Firearms by the Numbers
austingwalters.com
austingwalters.com
I’m not convinced about the usefulness of homicides per gun. You’d expect dilution, especially as the number of guns approaches the number of people. Gun deaths per gun owner is more useful, and plotted against the number of guns per owner might be useful. Context is important- would the same homicide have been committed if a gun was not available?
Data science here would also see how independent gun ownership is from other variables associated with homicide and suicide. I didn’t get much of that.
Parkland, Columbine, Las Vegas, Pulse all involved easily accessed guns. The data shown here does not discuss mass attacks, ie. number of people killed per event. They could have been accomplished with other means, but likely wouldn’t have.
Of course, the best numbers available for ownership is legal ownership. Illegally possessed firearms used in crimes are a real problem, and it’s not likely we’ll remove that problem without removing most all guns. Yes, if guns are illegal then only criminals will have guns, but the same is true for cannabis, ice cream and blue jeans.
I don’t have any use for guns but I don’t mind other people who do. I would rather not be shot at (pretty sure it happened once) but I have more to fear from distracted drivers killing me on my bike.
The social reasons that people kill each other are more valuable to address. For example, don’t fill people with rage at being outcasts.
Few clarifications,
> Gun deaths per gun owner is more useful, and plotted against the number of guns per owner might be useful
I did cover that in the section titled "Homicides per Firearm Owner, United States
https://austingwalters.com/firearms-by-the-numbers/#Homicide...
By state, there is no correlation or slightly inverse (i.e. more gun owners, means less firearm related deaths).
> Parkland, Columbine, Las Vegas, Pulse all involved easily accessed guns. The data shown here does not discuss mass attacks, ie. number of people killed per event. They could have been accomplished with other means, but likely wouldn’t have.
To be frank mass shootings are an outlier in the scheme of things. Statistically, they make up <1-3% of firearm related homicides, depending on the year.
It's a trapping IMO, probably to propagate a political agenda (as mentioned in the conclusion section). If we cared about discussing the problems, we would instead discuss the racial aspect of homicides (irrespective of firearms). Alternatively, if mass shootings were the focus, then the root cause of mass shootings (depression, isolation, etc.)
For reference, mass shootings are incorporated in the "rifle" statistics, which are fraction of how many people are killed by knives, handguns, etc. Further, look at what is happening in France, knife attacks in churches have the military being dispatched.
Finally, my whole motivation in writing this article was to cite it in future discussions. A colleague of mine argued that "Americans can't handle guns". While, I think that statement is not provable (i.e. "one death is too many" could be the argument). I pointed out, that the majority of the population can handle firearms, but a small population account for most deaths. It's also irrespective of wealth, gang killings or firearm controls - as far as the data indicates.
Graph after graph of "See, nothing to see here." and I'm wondering what kind of point he's trying to make. Then out of nowhere, the author concludes that firearm ownership protects democratic freedoms.
Well, OK. That's a reasonable hypothesis, but none of the dozens of graphs even looked at the relationship between firearm ownership and how democratic or free a society is.
He explicitly states it’s an opinion, e.g. not backed up by or refuted by data...
My overall point here, is that even the narrative given “guns cause violence” is objectively not true. We can prove that. Similarly, we have substantial evidence to the contrary. In fact that the firearm homicide rate simply correlates with overall homicide rate.
That is much higher in certain population(s) of the U.S. which leads to a dramatic skewing of any analysis. WHICH btw I’d argue the experts are intentionally neglecting discussing.
We know from the reproducibility crisis that every field struggles with experts who are blind. It usually takes outsiders to shed light on this blindness.
That is succinctly why diversity is so important for problem solving.