crime. We only have the preponderance of evidence, which proves three things:

1. Persons of all walks of life successfully defend themselves against violence by using firearms. Since civil rights are attributes which, when applied broadly, benefit both the individual and society, this shifts the burden of proving otherwise to the anti-rights proponents. (The fact that they don't see it that way reveals their intent: They believe in "guilty until proven innocent," meaning that they are already despotic in nature.)

2. Countries with lower firearms ownership also exhibit certain negative attributes which I will cover soon.

3. Extensive research into publications by anti-rights groups like Brady Campaign and Violence Policy Center show that their research methods and conclusions are so full of holes that a first-grade arithmetic student could drive a semi-trailer through without risking any damage whatsoever. I document this in my book.
March 5, 3:58 PM

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