Why don't you ever hear about gunslinging heroes?

[mrstickball]

Kasz216 said:
Well that's because BY FAR the biggest amount of gun deaths are SUICIDE.

That's where Rath's chart is horribly misleading.

Thats because his chart is virtually the only one that insinuates guns cause death. I debunked the chart the last time we had a gun debate. I did in-depth trend analysis concerning violent crime and murder vs. gun proliferation by country using the SAME data points that his chart does.

Guess what? When you look at overall violent crime, there is a negative correlation between firearm proliferation and violent crime. 

Here's the chart for interested parties:

Here is the chart explanation:

I used the same countries listed in Rath's report, and the same amount of firearms per capita as his chart. The only difference is that we're looking at murders per capita instead of firearm deaths. Afterall, if you have a society with more of anything - guns, cars, airplanes, fatty foods, ect - your going to find a higher number of incedences with that particular item.

The real question is (as I have stated over and over) is "does higher proliferation of this item, in this case firearms, correlate to more deaths overall?" - After all, the idea is that if more guns exist, then there must be a higher incedent rate of activies since guns are bad, right?

But the fact of the matter is that as firearms per capita increase the number of murders decrease.

The fact is that as much as anti-gun opponents want to argue about the atrocities of American gun control laws, America is an anomaly when it comes to violent crime and gun ownership. For every violent country with a high number of firearms (America), you have many multiples more of violent countries with low guns (Columbia, South Africa, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, ect). Likewise, on the other end, safer societies tend to have firearm proliferation at a similar or higher level as do the 'violent' countries. So either guns are not correlated at all, or are correlated in favor of more guns equaling less violence.

Also, one could bring up historical trends in violence in America. Again, the argument is that "Since America has guns and is violent, then guns must be the cause!". But this ignores historical trends in firearm ownership and violent crime in America.

Interesting, no?