Guns and crime
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In some countries, such as the United States, there is controversy concerning the appropriate degree of firearm regulation. One major aspect of the argument involves potential positive or negative correlations that many argue exist between crime, especially violent crime, and gun ownership. Both sides actively debate the relevance of gun laws and self-defense in modern society. Correlations are, of course, hard to establish, because countries with different gun laws are hardly ever the same in all other aspects.
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[edit] John Lott
Some scholars, notably John Lott, claim to have discovered a positive correlation between gun control legislation and crimes in which criminals confront citizens. Robert Ehrlich, in his book Nine Crazy Ideas in Science (ISBN 0-691-09495-0), examines this issue in Chapter 2, "More Guns Means Less Crime". He revisits John Lott's original data, asserting that the data was somewhat manipulated to "prove" a point. For example, many graphs are fit to the data, but do not show the data itself. Ehrlich claims that the raw data does not support Lott's thesis in the way that the fitted graph does. Ehrlich's conclusion is that more guns does not mean less crime, though it does not necessarily mean more crime either.
There is an obvious first glance implication that any conflict that involves guns will be more deadly and more dangerous than any conflict that does not involve guns, but this fails to factor in the deterrent effect of possession and brandishing.
[edit] United Kingdom vs. Switzerland
A European example would be to compare the violent crime levels between the United Kingdom, which has very strict rules against gun ownership, to Switzerland, which has fully automatic assault rifles in 14% of homes. [1] According to the British Home Office, Switzerland had a homicide rate per 100,000 of 1.2 average over the years 1999-2001, which is less than England & Wales at 1.61, although Scotland is higher at 2.16, while Northern Ireland - with its historically exceptional conditions - is 2.65. The latter compares with the Irish Republic (with similar gun control laws to the UK) at 1.42. [2]
Some claim that this indicates a negative correlation between gun ownership and crime. However, correlative evidence concerning two examples is generally considered inconclusive, as many other factors may come into play in addition to firearm legislation. In particular, the prevalence of firearms in Switzerland is a direct result of its rigidly-controlled citizen army comprising most of the adult male population, who keep their service weapons at home, and so can be viewed as an exception case not directly comparable to other countries, even those with a high level of private firearms ownership. As an element of comparison, in 2001 the homicide rate for the United States of America was 5.91 per 100,000 [3].
In addition, it is widely claimed that the firearms crime rate in the United Kingdom has massively increased since an almost total ban on handguns in 1997/8, with violent gun crimes, including shootings to death, increasing year on year for over five years despite otherwise declining levels of reported crime levels. (Note however that victimisation levels have reportedly risen as has non-recorded crime due to apathy and lack of police response.) Some claim that this demonstrates a negative correlation between more restrictive gun laws and violent crimes involving firearms.
Such claims, though, overlook a number of other factors in play since the handgun ban, quite apart from the fact that prior to it less than 1% of the population actually owned handguns that were affected by the ban. There were two separate changes in police crime reporting rules (in 1998/99 and 2002/03), both of which had the effect of "adding" offences that would not previously have been included, while the removal of border controls within Europe has also made the illicit movement of firearms from one state to another more easy.
There were 12,805 recorded offences in England and Wales involving firearms in 1997/98, compared to 22,789 in 2004/05. Much of the numerical increase, however, can be attributed to a massive rise in the use of imitation firearms (566 in 1998/99, rising to 3,333 in 2004/05) and air weapons (8,665 in 1998/99, 11,825 in 2004/05). Excluding homicide, 61.1% of "violence against the person" offences are committed with either imitations or air weapons. Such usage figures are likely to be underestimates, however, since only weapons positively identified as such as so classified; many counted as "handguns" may in fact be imitations or air weapons. [4]
Furthermore, of the 2004/05 total, 10,017 offences (44%) were for criminal damage (6,197 offences in 1997/98, rising to 10,017 in 2004/05). The use of firearms in robberies has fallen steadily for the last three years (currently lower than it was between 1992 and 1996), while their use in burglary fell from 533 offences in 2003/04 to just 341 in 2004/05. [5]
Homicide involving firearms in England and Wales has historically always been low, in the mid to high double-figures range. For the six years up to 1997/98 there were on average 61 firearms homicides a year, ranging from a low of 49 to a high of 74; for the seven years since 1997/98, the average has been 72, ranging from 49 to 97. One homicide in 2004/05 was committed with an air weapon. [6]
[edit] Australia
Australia has always had tougher gun laws than the U.S. - despite that country's own frontier history and its cultural similarities to the United States. In 1998, 54 Australians lost their lives to gun homicides, while in the States the number exceeded 1,300. The gun homicide rate in the U.S. is about 15 times that of Australia.
[edit] Japan
Another example is Japan, which has strict rules about gun ownership and a low crime rate. Only those at the top of the criminal tree own firearms and the general public are banned from owning anything that can deliver a projectile with more than 1 joule of kinetic energy. (Japan invented Airsoft for this reason.) Critics of this argument have pointed out Japan's history and culture as other possible explanations for its low crime rate.
[edit] Brady Bill correlation with crime in the US
The 1993 US Brady Bill is an example of a gun control law that some believe correlates with a decrease in overall crime levels. Critics of the Brady Bill argue that the reduction was driven more by improving economic and other factors than by the gun control regulations, and further point out that during this same period, many states began issuing concealed carry licenses, resulting in increasing numbers of lawfully armed citizens. Because the Brady Bill was a national law, some claim that the measurement of its results must be treated as a single sample. That is, it should be considered to have no more nor less weight than the findings after a change in the laws of a single state or municipality.
[edit] Federal Assault Weapons Ban correlation with crime in the US
The 1994 federal Assault Weapons Ban, which recently sunset, led to no obvious change in firearms crime rates during its ten year run, and no statistics are currently available to show if the removal of this ban has had any effect.
