Tom Kando
My previous post's title was: It's the Guns, Stupid.
I subsequently thought: There is a simple way to prove this: Just draw up a list of places, list two variables for each place, namely (1) per capita gun ownership and (2) per capita murders, and see if there is a correlation between the two. For example, one could use a list of our 50 states for this or a list of the world's roughly 200 countries.
There
is anecdotal and journalistic evidence
that states and countries with high rates of gun ownership also have high murder
rates (e.g. Texas vs. Massachusetts, or the US vs, Holland). But I can't think of any systematic attempt to correlate the two
variables, using a list of states or countries. So I did it myself. It was
quite simple. I chose to list countries rather than US states. To make it
easier on myself I reduced the population to 45 Aimportant@ countries. I then listed each country's
rate of gun ownership and its murder rate. This produced a bi-variate 2x2 table, on
which I did a Chi Square significance test.
Of the 45 countries in my sample, 25 were Ahigh gun ownership@ and 20 were Alow gun ownership@ Of the same 45 countries, 17 were Ahigh murder rate@ and 28 were Alow murder rate. The table below gives the distribution of the 45 countries into 4 cells, as indicated:
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Cell 3: Low rates of gun ownership and yet high murder rates: India, Nigeria, Cuba, Kenya, Ethiopia.
Cell 4: Low rates of gun ownership and therefore low murder rates: Spain, Iran, Ireland, Israel, UK, Egypt, China, Netherlands, Poland, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, Holy See, Indonesia, Taiwan.
Chi Square reveals a p value of .11, meaning that the data don=t even support the hypothesized relationship at the 10% significance level. I suppose that I can claim @directional@ support for my hypothesis: Only one fourth of the countries with few guns have high murder rates, whereas nearly half of the countries with many guns have high murder rates. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
Of course, there is much more to the guns-and-murders issue.
The twelve countries in cell #1 - many guns and many murders - are unsurprising. The US distinguishes itself as having BY FAR the highest rate of gun ownership in the world - 121%. The gun ownership rates for the remaining 11 countries in this high-gun-ownership group range between 22% (Pakistan) and 8% (Brazil).
Neither can we be surprised by the fifteen few-guns-few-murders countries in Cell #4. They are what the hypothesis predicts. They include advanced democracies as well as some totalitarian countries.
More unanticipated are the 13 countries in cell #2 - many guns but few murders. These are by and large highly developed democracies. Their rates of gun ownership range from 35% (Canada) to 11% (Hungary). Their ability to reconcile substantial gun ownership with low murder rates must be due to wise gun control policies, including prohibition of rapid-fire and automatic weapons of war, while allowing simple hunting guns.
The correlation between gun ownership rates and murder rates might have been much stronger if I had included in my sample (1) Most Caribbean islands, (2) other island nations, (3) most African countries, (4) Middle Eastern countries, (5) South American countries, (6) the Yugoslavia successor states and (7) other Eastern European countries:
I proceeded to examine and correlate rates of gun ownership and murder rates for another 70 countries, namely countries that rank high on both variables.
1. Caribbean islands: Bahamas, US Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Martin, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, Anguilla, Santa Lucia, Montserrat, Curacao = 13
2.Other island nations: Falklands, New Caledonia, Reunion, Guam, Samoa, Faroe Islands, Mauritius, Tuvalu = 8
3. Africa: Namibia, Equatorial Guinea, Somalia, Puntland, Somaliland, Angola, South Sudan, Ghana, Lesotho, Central African Republic, Congo, Eswatini = 12
4. Middle East: Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan , Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Libya, Bahrein, Afghanistan, Syria = 13
5. South America: Uruguay, French Guiana, Paraguay, Suriname, Guyana, Chile, Guatemala, Panama, Belize, Costa Rica = 10
6. Yugoslavia successor: Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Slovenia, Croatia = 7
7. Other Eastern European countries: Lithuania, Czech Republic, Albania, Latvia, Georgia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, = 7
A majority of these 70 countries rank high on both gun ownership and murder rates. The murder rates are especially high in the small island nations of the Caribbean and in South America.
The US Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Anguilla, Saint Martin, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Puerto Rico, Montserrat and Curacao all have one of the world=s top 25 murder rates. Five of these states also have an above average rate of gun ownership.
South America similarly supports my hypothesis: As we saw, Venezuela, Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Colombia and Brazil all fall in the category of Ahigh murder rates@ and Ahigh gun possession rates.@ Several of these countries have among the world=s top homicide rates. In addition, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Guatemala, Panama, Belize and Costa Rica also combine above average murder rates with above average gun possession rates.
However, statistics from tiny island nations can be meaningless. Take the Falkland islands for example: In the most recent year, two people were murdered there, out of a population of 1,000. This gives the Falkland Islands a murder rate of 200 per 100,000, by far the highest in the world for that year.
In conclusion: 1) A high rate of gun ownership is predictive of a high murder rate. However, (2) effective gun control should not necessarily focus just on the total number of fire arms in circulation, but the TYPES of firearm,. (3) The US is an outlier when it comes to gun ownership, head and shoulders above all other countries. However, its murder rate is unexceptional, at 6 per 100,000. Seventy-five countries in the world have higher murder rates and about one hundred and twenty countries have lower murder rates than the US. (4) That many factors impact the relationship between gun ownership and murder is shown by the fact that Spain and Brazil both own about 8 guns per 100 people, but Brazil=s murder rate is 27 times higher than Spain.
13 comments:
Hi Tom, Great work
Interesting and useful data. Thanks for this.
When I was in Toledo and teaching an honors class, I would compare gun ownership in Ohio and Michigan with that in Canada. The short bridge that connected Detroit to Canada brought one into a totally different world in terms of gun ownership, violence, etc. More guns = more violence.
Keep writing.
Best,
Scott
Right.
Interestingly, Canada's rate of gun ownership is, while only one fourth that of the US, among the highest in the world. of course, most of the firearms owned by Canadians are probably hunting guns, not AR-15s and such...
Tom, your woke attitude continues to lead you to ignore the fact that the prime reason the US is in Cell 1 with 3rd world countries instead of Cell 2 with European countries is because that special 13% of our population (which the media and academia refuse to blame) is responsible for 56% of our murders. Run your correlations again subtracting out 13% of our population and 56% of our murders and let us know the results.
You are right that the black homicide rate is higher than the white homicide rate (but not higher than that of native Americans, by the way). Many things could be said about this whole topic, differences between ethnicities within a country, etc. For valid international comparisons, we would have to separate ethnicities in other countries as well, e.g. the rates of whites and non whites in France, the Netherlands, etc. as well. For example, in Belgium and Holland, people from Morocco and Suriname commit a disproportionate amount of (violent) crime. So even when we compare apples and apples, the American murder rate remains far above those of other highly developed countries.
But the most important aspect of “American exceptionalism” remains the huge difference in gun ownership between this country and ALL other ones: In the US, the rate is 121% - more than 1 gun per capita - 4 times greater than the next highest country, Canada, and it is 10 to 40 times higher than most of the world.
Yet, even if we have 10 - 40 times the guns of other nations, our murder rate is not an order of magnitude higher, particularly when adjusted as follows.
Using your source “countries ranked by murder rate” and addressing your “apples to apples” comparison requirement, I see that Hungary, with a homogenous ethnic population, is in Cell 2 with a 2.5 per 100k murder rate. Now statistically removing the 13% of our population causing 56% of the murders, the murder rate for the USA falls from 4.96 to 2.48 per 100k (proof upon request), equivalent to that of Hungary in Cell 2 . Finland, another country with a homogenous ethnic population, is in Cell 2 with a murder rate of 1.63, so the USA is much closer statistically to other countries in Cell 2 than you try to portray, particularly in light of the fact that all of the other countries in Cell 1 have a higher murder rate than 8.0 per 100k. As such, you have not proved “It’s the guns, stupid”. Logic would dictate that it would be more productive to first address the murder rate of the 13% than limit the rights of the rest of the population.
Number of mass shootings in the United States between 1982 and June 2022, by shooter's race or ethnicity.
Source:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/476456/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-shooter-s-race/
54.8% of mass shooters were white
Source:
https://rockinst.org/gun-violence/mass-shooting-factsheet/
Mass Shooting Demographics
Of the 172 individuals who engaged in public mass shootings covered in the database, 97.7% were male. Ages ranged from 11 to 70, with a mean age of 34.1. Those shooting were 52.3% White, 20.9% Black, 8.1% Latino, 6.4% Asian, 4.2% Middle Eastern, and 1.8% Native American.
Source:
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/public-mass-shootings-database-amasses-details-half-century-us-mass-shootings
Not sure of the relevance of a demographic analysis of 172 mass killers over 40 years (an average of 4.3 per year), when the FBI crime stats document over 3000 identified murders per year by the 13%.
Mass shootings are multiple murders. Including yesterday's shooting at Highland Park, so far this year, the US has experienced 301 mass shootings (mostly committed by whites). Does the other Anonymous really believe that you guys don't have too many guns on the streets? Removing 13% of your population won't change that. It IS the guns, Stupid!
"Mostly Committed by Whites " – Not True
Several quotes from https://centerforinquiry.org/blog/the-futility-of-race-naming-mass-shooters/ :
a) Of the 46 mass shooters in the Gun Violence Archive database for March 2021, 2% (1) was committed by a White male; 8% (4) were committed by Hispanics; 45% (21) were committed by African Americans; and in 43%, or 20 cases, the attacker’s race is unknown
b) Of the 25 mass shootings in the Gun Violence Archive database for January 2019, 16% (4) of them were committed by white males; 4% (1) was committed by a Hispanic man; 64% (16) were committed by African-Americans; and in 16%, or 4 cases, the attacker’s race is unknown.
c) Last month there were some 245 victims of mass shootings, for an average of 5.3 per shooter—overwhelmingly and disproportionately people of color. This is to be expected, since most violence is within social circles and intra-racial; despite ubiquitous “Stranger Danger” fears, most violence (including shootings) occurs between people who know each other, and between members of the same race.
We have an exchange between two anonymouses (anonymities?), I’ll call the one who blames everything on blacks “Anonymous One,” and the other one, with whom I agree, “Anonymous Two.”
Look: We can argue over statistics until hell freezes over. Anonymous One cherry picks his statistics and obfuscates the issue. Why is he so desperately preoccupied with race, with the “13%.”? For one thing, blacks not only commit a disproportionate number of murders; they also DIE from murder disproportionately! Does it make any difference that their killers are often black themselves? Would an OVERALL reduction in gun ownership (including black gun ownership) not save a huge number of both white AND black lives? Is saving black lives less important than saving white lives?
Anonymous One’s single-minded focus on the race variable is an abuse of Sociology. The fundamental truth is this: Americans, of whatever race, own far too many fire arms. Any reduction in the nation’s OVERALL amount of firearms will save thousands of American lives, whatever their color may be. In all likelihood, a disproportionate number of black lives will be saved, because blacks are being murdered in disproportionate numbers currently. But to Anonymous One, black lives don’t seem to matter as much as white lives.
Judging by the killings in large cities and the failure to cooperate with police, it seems black lives don't matter to blacks, so until they do something about this pathology in their culture, I'm not particularly sympathetic.
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