GUNS PER CAPITA AND HOMICIDES –

IS THERE A CORRELATION?
Here’s a statistics quicky. A while ago, just after the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook

Elementary School, I wanted to produce a clear proof that gun ownership and homicide

rates are correlated. It seemed logical to me that, plus / minus statistical fluctuations, the

phrase “more guns, more violence” holds true. So I extracted the relevant data for all first

world countries from Wikipedia and did the plot. Here’s the picture I got:
Maybe you are as surprised as I was. Obviously, there’s no relationship between the two

variables, more guns does not mean more violence and less guns does not mean less

violence. So whatever the main cause for the violence problem in the US (see the isolated

dot in the top right? That’s the US), it can’t be guns. And that’s a liberal European

speaking …

Just in case anyone cares, I blame the gang and hip-hop culture. I can’t be guns (see

above), but it also can’t be media or mental health or drugs (people in all other first world

countries also play shooter games, watch violent movies, have mental problems, buy and

sell drugs).

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

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