General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Gun Ownership Neither Increases Nor Decreases the Crime Rate [View all]pediatricmedic
(397 posts)If you want to cherry pick some sentences out of that, here are some:
"Thus, it is not just the murder rate in gun‐less Russia that is four times higher than the American
rate; the Russian suicide rate is also about four times higher than the American rate."
"There is no social benefit in decreasing the availability of guns if the result is only to increase the use of other means of suicide and murder, resulting in more or less the same amount of death."
"To reiterate, the determinants of murder and suicide are basic social, economic, and cultural factors, not the prevalence of some form of deadly mechanism."
"The explanation of this correlation may be political rather than criminological: jurisdictions afflicted with violent crime tend to severely restrict gun ownership. This, however, does not suppress the crime, for banning guns cannot alleviate the socio‐cultural and economic factors that are the real determinants of violence and crime rates."
The study the OP sited was just a linear regression showing there is little to no correlation between firearm ownership and overall homicide rates. To put it in simple terms, if everyone in the US was forced to carry a gun, there would be virtually no change on homicide rates. The harvard study theorizes that suicide rates would not be affected much either.