Fellow Bostonians: How many of us wished we had an assault weapon last night?

Last I heard, the estimate of more than 100,000 crimes prevented every year was an acknowledged undercount.

Scientific American’s gun error
December 22nd, 2012, 10:43pm by Sam Wang


Update: A reader has pointed out that a substantial fraction of gun deaths are suicides (homicide data are here), raising a complication. However, this point is well-established in peer-reviewed literature (PDF): gun ownership increases death rates across the board: suicides, homicides, accidents… For more discussion of the relationship between guns and homicide, see the work of Harvard’s David Hemenway and collaborators (via Adam Gopnik). Also see Mark Duggan, who shows that changes in gun ownership are linked with changes in homicide rate; the relationship is stronger than for other forms of crime, as expected for a causal link.

That's not what we are talking about! It's about the impact of more guns in the hands of Americans. More guns means more violence and killings both intentional and accidental.

How did the U.S. do?

Students in the United States performed near the middle of the pack. On average 16 other industrialized countries scored above the United States in science, and 23 scored above us in math. The reading scores for the United States had to be tossed due to a printing error.

Experts noted that the United States' scores remained about the same in math between 2003 and 2006, the two most recent years the test — the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) — was given. Meanwhile, many other nations, Estonia and Poland being two, improved their scores and moved past the U.S.

Intentional homicides by country
Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2010[8]
Country Year % homicides with firearms Firearm homicide rate
per 100,000 pop. Non-firearm homicide rate
per 100,000 pop. Overall homicide rate
per 100,000 Right to bear arms guaranteed by law. Comment
Australia 2009 11.5 0.13 1.07 1.20 No [27]
Azerbaijan 2008 6.6 0.12 2.03 2.15 No [28]
Barbados 2000 40 3.00 4.49 7.49 No [29]
Belarus 2009 2.5 0.12 4.79 4.91 No [30]
Bulgaria 2008 29.7 0.67 1.60 2.27 No [31]
Canada 2009 32.0 0.51 1.30 1.81 No [31]
Chile 2005 37.3 2.16 1.37 3.53 Yes [32]
Colombia 2010 81.1 27.09 6.30 33.39 Yes [31]
Costa Rica 2006 57.3 4.59 3.42 8.01 No [31]
Denmark 2009 31.9 0.27 0.58 0.85 Yes [33]
England & Wales 2009 6.6 0.07 0.99 1.06 No [31]
Estonia 2008 3.9 0.24 6.02 6.26 No [31]
Finland 2009 19.8 0.45 1.82 2.27 No [31]
Germany 2010 26.3 0.19 0.65 0.84 Yes [34]
Guatemala 2010 84.0 34.81 6.61 41.42 Yes [31]
Hong Kong, China (SAR) 2004 0 0.00 0.66 0.66 No [31]
Hungary 2009 5.0 0.07 1.32 1.39 Yes [35]
India 2009 7.6 0.26 3.11 3.37 No [31]
Ireland 2008 42.0 0.48 0.67 1.15 No [31]
Latvia 2009 4.6 0.22 4.56 4.78 No [31]
Lithuania 2009 2.5 0.18 7.33 7.54 Yes [31]
Macedonia 2010 62.5 1.21 0.73 1.94 No [31]
Mexico 2010 54.9 9.97 12.74 22.71 Yes [31]
Moldova, Republic of 2009 3.3 0.22 6.60 6.82 Yes [31]
New Zealand 2008 13.5 0.16 1.06 1.22 No [31]
Paraguay 2009 56.1 7.35 4.70 12.05 Yes [36]
Poland 2009 7.1 0.92 0.37 1.29 Yes [37]
Portugal 2009 33.8 0.42 0.80 1.22 Yes [38]
Qatar 2004 16.7 0.14 0.70 0.84 Yes [39]
Singapore 2006 5.9 0.02 0.90 0.92 No [31]
Slovakia 2006 11.2 0.18 1.46 1.64 Yes [40]
Slovenia 2009 15.4 0.10 0.54 0.64 Yes [41]
Spain 2009 21.8 0.20 0.67 0.87 No [42]
Switzerland 2004 72.2 0.77 0.30 1.07 Yes [31]
Ukraine 2009 4.5 0.22 5.20 5.42 Yes [43]
United States 2010 67.5 3.21 1.54 4.75 Yes [31]
Uruguay 2004 46.5 2.80 3.22 6.02 Yes [44]
Zimbabwe 2000 66 4.75 2.49 7.24 No [31]

114 United States

Switzerland has also been moving away from having widespread guns. The laws are done canton by canton, which is like a province. Everyone in Switzerland serves in the army, and the cantons used to let you have the guns at home. They’ve been moving to keeping the guns in depots. That means they’re not in the household, which makes sense because the literature shows us that if the gun is in the household, the risk goes up for everyone in the household.