Why More Americans Want to Own Guns

[Thumpalumpacus]

There has been a continual growth in gun ownership in America, yet the firearms death and injury rates have continued to fall. If gun deaths are directly proportional to the number of guns available (on a rough basis, of course), should we not be seeing a spike in gun deaths?

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.

Of course. But I was asking you to explain this real-world contravention of your clear claim that fewer guns result in fewer gun deaths, not this useless oversimplification. If there were no computers, there would be no online debates, either.

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?

No, but you're focusing on it in your statement upthread, and at that point it was apt to point out that your statement is not accurate for America, at all.

Here's more up-to-date info; the trend does hold: http://www.bradycampaign.org/sites/defau...n-2015.pdf

As for other factors? Perhaps it has to do with violent crime dropping in general. Perhaps it has to do with higher education levels. Perhaps emergency rooms are getting better at treating gunshot wounds. Or perhaps people just aren't shooting each other at the expected levels.

Put it this way: between 1993 and 2014, gun ownership rose by 150%, roughly. Were ownership such an important factor as you had implied upthread, we should expect a concomitant rise in gun deaths and injuries over the same period. Can you explain this discrepancy?