Criminal Deeds

[Jester]

If you look at the statistics on the per capita murder rate, there is no clear cut answer to this question. For example, New York and Alaska have virtually the same murder rate per capita, while New York has strict gun laws and Alaska has much looser gun laws. But, on the other hand, New york has half the murder rate of Mississippi, a state with loose laws and double the rate of Maine which has no permit required for open carry as a pedestrian. It would appear that one could make an argument for any view they like.

Nobody argues that guns are the only cause of violent crime, and that if only we got rid of guns, we'd end murder forever. There might be lots of reasons why NY sees the same murder rate as Alaska other than guns. I'd have thought population density might explain quite a lot. Consider also the statistical properties: looking at the data, it appears Alaska is usually above NY, but that the variance is higher, presumably because Alaska has a small population, and random increases or decreases move the needle on the murder rate much more. If there weren't any conflating factors, the debate would be trivial.

It also isn't about the gun laws themselves. Even the strictest gun control advocate would not predict gun violence in some hypothetical country with loose gun laws, but no guns. Similarly, even if you have extremely strict gun control laws, but a profusion of guns through some other channel, gun violence should continue (although perhaps reduced over time as guns become harder to acquire.)

-Jester