VectorM wrote:
And yet, in the real world, where there are countries other than the U.K., gun violence (if I will accept to separate gun violence form just plain homicide) is higher in countries that have just as much, if not more gun control. Jamaica for example has way stricter gun control than the U.S., is a fucking island, and yet, gun violence is several orders of magnitude higher than in the U.S.
Good comparison there. Very valid. Jamaican GDP, culture, institutions, corruption and size are far more comparable to the US than the UK. Thank you for this profound insight.
VectorM wrote:
And if you look at just plain homicides, fucking North Korea, one of the mot controlled countries in the world, has higher homicide rates than both the U.S. and the U.K. combined.
That and the simple fact, that studies have not found causal relationship between gun ownership and levels of violence. They've actually found higher correlation with car ownership, of all things.
AFAIK both official and unofficial (estimated) crime rates in North Korea are very low. I'd love to see the source of that fact (because I'm rather interested in DPRK and was always surprised about those low crime figures). Also, do you have a link to the relationship between gun ownership and violence?
I found one paper which indicated no relationship between gun ownership in the US and homicides - which doesn't mean anything, since it's about gun control, not the number of firearms. If in one area many regular people and a number of criminals and idiots buy guns, whereas in a different region it's mostly criminals/idiots, the total number of firearms is higher in the first case, while the number of homicides may be lower (due to higher risks involved in homicides). What matters is whether gun control can help, which is related to the availability, not ownership, of firearms.
Even then, a review of papers written on the subject suggest a positive relationship between gun ownership and homicides:
link.
EDIT: seems I'm a bit late to the party, and I'm repeating some arguments here. Sorry for that.
@VectorM, again: you talk about correlations and proving causation.
1. It is not possible to "prove" causation.
2. Based on statistics which are somewhat more complicated then correlation, it is possible to show a more or less specific
relationship between individual variables, which allows us to distinguish between the effects of, for example, population size, density and income and gun ownership on homicides.
3. Whether this implies a causal relationship depends on theory: what does theory predict? If empiric evidence (the relationship between variables) matches the theoretical relationship, there is strong evidence for such a causal relationship.
The theoretical relationship is simple enough: more guns implies more danger, for it makes everyone involved more dangerous. It also implies more violence, for firearms make it easier to commit violent acts (hell, I'm so ridiculously weak, I could barely commit a violent act without a firearm). More firearms also imply more risk to instigate violence; as long as less then 100% of the population has a weapon at hand, obtaining a firearm and using that to commit a crime empowers the criminal.
Empirics are a bit more complicated, since there is some self-selection bias (criminals may be more inclined to buy guns, for example). The fact that despite this theoretical bias researchers have still found links between gun ownership and violence, we can be pretty sure there is a causal relationship.
Which does not necessarily imply guns should be banned (with or without exceptions), which depends on the benefits of gun ownership (protection from government, fun, feelings of safety) and other drawbacks of gun ownership (accidents, feelings of danger). But the relationship is there.