Science: Address Guns, Not Mental Health

[Robb]

High gun ownership makes countries less safe, US study finds

American journal expedites publication of study in wake of navy yard shooting that debunks belief guns make a nation safer

In some of the recent mass shootings – for instance those in Aurora, Tucson, Oak Creek, Virginia Tech – it has been suggested that the killer was mentally ill and that lack of treatment was a bigger issue than gun ownership. With this in mind, the New York-based doctors looked in their study not only at the relationship of gun ownership to firearms deaths but also mental illness.

They examined data from 27 developed countries, using gun ownership figures from the Small Arms Survey and deaths from the World Health Organisation, the National Center for Health Statistics and others. They also looked at crime rates compiled by the United Nations for an indication of the safety of each country.

More guns meant more deaths, they found. "The gun ownership rate was a strong and independent predictor of firearm-related death," says Bangalore. "Private gun ownership was highest in the US. Japan, on the other end, had an extremely low gun ownership rate. Similarly, South Africa (9.4 per 100,000) and the US (10.2 per 100,000) had extremely high firearm-related deaths, whereas the United Kingdom (0.25 per 100,000) had an extremely low rate of firearm-related deaths.

"There was a significant correlation between guns per head per country and the rate of firearm-related deaths with Japan being on one end of the spectrum and the US being on the other. This argues against the notion of more guns translating into less crime. South Africa was the only outlier in that the observed firearms-related death rate was several times higher than expected from gun ownership."

High rates of mental illness in any country, on the other hand, did not predict more gun deaths.

Read More: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/gun-ownership-gun-deaths-study

[GalaxyHunter]

1. Ban All Guns NOW!

[SidDithers]

2. DU rec...

but expect lots of posts about SSRIs anyway. They pop up after every mass shooting, whether the shooter was taking medications or not.

Sid

[Ohio Joe]

3. pfffft.... Science...

Repugs will reject it out of hand simply because it is science.

[Robb]

4. Gravity: just a theory.

[Lizzie Poppet]

5. Actually, the only problem I have with the conclusion is lack of granularity.

That is to say, in a very large country like the US, violent crime (gun-related or otherwise) is not even close to being evenly distributed. It is instead heavily concentrated in large urban areas, generally in sections of those areas suffering from poverty, neglected educational systems, etc. This inequality of distribution is significant because it does not correlate with rates of gun ownership (which are also not evenly distributed).

So yes, on a country-by-country basis, the rather simplistic conclusion is valid...but a deeper look reveals some problems with that broad application.

It doesn't surprise me in the least, I might add, that mental healthcare issues are not correlated with firearms crimes. Most of us recognize that the mass shootings in which the perpetrator's mental health is a factor are not remotely common enough to greatly effect overall firearms crime statistics. The factors other than firearms contributing to the majority of gun crimes have less to do with healthcare and more to do with economic inequality, the stupid war on drugs, gang culture, and so forth.

[Ohio Joe]

6. Other countries are different?

"That is to say, in a very large country like the US, violent crime (gun-related or otherwise) is not even close to being evenly distributed. It is instead heavily concentrated in large urban areas, generally in sections of those areas suffering from poverty, neglected educational systems, etc. This inequality of distribution is significant because it does not correlate with rates of gun ownership (which are also not evenly distributed)."

This only is true for the US? I'm not sure that is true, I would expect it to be pretty much the same everywhere... Yeah, it might not be the same in every country but I expect it is the same in most.

[Lizzie Poppet]

7. I suspect that varies.

I know the UK has regional differentiation in this respect (although interestingly, the overall crime rates are often higher in rural areas there...mostly due to high burglary rates). I also would be surprised if many of the smaller developed countries had as great a differentiation in violent crime rates by region as the US does (although I'm sure it still exists in these countries).

[DanTex]

8. As Krugman likes to say, "views differ on shape of planet"...