Would banning firearms reduce murder and suicide?”

There are peer-reviewed studies which show that countries with stringent firearms laws do not have the reductions in murder and suicide that would seem to be “common sense” to many people. In that bastion of gun rights, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, researchers Kates and Mauser recently asked the question, “Would banning firearms reduce murder and suicide?” (See link to article below) Their study of international statistics said no. These gentlemen are not right-leaning gun nuts, either. Their research shows essentially the same results that such studies have been giving for at least 15 years. I quote their conclusion below.

*************************
CONCLUSION
This Article has reviewed a significant amount of evidence from a wide variety of international sources. Each individual portion of evidence is subject to cavil—at the very least the general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific evidence cannot remotely approach the persuasiveness of conclusions in the physical sciences. Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra. To bear that burden would at the very least require showing that a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that have imposed stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide). But those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared across the world.

Over a decade ago, Professor Brandon Centerwall of the University of Washington undertook an extensive, statistically sophisticated study comparing areas in the United States and Canada to determine whether Canada’s more restrictive policies had better contained criminal violence. When he published his results it was with the admonition:

If you are surprised by [our] finding[s], so [are we]. [We] did not begin this research with any intent to “exonerate” handguns, but there it is—a negative finding, to be sure, but a negative finding is nevertheless a positive contribution. It directs us where not to aim public health resources.
© 2007 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy
*************************
The article may be found in its entirety at http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf. It is 46 pages and not a bad read for a statistical article.