It looks like more gun do equal less crime, as John Lott has pointed out.
Take this from a guy who has traveled around Europe and the US.
Homicides by guns...have nothing to do with gun control. It may sound shocking but I’ve come to notice a few interesting things.
First, if you split the US statistics up into state numbers and did it by population numbers...then several states like New Hampshire and Hawaii would easily match up with Germany or the Netherlands. You can easily fit ten states up to various European countries which have very tough gun laws...yet these states have the same laws as states like Mississippi or Louisiana...which have huge homicide numbers.
Second, you start to look for odd differences and then start to note drug usage in a lot of these shootings. When you look around DC...with over 100 homicides per year...when the cops do come to some conclusions in the homicide, there’s usually drug usage involved. Figure cocaine, meth, crack, or PCP...it usually clouds your judgement and you start making irrational thoughts.
Third, if you look around Europe....you don’t have any serious drug issues except marijuana or LSD. Guys who take plain marijuana....don’t usually get violent...which tends to something as well about the nature of people who are doped up.
As for the Swiss...if you ever travel around the country, you find almost no drug use noted. There are a handful of clusters of LSD usage in major cities....but even marijuana use isn’t that big of a deal there. If there are homicides with weapons....it’s usually from some jealous rage over a wife or husband...a rare event.
I personally think the gun-control nuts are looking at the wrong cause to the homicide numbers. If you cleaned up an area of hardcore drug use...you might notice a downward trend on gun homicides...course, you wouldn’t want to admit it was drugs as the issue.
Similar to the Red state/ Blue state maps, someone please make a map by county or zipcode of the ratio between the number of FOID CARDS or guns held by non-criminals and gun violence...and then compare violence and the number of guns held by criminals where due process abridged their right to bear arms. That would be an interesting map. a picture is worth a thousand words.
93% of violent crimes (including gun crimes) committed against blacks in the US are committed by those who vote Democrat.
One factor to consider is how much more homogeneous the Swiss population is compared to that of the US.
I would bring to FR’s attention a NCPA report that shows, based on Texas data, that concealed carry permitees where the least likely of almost all population groups to commit a violent crime, let alone a crime with a firearm.
see:
Texas Concealed Handgun Carriers:Law-abiding Public Benefactors
salient excerpt:
In an unpublished report, engineering statistician William Sturdevant found that concealed carry licensees had arrest rates far lower than the general population for every category of crime. For instance:
Licensees were 5.7 times less likely to be arrested for violent offenses than the general public - 127 per 100,000 population versus 730 per 100,000.
Licensees were 14 times less likely to be arrested for nonviolent offenses than the general public - 386 per 100,000 population versus 5,212 per 100,000.
Further, the general public is 1.4 times more likely to be arrested for murder than licensees [ see Figure I ], and no licensee had been arrested for negligent manslaughter.
Aren’t Swiss soldiers required to keep their fully automatic army issued rifle at home as well?
I thought you might be interested in this.