Harvard University study reveals astonishing link between firearms, crime and gun-control

Guns and crime – where’s the link?

Today violence continues in Russia – far worse than in the U.S. – although the Russian people remain virtually disarmed. “Similar murder rates also characterize the Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and various other now-independent European nations of the former U.S.S.R.,” note Kates and Mauser . Kates is a Yale-educated criminologist and constitutional lawyer. Dr. Mauser is a Canadian criminologist at Simon Fraser University with a Ph.D. from the University of California Irvine. “International evidence and comparisons have long been offered as proof of the mantra that more guns mean more deaths and that fewer guns, therefore, mean fewer deaths. Unfortunately, such discussions are all too often been afflicted by misconceptions and factual error.”

Guns and crime – where’s the link?

“The same conclusion was reached in 2003 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control,” write Kates and Mauser. “Armed crime, never a problem in England, has now become one. Handguns are banned but the Kingdom has millions of illegal firearms. Criminals have no trouble finding them and exhibit a new willingness to use them. In the decade after 1957, the use of guns in serious crime increased a hundredfold. In the late 1990s, England moved from stringent controls to a complete ban of all handguns and many types of long guns. Hundreds of thousands of guns were confiscated from those owners law-abiding enough to turn them in to authorities.” But crime increased instead of decreasing.

Guns and crime – where’s the link?

Little-Known Gun Fact 1 Over the past 20 years, gun sales have absolutely exploded, but homicides with firearms are down 39 percent during that time and “other crimes with firearms” are down 69 percent. 2 Almost every mass shooting that has occurred in the United States since 1950 has taken place in a state with strict gun control laws. With just one exception, every public mass shooting in the USA since at least 1950 has taken place where citizens are banned from carrying guns. 3 The United States is Number 1 in the world in gun ownership, and yet it is only 28th in the world in gun murders per 100,000 people. 4 The violent crime rate in the United States actually fell from 757.7 per 100,000 in 1992 to 386.3 per 100,000 in 2011. During that same time period, the murder rate fell from 9.3 per 100,000 to 4.7 per 100,000. 5 Overall, guns in the United States are used 80 times more often to prevent crime than they are to take lives.

Guns and crime – where’s the link?

Little-Known Gun Fact 6 Despite the very strict ban on guns in the UK, the overall rate of violent crime in the UK is about 4 times higher than it is in the United States. 7 In one recent year, there were 2,034 violent crimes per 100,000 people in the UK. 8In the United States, there were only 466 violent crimes per 100,000 people during that same year. Do we really want to be more like the UK? 9The UK has approximately 125 percent more rape victims per 100,000 people each year than the United States does. 10 The UK has approximately 133 percent more assault victims per 100,000 people each year than the United States does. UK has the fourth highest burglary rate in the EU. 11 The UK has the second highest overall crime rate in the EU.

Guns and crime – where’s the link?

Little-Known Gun Fact 12 Down in Australia, gun murders increased by about 19 percent and armed robberies increased by about 69 percent after a gun ban was instituted. 13 The city of Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the United States. So has this reduced crime? The murder rate in Chicago was about 17 percent higher in 2012 than it was in 2011, and Chicago is now considered to be “the deadliest global city,” 14 After the city of Kennesaw, Georgia passed a law requiring every home to have a gun, the crime rate dropped by more than 50 percent over the course of the next 23 years and there was an 89 percent decline in burglaries.

Buddha takes Beliefnet’s Politic-O-Matic quiz …

OK, we admit, Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha did not actually log in and take Beliefnet’s fun self-diagnostic exam. But we were curious whether he was a Republican or a Democrat. So, we focused on a lotus blossom and with a small measure of enlightenment, attempted to take the test on behalf of the Sage of the Śākyas. Read next feature >