Mise on 12 March 2009
@mrstickball:
Correlation does not imply causation.
From Wikipedia:
In other words, there can be no conclusion made regarding the existence or the direction of a cause and effect relationship only from the fact that A and B are correlated. Determining whether there is an actual cause and effect relationship requires further investigation, even when the relationship between A and B is statistically significant, a large effect size is observed, or a large part of the variance is explained.
Guns aren't the only things that are used kill people, and suicides are still crimes, albeit victimless. And the profileration of firearms isn't the only thing that could reduce murder rates, provided it does that in the first place.
EDIT: Bloody quotes.
EDIT 2: And yes, it also applies to the graph I posted as well, even though the two compared variables are more closely related IMO.
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