It's Not JUST Ownership

We at the Egg believe, as we wrote a few days ago, that only the most dramatic revision of America's laws will  serve to protect our citizens from death by gunfire.  The big picture is pretty clear:  Americans have the highest per-capita rate of gun ownership in the world.  Although our rate of firearms homicide pales beside those of many other nations, it is by far the highest in what is sometimes, and confusingly, called "the West" -- a cluster of generally prosperous nations with shared histories and cultures.

But it is important to see that reducing murders by gunfire is not as simple as reducing the number of guns.  Much as we might wish it were, the relationship of ownership to homicide is not simple and linear.

A few days ago, we linked to this chart from The Guardian.  It aggregates data on gun ownership and gun violence worldwide, along with the source of the information (which is not equally available for all nations).  The chart is fascinating to read, but even more interesting if -- as The Guardian permits -- you download it and manipulate the data a little bit.

We are not spreadsheet masters, so we haven't done very much.  We encourage readers more adept than ourselves to experiment.

One thing that comes out clearly, though, is that Latin America and the Caribbean are some of the most dangerous places in the world.  This is actually surprising to us; we have traveled a fair bit in those regions, and although you can't miss the signs of endemic violence (notably in Haiti, Colombia, and Peru during the Shining Path years), we didn't realize how outsized the rates are.  A few African countries are in this elite class, and again we are surprised to see that South Africa is more dangerous, by this measure, than Sierra Leone.

Here are the top 25 nations, ranked by homicide rates per 100,000 people.

Country/Territory	% of homicides by firearm	Number of homicides by firearm	Homicide by firearm rate per 100,000 pop	Rank by rate of ownership	Average firearms per 100 people
Honduras	83.4	5201	68.43	88	6.2
El Salvador	76.9	2446	39.9	92	5.8
Jamaica	75.6	1080	39.4	74	8.1
Venezuela	79.5	11115	38.97	59	10.7
Guatemala	84	5009	34.81	49	13.1
Saint Kitts and Nevis	85	17	32.44
Trinidad and Tobago	72.1	365	27.31	129	1.6
Colombia	81.1	12539	27.09	91	5.9
Belize	52.3	68	21.82	62	10
Puerto Rico	94.8	692	18.3
Brazil	70.8	34678	18.1	75	8
South Africa	45	8319	17.03	50	12.7
Dominican Republic	65.5	1618	16.3	99	5.1
Panama	75	569	16.18	26	21.7
Bahamas	61.2	52	15.37	98	5.3
Ecuador	68.7	1790	12.73	142	1.3
Guyana	61.3	85	11.46	45	14.6
Mexico	54.9	11309	9.97	42	15
Philippines	49.9	7349	8.93	105	4.7
Paraguay	56.1	466	7.35	37	17
Anguilla	24	1	7.14
Nicaragua	42.1	338	5.92	77	7.7
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	30	6	5.49
Zimbabwe	65.6	598	4.78	106	4.4

These are not, generally speaking, places which one naturally associates with the rule of law.  On the other hand, only a few -- Colombia, Mexico, the Philippines -- are engaged in sustained battle with

Likely more shocking is the place of the United States, which -- were we to continue this chart -- would come in at #29, between Barbados and the West Bank.  Of "developed" nations -- let's define them as "places where you might choose t have surgery" -- only South Africa exceeds our rate of gun murder.  Most of us do not think of ourselves as living in a nation as lawless and violent as those in the Third World, but the numbers suggest strongly that we do.

Here's our immediate geographical neighborhood, three large and economically complex North American nations.

Country/Territory	% of homicides by firearm	Number of homicides by firearm	Homicide by firearm rate per 100,000 pop	Rank by rate of ownership	Average firearms per 100 people
Mexico	54.9	11309	9.97	42	15
U. S. A.	60	9146	2.97	1	88.8
Canada	32	173	0.51	13	30.8

This chart should give some comfort to the NRA.  Of the three amigos, Mexico has the lowest rate of gun ownership and the highest rate of gun homicides.  On the other hand, Mexico is in the midst of a long drug war characterized by over-the-top violence, which probably skews the numbers.

The contrast between the U.S. and Canada is interesting, though.  We have almost three times as many civilian guns per person as our polite neighbor -- but they are used to commit murder six times as often. We are, in other words, twice as violent as a very similar nation on our borders.  Why?  Perhaps is is a function of our higher population density, perhaps of our greater proximity to the violence of Latin America.  Or perhaps the greater concentration of guns in our nation creates some sort of geometric multiplier effect.

Here are the nations that many Americans think of, rightly or wrongly, as our cultural peer group -- the large European nations, Canada and ANZUS.

Country/Territory	% of homicides by firearm	Number of homicides by firearm	Homicide by firearm rate per 100,000 pop	Rank by rate of ownership	Average firearms per 100 people
U. S.	60	9146	2.97	1	88.8
Switzerland	72.2	57	0.77	3	45.7
Italy	66.7	417	0.71	55	11.9
Belgium	39.5	70	0.68	34	17.2
Luxembourg	42.9	3	0.62	41	15.3
Canada	32	173	0.51	13	30.8
Ireland	42	21	0.48	70	8.6
Finland	19.8	24	0.45	4	45.3
Portugal	33.8	44	0.41	72	8.5
Sweden	33.9	37	0.41	10	31.6
Netherlands	30.7	55	0.33	112	3.9
Northern Ireland	4.5	5	0.28	25	21.9
Denmark	31.9	15	0.27	54	12
Austria	29.5	18	0.22	14	30.4
Spain	21.8	90	0.2	61	10.4
Germany	26.3	158	0.19	15	30.3
New Zealand	13.5	7	0.16	22	22.6
Australia	11.5	30	0.14	42	15
England and Wales	6.6	41	0.07	88	6.2
France	9.6	35	0.06	12	31.2
Norway	8.1	2	0.05	11	31.3

It raises any number of questions.  Why are Finns, with the same rate of gun ownership, so much less likely to shoot each other than the Swiss?  What are the non-gun weapons used by the English and Northern Irish to commit their murders?  (And yes, we do see that Britain's severe restrictions on ownership support the argument that, deprived of their guns, people will continue to murder each other by slower and less efficient means.)

But the biggest questions are these:  (1) What are the French and Norwegians, with relatively high rates of gun ownership doing that so effectively prevents those guns from being used to kill people?  And (2) what, apart from its colossal world-beating rates of gun ownership, is the United States doing wrong?