Why More Americans Want to Own Guns

[The Grand Nudger]

The opposite is true in Australia and almost every other country: almost universally, the ones with the lowest gun ownership rates have the lowest gun-related death rates. The metadata is staggeringly clear on this and we shouldn't be surprised: at an over-simplistic level, if all guns were gone there would be no gun-related death. But I don't pretend that ownership is the sole factor. The stats for the US are equally as clear as the metadata (thanks for the link Thump, I'll assume for the sake of argument that the trend continues past 1997, your numbers didn't go further): something is being done in the US which is counteracting the nominal relationship between ownership & death. Has that analysis been conducted?

Our data would -likely- reflect yours in the absence of drug war contributions to the stats which, by their inclusion, make the high ownership areas relatively safer despite having more guns and gun owners.  As far as our data goes, it shows that gun ownership is not a relevant metric to the question at hand...which is why changing gun ownership rates would not solve the problem we wish to solve.  We have, ofc, tried to restrict and ban firearms before, and the data from that practical application dovetailed entirely with the conclusion one might have reached from comparing ownership and crime/death.  It didn't work.  Our restrictions did not reduce gun crime or gun death, they did not reduce violent crime or crime overall.  They did profit black market dealers and straw purchasers greatly, while costing the taxpayer dearly, however. From a law enforcement standpoint, it was a complete failure, despite the incredible political capital created and consumed.....part and parcel thereof, has been a great deal of misinformation about the US, Guns, and the US gun problem.

@Boru, doesn't matter whether the FF "got it wrong". We USians feel privileged to live in a country where a great many things are considered our rights, including gun ownership, yes. We can have the privilege of acting upon those rights withheld from us as the consequence of committing a crime, for example. As an american, I'm not sure that the reduction of the rights of the entire public is a prudent way to handle those members of our society who break our laws, or the situation their actions create. We're basically saying lets get rid of guns to "stop" 6 suicides and hope that some portion of the remaining 4 individuals feel compelled to murder people by means not made otherwise illegal......ignoring that all ten of these individuals comprise only a tiny fraction of gun owners and an even tinier fraction of guns.