Global correlation of gun control and Homicide Rates
Technically there is always a correlation of some kind in statistics, but not one that implies a positive trend, or in this case that more guns equates to more violence. There is a common argument presented by many gun control proponents, that the lowest homicide countries all have low volumes of guns, so therefore, doesn't that mean that civilian ownership of guns increases violence, or at the very least, homicides? The chief principle of the argument is that less guns available to the general civilian populace, or stricter gun control, of which would likely result in less guns in the hands of civilians, would result in less crime, or at least murders.
The problem, other than the lack of a
causative link, is that there is no such association. For the sake of brevity and to target the issue directly, I'll take a look at the top 25 countries with the lowest homicide rates (of whom possess reliable information regarding their total firearm ownership and gun laws), whom possess information regarding their total civilian firearm ownership, and compare that to the world average. *Note:
Other sources have also done the same. According to the United Nation's small arms survey, there are approximately 875 million firearms total in the world, and 650 million in civilian hands (
Page 1). The world population on July 15th 2015, according to the Population Division of the
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, was approximately 7.3 billion. Doing simple math, that means there are approximately 8.9 guns per 100 people in the world on average, in civilians hands.
The U.S. possess a third to a half of these firearms, creating a world average
excluding the U.S. of approximately 5 guns per 100 people (350 million out of 7 billion), and countries such as Switzerland or Israel have fully automatic, military weapons in the homes of civilians, given to them by the state, which offsets this figure somewhat (as the guns are not recorded as "civilian" firearms, despite being inside their homes and practically available to civilians). Nonetheless, this gives us a rough baseline of the world average of guns. How high is the gun ownership rate in the the countries with the top lowest homicide rates?
20 out of the 25 (80%) have a higher gun ownership rate higher than the world average, or 8.9 guns per 100 people. Of these, 15 have a gun ownership rate higher than 15 per person (60%), and 7 (28%) have a firearm ownership rate of 30 per 100. Another particularly interesting statistic is that the U.S. and Europe's homicides rate are roughly on par. While
Europe does in fact have countries with lower homicide rates than the U.S., the average is about 3.0, while it was about 3.9 in the U.S. suggesting very little difference, comparatively, Russia had a homicide rate of 13, Greenland 19.4, Brazil 25.2, Venezuela 48, and El Salvador 65, making the difference of 1.5 fairly small in global terms.
The following is a comprehensive list of the UNODOC's self reported
homicide and civilian
firearms ownership rate, by country. *Note: The figures from wikipedia are no longer valid as of 2017, as the data for this comparison is from the
2011 Small Arms Survey, and
2013 homicide data. It's important to remember the difference between causation and correlation; despite the statistics revealing that murder rates are actually lower in country's with more guns, this does not necessarily mean that more guns will result in less murders. A 1,000 guns dumped in to a grass field is in effect, worthless and a 1,000 guns in the hands of terrorists is obviously going to have a negative effect. The solution is not more or less guns, but rather laws aimed at focusing on criminals, rather than punishing civilians. A false sense of security, combined with a waste of resources policing otherwise innocent people, as well as the mindset to control
things, instead of people, is likely what contributes to the higher murder rates. Despite this, the argument that their is a correlation in favor of gun control or, less guns, seems to be false.
20 out of the 25 (80%) of countries with the lowest homicide rates in the world had a higher gun ownership rate higher than the world average. Of these, 15 had a gun ownership rate higher than 15 per person (60%), and 7 (28%) have a firearm ownership rate of 30 per 100. For country's with the highest homicide rates, 8 out of 25 (32%) had higher gun ownership rate than the world average. Only 2 out of 25 (8%) had a rate at or above 15.0, and zero had a rate higher than 30.0. Essentially, 80% of country's had more than the world average for gun ownership, and 60% had significantly more than the world average, compared to 32% and 8% for high homicides. This means that, country's with high homicides tend to have less guns, and country's with low homicides tend to have more guns, implying a positive benefit for owning more guns (according to a correlation).
The Chart
20 out of the 25 (80%) of countries with the lowest homicide rates in the world had a higher gun ownership rate higher than the world average, or higher than 8.9 guns per 100 people. Of these, 15 had a gun ownership rate higher than 15 per person (60%), and 7 (28%) had a firearm ownership rate of 30 per 100.
Monaco, Palau, Hong Kong, French Polynesia, Guam, Macau, Vanuatu, Federated States of Micronesia are not on the list of recorded guns per capita by country. So technically, this is the top 25 countries with the lowest homicide rate with information regarding their civilian ownership of guns. The lowest homicide rate listed is for Japan at 0.3 per 100,000 individuals, and the highest is 1.1 for Australia.
Bolded countries have higher than the world average, or 8.9 guns per 100 people.
Red countries have the same or higher than 15 guns per 100 people.
Green countries have the same or higher than 30 guns per 100 people. Excluding the U.S. from the world average, the average gun ownership rates drop to 5.0, and thus show an even greater disparity.
1. Japan is .6
2. Singapore is at .5
3. Iceland is at 30.3
4. Brunei is at 1.4
5. Bahrain is at 24.8
6. Austria is at 30.4
7. Luxembourg is at 15.3
8. Oman is 25.5
9. Slovenia is 13.5
10. Switzerland is at 45.7
11. United Arab Emirates is at 22.1
12. Czech Republic is at 16.3
13. Spain is at 10.4
14. Germany is at 30.3
15. Qatar is at 19.2
16. Denmark is at 12
17. Norway is at 31.3
18. Italy is 11.9
19. New Zealand is at 22.6
20. China is at 4.9
21. Bhutan is at 3.5
22. Saudi Arabia is at 35
23. Sweden is at 31.6
24. Malta is at 11.9
25. Australia is at 15.
Countries with highest Homicide Rate - In descending order
What happens if we do the reverse, and look at gun ownership rates in high-homicide countries? The following list is that of countries with the highest 25 homicide rates, in order, comparing total gun ownership rates to the world average, or 8.9 guns per 100 people. Territories such as Puerto Rico or Montserrat are removed, and these are the countries for which information about civilian gun ownership is known. The gun ownership rate is listed next to each country. Countries bolded are above the world average, countries in red have 15.0 or greater, countries in green have 30.0 or greater.
Of these countries, 8 out of 25 (32%) had higher than the world average. Only 2 out of 25 (8%) had a rate at or above 15.0, and zero had a rate higher than 30.0. Of these, very few made it slightly above the 8.9 figure. As it seems, countries with higher homicide rates had significantly lower rates than the world average.
1. Honduras - 6.2
2. El Salvador - 5.8
3. Venezuela - 10.74.
4. Lesotho
- 2.7
5. Jamaica - 8.1
6. Belize - 10
7. South Africa - 12.7
8. Guatemala - 13.1
9. Bahamas - 5.3
10. Colombia -
5.9
11. Trinidad and Tobago - 1.6
12. Brazil - 8
13. Swaziland - 6.4
14. Dominican Republic - 5.1
15. Namibia - 12.6
16. Panama - 21.7
17. Guyana - 14.6
18. Mexico - 15
19. Botswana - 4.9
20. Myanmar - 4
21. South Sudan - 5.5
22. Central African Republic - 1
23. Democratic Republic of the Congo 1.4
24. Turkmenistan 3.8
25. Ivory Coast 2.4
