Firearms to Violence Ratio

I have my opinion and I respect my neighbor’s belief; although he was a green beret so we share some common ideas; but I digress.  Right or left or somewhere in between; both sides of the argument have their “golden” countries that they turn to as illustrations of their point.  I’ve looked up many numbers from different criminal databases and come up with some interesting information initially found on theguardian.com.  It seems that gun violence can but typically has less to do with regulation and more to do with culture.  I’ve seen countries with tight and loose laws that have the same results, sometimes negative, sometimes positive.

It seems that no other countries can truly be compared to our own as each has a unique set of peoples, histories, and cultures.  Because it works over there does not necessarily mean it has any application here.  Always do the research and question both sides.  One thing I dislike is when one side of the argument uses and extenuating circumstance go to waste, because that incident is breaking from the mean; never let a crisis go to waste, right.  Look at common trends, those are the control you need to evaluate.

The chart I have attached is the one that I thought was most accurate and well-articulated.  For your reading interest I have organized it by Homicide by firearm rate per 100,000.  This is also a clear picture of one more variable that I have not included; what is the general homicide rate per 100,000, regardless of weapons utilized.  In the absence of firearms who is to say that the homicide rates go down; a person can be killed as easily with a machete as a pistol.

Maybe I’ll post something on the 2^nd amendment, but not today because this is about international rates of firearm related homicide when compared to firearms present.

Jon

SOURCES: UNODC & Small arms survey, 2012