Harvard Study: More Guns Do Not Mean More Crime

[GabonX]

Harvard Study: More Guns Do Not Mean More Crime

There’s a study fresh out of the ivy-covered walls of Harvard University that’s a must-read for those on both sides of the gun control debate. Or, at least it has a must-read conclusion (though you’ll have to trudge through 46 pages to get there). Don Kates and Gary Mauser were sick and tired of hearing the claim that “more guns equals more crime” without anyone actually, you know, backing that statement up with some facts. So they took it upon themselves to determine if it’s true. They studied a large number of European countries and trends involving gun ownership and crime rates, and guess what?It turns out that the claim is completely false. There is, in fact, no correlation between guns and crime. At all . . .

From the study:

This Article has reviewed a significant amount of evidence from a wide variety of international sources. Each individual portion of evidence is subject to cavil—at the very least the general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific evidence cannot remotely approach the persuasiveness of conclusions in the physical sciences. Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra. To bear that burden would at the very least require showing that a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that have imposed stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide). But those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared across the world.

You can read the whole paper here. It’s interesting and worth your time. Well, interesting for people who derive enjoyment from tables, charts and footnotes. So, basically myself and Bruce.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2012/1 ... ore-crime/

[CreepersWiener]

There is, in fact, no correlation between guns and crime. At all . . .

[saxitoxin]

There is, in fact, no correlation between guns and crime. At all . . .

That would presume a murderer using a firearm refuses to use any other type of weapon if a gun isn't available.

I can only think of one murderer who is that finicky ...

[GabonX]

INTRODUCTION

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.

Since at least 1965, the false assertion that the United States has the industrialized world’s highest murder rate has been an artifact of politically motivated Soviet minimization designed to hide the true homicide rates.2 Since well before that date, the Soviet Union possessed extremely stringent gun controls3 that were effectuated by a police state apparatus providing stringent enforcement.4 So successful was that regime that few Russian civilians now have firearms and very few murders involve them.5 Yet, manifest success in keeping its people disarmed did not prevent the Soviet Union from having far and away the highest murder rate in the developed world.6 In the 1960s and early 1970s, the gun‐less Soviet Union’s murder rates paralleled or generally exceeded those of gun‐ridden America. While American rates stabilized and then steeply declined, however, Russian murder increased so drastically that by the early 1990s the Russian rate was three times higher than that of the United States. Between 1998‐2004 (the latest figure available for Russia), Russian murder rates were nearly four times higher than American rates. Similar murder rates also characterize the Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and various other now‐independent European nations of the former U.S.S.R.7 Thus, in the United States and the former Soviet Union transitioning into current‐day Russia, “homicide results suggest that where guns are scarce other weapons are substituted in killings.”8 While American gun ownership is quite high, Table 1 shows many other developed nations (e.g., Norway, Finland, Germany, France, Denmark) with high rates of gun ownership. These countries, however, have murder rates as low or lower than many developed nations in which gun ownership is much rarer. For example, Luxembourg, where handguns are totally banned and ownership of any kind of gun is minimal, had a murder rate nine times higher than Germany in 2002.9

Table 1: European Gun Ownership and Murder Rates
(rates given are per 100,000 people and in descending order)

Nation - Murder Rate - Rate of Gun Ownership

Russia - 20.54 - 4,000
Luxembourg - 9.01 - c. 0
Hungary - 2.22 - 2,000
Finland - 1.98 - 39,000
Sweden - 1.87 - 24,000
Poland - 1.79 - 1,500
France - 1.65 - 30,000
Denmark - 1.21 - 19,000
Greece - 1.12 - 11,000
Switzerland - 0.99 - 16,000
Germany - 0.93 - 30,000
Norway - 0.81 - 36,000
Austria - 0.80 - 17,000

Notes: This table covers all the Continental European nations for which
the two data sets given are both available. In every case, we have given
the homicide data for 2003 or the closest year thereto because that is the
year of the publication from which the gun ownership data are taken. Gun
ownership data comes from GRADUATE INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL
STUDIES, SMALL ARMS SURVEY 64 tbl.2.2, 65 tbl.2.3 (2003).
The homicide rate data comes from an annually published report,
CANADIAN CENTRE FOR JUSTICE STATISTICS, HOMICIDE IN CANADA,
JURISTAT, for the years 2001–2004. Each year’s report gives homicide statistics
for a dozen or so foreign nations in a section labeled “Homicide
Rates for Selected Countries.” This section of the reports gives no explana‐
tion of why it selects the various nations whose homicide statistics it covers.
Also without explanation, the nations covered differ from year to
year. Thus, for instance, murder statistics for Germany and Hungary are
given in all four of the pamphlets (2001, 2002, 2003, 2004), for Russia in
three years (2001, 2002, and 2004), for France in two years (2001 and 2003),
and for Norway and Sweden in only one year (2001).
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/org ... online.pdf

[GabonX]

We can see that actual analysis of the data demonstrates there is no correlation between crime and gun ownership whatsoever. The following explains America's high crime rate:

Snorri, gang warfare in Europe is nowhere near the intensity of gang warfare in the United States. We have a bunch of pissed off black kids who think that the government discriminates against them. We have white supremacy groups, we have organized crime families from virtually every European nation and we have hard ass motorcycle gangs.

We also have a bunch of ex South American revolutionary soldiers who discovered they could make millions of dollars transporting drugs to the United States who adopted their military style tactics and executions to the drug trade. This upped the anti and all of the gangs are more violent as a result.

There is no comparison between the criminal threats that the United States faces and the problems any nation in Europe faces, particularly an island nation like the UK. This is in fact the primary reason that the murder rate is higher here, not the availability of fire arms to law abiding citizens. Fire arms are in fact the solution to these problems.

The above also at least partially illustrates the importance of allowing the common man to access sufficient technological platforms for self defense, lest we descend to the conditions of frequent mass rape and murder that our Southern neighbors suffer in Mexico.

[chang50]

We can see that actual analysis of the data demonstrates there is no correlation between crime and gun ownership whatsoever. The following explains America's high crime rate:

Snorri, gang warfare in Europe is nowhere near the intensity of gang warfare in the United States. We have a bunch of pissed off black kids who think that the government discriminates against them. We have white supremacy groups, we have organized crime families from virtually every European nation and we have hard ass motorcycle gangs.

We also have a bunch of ex South American revolutionary soldiers who discovered they could make millions of dollars transporting drugs to the United States who adopted their military style tactics and executions to the drug trade. This upped the anti and all of the gangs are more violent as a result.

There is no comparison between the criminal threats that the United States faces and the problems any nation in Europe faces, particularly an island nation like the UK. This is in fact the primary reason that the murder rate is higher here, not the availability of fire arms to law abiding citizens. Fire arms are in fact the solution to these problems.

The above also at least partially illustrates the importance of allowing the common man to access sufficient technological platforms for self defense, lest we descend to the conditions of frequent mass rape and murder that our Southern neighbors suffer in Mexico.

Wow sounds like a dreadful place to live,how was all this allowed to develop?

[CreepersWiener]

There is, in fact, no correlation between guns and crime. At all . . .

That would presume a murderer using a firearm refuses to use any other type of weapon if a gun isn't available.

I can only think of one murderer who is that finicky ...

The statement made was that there is no correlation between guns and crime. If access to guns was stricter than what it is, murder and suicide rates would go down. Yes, I agree that you will still have the occasional person getting killed by a flying ashtray; but, for the most part, people that commit crimes with guns had easy access to guns. Control that access and rates for murder and suicide would drop. Again, it is not to say that the person committing the crime is a legal gunowner, perhaps the stats are correct when comparing crime rates to legal gunownership; however, the statement that guns and crime have no correlation is false. I am just pointing out the misstatement, that's all.

Legal, law abiding gun owners probably wouldn't commit anymore crimes, but how can the legal, law abiding gun owning citizen guarantee that his or her guns won't end up in the wrong hands? They can't.

Sure, legal gun owners can buy lots and lots of guns (and the gun owners I know own more than one gun...usually five or more!) and not commit any crimes whatsoever. So the stats can be misconstrued in that way.

I would agree with the statement that the NUMBER OF GUNS has no effect on crime rates, because the increase of legally obtained guns are more-or-less purchased by law abiding citizens. But give your stats a few more years to work their way up. Because it takes time for all those legally bought firearms to either get traded at gun shows or stolen. Do you see my point?

[Johnny Rockets]

I think it was published in Freakonomics that the crime rate in America dropped after abortion laws were relaxed.

( Yeah, I know....not the best stone cold source of information.)

However it was a compelling chapter. Anytime you attack poverty, you reduce crime statistics in the generation that follows.

The best way to attack poverty is through funding education, free birth control (including abortions), and sex-ed. In the end you hope for the gun argument to be a moot point as even if most have one, they know when and when not to use one.

JRock

[stahrgazer]

There is, in fact, no correlation between guns and crime. At all . . .

That would presume a murderer using a firearm refuses to use any other type of weapon if a gun isn't available.

I can only think of one murderer who is that finicky ...

The statement made was that there is no correlation between guns and crime. If access to guns was stricter than what it is, murder and suicide rates would go down. Yes, I agree that you will still have the occasional person getting killed by a flying ashtray; but, for the most part, people that commit crimes with guns had easy access to guns. Control that access and rates for murder and suicide would drop. Again, it is not to say that the person committing the crime is a legal gunowner, perhaps the stats are correct when comparing crime rates to legal gunownership; however, the statement that guns and crime have no correlation is false. I am just pointing out the misstatement, that's all.

Legal, law abiding gun owners probably wouldn't commit anymore crimes, but how can the legal, law abiding gun owning citizen guarantee that his or her guns won't end up in the wrong hands? They can't.

Sure, legal gun owners can buy lots and lots of guns (and the gun owners I know own more than one gun...usually five or more!) and not commit any crimes whatsoever. So the stats can be misconstrued in that way.

I would agree with the statement that the NUMBER OF GUNS has no effect on crime rates, because the increase of legally obtained guns are more-or-less purchased by law abiding citizens. But give your stats a few more years to work their way up. Because it takes time for all those legally bought firearms to either get traded at gun shows or stolen. Do you see my point?

All that would happen is those wanting to commit homicide because of whatever mental or social pressures they feel, would choose something else - like the flying ashtrays, a baseball bat, or, if "planning" was needed, a bomb.

[patches70]

and suicide rates would go down.

Why would you think that? That suicide rates would go down?

There is no correlation between guns and suicide. There is no more of such a correlation as there is a correlation between bridges, razor blades, poison or drugs to suicide.

The only correlation is depression and mental illness.
Guns have a higher success rate, certainly, but it's not a person saying "Oh, gee, here's a gun, I think I'll kill myself!"


It's more a person "I'm sick of life, I'm going to end it" and grabs a gun. If there was no gun they'd just overdoes themselves, carbon monoxide, jump off a bridge or any other number of ways to off one's self. Eliminating guns from the mix only eliminates a single method and has nothing to do with the actual cause of suicide at all.
If one is truly serious about killing one's self, then a gun is the way to go. It's a very successful way most of the time. Drug overdoses can take too long and one may be found before they expire.

Consider, in Germany suicide by rail is a common form of suicide, and it's quite efficient. Jump in front of a train and chances are you'll be dead, quick. About three people a day try to kill themselves by jumping in front of a train in Germany.*
In China, people use pesticides to kill themselves, since they generally don't have access to firearms.
The reason so many kill themselves this way? Strict gun laws.

And, of course, deliberate overdosing is a preferred way to go by some. It's also quite efficient, if one knows what they are doing. In the US, suicide by overdose isn't generally very successful, but if you look at Dignitas (the Swiss suicide assistance organization), they have a perfect 100% kill rate. They never fail. They are quite good at making sure that if someone wants to kill themselves then by God they'll get it done without any messy firearms.
The reason why so many suicide by overdose fail in the US is because the poor bastards who try to off themselves this way don't realize that their body will attempt to save itself by making itself vomit. Dignitas is so good at what they do because they use antiemetics to keep people from puking up the drugs that are killing them. If one wishes to overdoes themselves they would have to find a way to keep from puking. Adding virtually any anti nausea drug along with your barbiturates and you'll likely be successful in your suicide attempt. So long as no one finds you and gets help before you expire.

No, guns aren't the cause of suicides, if one wishes to lower the suicide rate then one must lower the depression rate, drug addiction rate, alcohol addiction rate, family breakups and such. Those are the underlying causes of most suicides and suicide attempts.

*http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/0,1518,453346,00.html

[oVo]

More guns do mean more dead Americans.

[HapSmo19]

What did you use as a control to reach that scientific conclusion?

[Lootifer]

Incidently your argument, Gabon, it also implies that more liberal (er sorry I mean relaxed) gun laws will do nothing to help crime/murder/spree killings either.

It works both ways.

(inb4 Scotty meme about how spree killings kill more when no vigilante is present).

[GabonX]

Incidently your argument, Gabon, it also implies that more liberal (er sorry I mean relaxed) gun laws will do nothing to help crime/murder/spree killings either.

It works both ways.

False

It is not the ownership of firearms that reduces crime, but the propensity to use and carry them. We see in the United States that the cities with the most restrictive gun laws (Chicago, Washington DC, etc.) have the highest crime rates. Rights are worthless and ineffective unless exercised which is why the legislators in Kennesaw Georgia passed a law mandating gun ownership.

The city with the lowest crime rate in the country, Kennesaw Georgia, saw a 50% reduction in crime between 1982 and 2005 after it passed a law mandating that the head of every household have a registered firearm for the purpose of promoting public safety. Residents with a serious mental or physical defect are exempt from this law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw,_ ... troversies

To the best of my knowledge, Kennesaw is the only US city which mandates firearm ownership, thus reflecting a universal success rate for such policies. Obviously the conclusions we can draw from one town are minimal, and in order to truly gauge the effectiveness of such a policy we would need to reproduce it in other cities.

Also, these are not my arguments. These are historic facts coupled with the arguments of Harvard professors. I have not made any original arguments.

[Lootifer]

Incidently your argument, Gabon, it also implies that more liberal (er sorry I mean relaxed) gun laws will do nothing to help crime/murder/spree killings either.

It works both ways.

False

It is not the ownership of firearms that reduces crime, but the propensity to use and carry them. We see in the United States that the cities with the most restrictive gun laws (Chicago, Washington DC, etc.) have the highest crime rates. Rights are worthless and ineffective unless exercised which is why the legislators in Kennesaw Georgia passed a law mandating gun ownership.

The city with the lowest crime rate in the country, Kennesaw Georgia, saw a 50% reduction in crime between 1982 and 2005 after it passed a law mandating that the head of every household have a registered firearm for the purpose of promoting public safety. Residents with a serious mental or physical defect are exempt from this law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw,_ ... troversies

To the best of my knowledge, Kennesaw is the only US city which mandates firearm ownership, thus reflecting a universal success rate for such policies. Obviously the conclusions we can draw from one town are minimal, and in order to truly gauge the effectiveness of such a policy we would need to reproduce it in other cities.

Also, these are not my arguments. These are historic facts coupled with the arguments of Harvard professors. I have not made any original arguments.

My favourite bit is where you tout research that does a nice throrough analysis (which I like; the report is solid) and therefore imply that gun restriction does nothing to prevent crime; then follow that up with anecdotal narrow scope analysis in support of liberal gun laws.

Well done good sir; you should go into politics.

[Phatscotty]

What is the evidence that more guns = more crime?

[Lootifer]

What is the evidence that more guns = more crime?

The study dispels that myth; I have never disputed that though. In fact I will quite happily agree that gun ownership in the US is probably one of the reasons you have pretty good home invasion and burglary stats.

However my comment was that the data shows no correlation; this not only implies that more guns does not equal more crime, but also implies that more guns does not equal less crime either; no correlation means that gun ownership is fairly meaningless.

The study is pretty bias; but thats ok, its an a opinion-style piece so I assume its a document that is forming part of a wider debate (as opposed to scientific relationships).

[HapSmo19]

There is, in fact, no correlation between guns and crime. At all . . .

Are you guys seeing what I'm seeing?

[Lootifer]

What are you seeing?

Also doing a linear regression on the first table yields:

- Equation: Murder rate = -0.00018(Gun Ownership)+6.76
- Standard Error on terms: Gun Ownership SE = 0.00011, constant = 2.43
- R-squared: 0.20

Implies theres a tiny correlation in favour of more relaxed gun laws; however the error is so very high that making policy on it would be boardering on idiocy.

Incidently outliers are not great for regression so its often best to leave them out as some other huge and powerful factor is likely at play (this is in this case not gun laws in the case of Russia and Luxembourg). If we remove these and retest (while acknowledging that they are anecdotes in favour of relaxed gun laws) the regression becomes:

- Equation: Murder rate = -0.0000091(Gun Ownership)+1.58
- Standard Error on terms: Gun Ownership SE = 0.0000132, constant = 0.31
- R-squared: 0.05

Uh oh, the standard error on the Gun Ownership statistic is bigger than the coefficient... You know what that means? Also R2 of 0.05, game over, theres nothing in it; guns are meaningless unless further information is supplied.

[Phatscotty]

What are you seeing?

Diversity fail. Assimilation fail. Multiculturalism fail.

Loot, do you care or have you even been vocal about the fire arms homicide rate in Mexico? Theirs is almost 3 times worse, and has roughly 1/3 our population. They ban guns. You and people like you should be more than 8 times more mad about Mexico than USA, that is, if your motives are pure.

[HapSmo19]

What are you seeing?

The correlation between blacks and guns and crime.

[Lootifer]

What are you seeing?

Diversity fail. Assimilation fail. Multiculturalism fail.

Loot, do you care or have you even been vocal about the fire arms homicide rate in Mexico? Theirs is almost 3 times worse, and has roughly 1/3 our population. They ban guns. You and people like you should be more than 8 times more mad about Mexico than USA, that is, if your motives are pure.

Im pretty neutral on the topic. My only post in this thread was that the data shows no correlation; hence the argument Gabon posted swings both ways.

[SvenTveskägg]

I think it was published in Freakonomics that the crime rate in America dropped after abortion laws were relaxed.

( Yeah, I know....not the best stone cold source of information.)

However it was a compelling chapter. Anytime you attack poverty, you reduce crime statistics in the generation that follows.

The best way to attack poverty is through funding education, free birth control (including abortions), and sex-ed. In the end you hope for the gun argument to be a moot point as even if most have one, they know when and when not to use one.

JRock

Interesting thougt!

[Phatscotty]

What are you seeing?

Diversity fail. Assimilation fail. Multiculturalism fail.

Loot, do you care or have you even been vocal about the fire arms homicide rate in Mexico? Theirs is almost 3 times worse, and has roughly 1/3 our population. They ban guns. You and people like you should be more than 8 times more mad about Mexico than USA, that is, if your motives are pure.

Im pretty neutral on the topic. My only post in this thread was that the data shows no correlation; hence the argument Gabon posted swings both ways.

I know ya are. I was asking earlier for the evidence, pretty much from anyone who wants to share some. It wasn't directed only at you

[Lootifer]

Interesting regression:

Guns (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_ ... by_country)
vs
Homocides (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... icide_rate)

Results:

Significant negative relationship between Guns and Homocide (i.e. in favour of relaxed gun laws); note that this is the statistical use of significant rather than the opinion usage.

Homocides per capita = -0.238(Guns per capita) + 12.651

Standard Errors: Guns per capita SE = 0.080, constant = 1.278, equation/regression = 12.847

R-quared: 0.05

So using all international data there is a relationship. But it is tiny in comparision to the constant, and the r-squared clearly points at it meaning pretty much nothing.