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By Dean Weingarten
Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)- You can see from the above that Russia has about twice as many homicides per hundred thousand as the United States, even though Russia has very restrictive laws on possession and carrying of firearms.
The above chart was created from UNODC data.
If you look at the chart below created by ABC, the United States seems to be an outlier.
No data is given for Russia, and the Y axis mentions that it is only for gun related homicides.
The large header leaves out the word “Gun”. These are serious clues that the chart is designed to mislead.
Only looking at gun related homicides is a clear case of data selection bias. It does not matter to a homicide victim if they are killed with a gun, a machete, poison, or a violent mob.
They are still dead. Firearms, of course, may be used for defense as well as attack, so restrictions could increase as well as decrease homicides. Attempting to restrict one method may simply result in a substitution of methods. You need to look at the totals to see if there is a net increase or decrease in homicides.
There are enormous problems with international comparisons. Differences in culture, data collection, and definitions make comparisons very difficult, perhaps to the point of meaninglessness. Culture is far more important than method or economic condition. Why chose the G8 countries, instead of say, New World countries, or geographically large, ethnically diverse, countries? You could as easily make the case that Brazil, Mexico, the United States, and Canada should be grouped together, as that of G8 countries.
Here is a chart comparing Brazil, Mexico, the United States, and Canada.
It is noteworthy that Brazil and Mexico have extreme restrictions on the private ownership of firearms, Canada is less restrictive, and the United States is less restrictive than Canada.
c2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included. Link to Gun Watch
About Dean Weingarten;
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
One should also note that the number of homicides in the US will normally include suicides, which account for about half of the total number. Also includes self defense and homicides by LEO in the line of duty. Never believe the stats until you do your own research.
I don’t think our large land mass, or population size, are significant factors here, at least not when considering the rate per 100K of population. Using that rate is designed to compare countries of different sizes and populations more accurately. I agree with Dean though, that the national culture (and sub-cultures) play a major part that is hard to document. It would be more interesting to see the rate of homicides per 100K population, if we rated rural areas and large cities, for example. I’m willing to bet that we would see that the US has a MUCH higher rate… Read more »
Where’d my comment go?
The US is heavily noted on homicides mainly because of our large population (land mass) compared to other G8 countries…Also demographics plays some role in these higher numbers…blacks and hispanics add to these munbers significantly…My take…If you want to protect you and your family from harm while enjoying your civil liberties (Bill of Rights) you’d best support the ownership of guns without infringements which is what the Obama administration has been working day and night to implement…Infringements of our 2nd amendment knows no bounds with these CommieCRats…Here in Colorado we have the Universal Criminal Background Check System in place whereas… Read more »