July 12, 2013

Gun Laws and Gun Crime

By Sierra Rayne
Gun control advocates have long promoted a wide range of policies and laws intended to restrict the "right of the people to keep and bear arms." Their arguments follow the direction that while broad, sweeping laws to eliminate private gun ownership and use would be ideal, even small, incremental restrictions on ownership and use (e.g., background checks prior to purchase, gun registries, etc.) would be a clear step in the right direction and would provide measurable reductions in the rate of gun crime. Canada has run the latter experiment, and the results in no way support gun-control efforts. Before looking at the Canadian data in detail, it is useful to consider the global relationship between the firearm ownership rate and the corresponding homicide rate by firearms, as shown in the chart below using data for 102 nations (including the USA, of course). There is no significant correlation between the rate of gun ownership and the homicide rate by guns among these...(Read Full Article)