The Second Amendment has become hotly contested in recent years. The United States has far more firearms rights than the majority of the developed world, and a higher gun homicide rate as well. This is a fine example of an issue lacking stasis, where combatants argue along completely unrelated lines. There are many ways to warp statistics on this topic, and that has led to causal fallacies and an inaccurate discussion of the few hard facts available. This blog will investigate the statistics and the relationship between them.

 

The key statistics are the relative gun homicide, total homicide, and gun ownership rates between developed countries. The U.S. gun murder rate is more than six times the rates of countries like the U.K., France, and Germany. However, the discrepancy between murder rates is distinctly lower. 

 

This is because the proportion of stabbing homicides committed in Europe is double that of America. For instance, the U.K. has remarkably strict gun control regulation, but London is eclipsing the murder rate of New York City owing to the newfound popularity of knives. The proportion of homicides due to blunt objects, brute force, and vehicles, is actually three times larger in Europe. Given this substitution effect, the American murder rate must come from primarily other facts.

 

The gun ownership rate also needs to be considered. While America has more gun deaths, the death per gun ratio is among the lowest in the world. This is because America owns nearly half of the world’s guns. It has more than triple the gun ownership rate of any country other than Yemen. Central American countries like Honduras have ten times the gun homicide rate of the U.S… with gun ownership rates nine times lower.

 

With London surpassing NYC in murder, terror attacks increasing across Europe, and grenade attacks at a level in Sweden unique to a country not at war, the gun homicide rate is nearly meaningless. What matters is the total murder rate, which appears to be relatively unafffected by weapons restrictions, as criminals simply change their method. So, how can the higher American murder rate be explained?

 

One factor could be the relative poverty rates. The bottom quartile in America is much further behind the median income when compared with most other developed nations (although the American median income is higher than most European countries). Nonetheless, it has been found that criminal activity is more closely linked to wealth inequality than actual poverty, and almost certainly factors into American violent crime.

 

The United States wrestles with drug problems to a far greater extent than most developed nations. For example, in 2017, the U.S. had nearly double the opioid prescriptions per capita of Europe, and the highest levels of cocaine use. Drug addicts are more likely than others to commit violent crime, adding another variable.

 

Finally, the United States is far more culturally and demographically diverse than Western Europe, South Korea, or Japan. FBI crime statistics show that black Americans are eight times more likely to be murdered than white Americans, and 89.3% of those killings are black-on-black. The causes of this are very complex, largely traced to poverty, but nonetheless it contributes to the diverging statistics from the especially homogenous countries of Europe and Japan.

 

Then there is the forgotten side of the coin. The CDC, in a report requested by President Obama, estimated that anywhere from 500,000 to 3 million crimes are prevented annually by firearms. Granted, this does not mean 3 million lives saved. When compared with the less than 12,000 gun homicides, it is likely that the number of lives saved surpasses the lives lost. Again, refer to the recent spiking murder trends in European cities where gun ownership is at a historic low.

 

Essentially, while the amount of firearms in the United States may impact the gun homicide rate, the effect on the total murder rate is minor at worst, and reductive at best.

 

In contrast, the Philadelphia police commissioner announced that the city will be temporarily halting arrests for all non-violent crimes (including vandalism, narcotics, and burglary). New York City saw a 75% increase in burglaries from March 12 to March 31 as a result of quarantine measures. The politicians taking away people’s firearms are the same ones advocating for the release of criminals from prison to reduce the spread of COVID-19. One released inmate in Florida murdered someone the very next day. Gun ownership is the only way for lawful citizens to protect themselves when their government abandons them; gun rights have never been more important.

 

That said, there are also very valid arguments concerning what types of guns should be allowed and what the procedure for purchase should be. A super-majority of Americans supports universal background checks, for instance. Improvements can be made, but people would do well to remember that the Second Amendment exists for a reason. Just ask the people of Venezuela.