Gun politics – DECISION STATS

While sitting in Delhi, India- I sometimes notice that there is one big new worthy gun related incident in the United States every six months (latest incident Gabrielle giffords incident) and the mythical NRA (which seems just as powerful as equally mythical Jewish American or Cuban American lobby ) . As someone who once trained to fire guns (.22 and SLR -rifles actually), comes from a gun friendly culture (namely Punjabi-North Indian), my dad carried a gun sometimes as a police officer during his 30 plus years of service, I dont really like guns (except when they are in a movie). My 3 yr old son likes guns a lot (for some peculiar genetic reason even though we are careful not to show him any violent TV or movie at all).

So to settle the whole guns are good- guns are bad thing I turned to the one resource -Internet

Here are some findings-

1) A lot of hard statistical data on guns is biased by the perspective of the writer- it reminds me of the old saying Lies, True lies and Statistics.

2) There is not a lot of hard data in terms of a universal research which can be quoted- unlike say lung cancer is caused by cigarettes- no broad research which can be definitive in this regards.

3) American , European and Asian attitudes on guns actually seem a function of historical availability , historic crime rates and cultural propensity for guns.

Switzerland and United States are two extreme outlier examples on gun causing violence causal statistics.

4) Lot of old and outdated data quoted selectively.

It seems you can fudge data about guns in the following ways-

1) Use relative per capita numbers vis a vis aggregate numbers

2) Compare and contrast gun numbers with crime numbers selectively

3) Remove drill down of type of firearm- like hand guns, rifles, automatic, semi automatic

Maybe I am being simplistic-but I found it easier to list credible data sources on guns than to summarize all assumptions on guns. Are guns good or bad- i dont know -it depends? Any research you can quote is welcome.

Data Sources on Guns and Firearms and Crime-

1) http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

Ownership

* As of 2009, the United States has a population of 307 million people.[5]

* Based on production data from firearm manufacturers,[6] there are roughly 300 million firearms owned by civilians in the United States as of 2010. Of these, about 100 million are handguns.[7]

* Based upon surveys, the following are estimates of private firearm ownership in the U.S. as of 2010:

	Households With a Gun	Adults Owning a Gun	Adults Owning a Handgun
Percentage	40-45%	30-34%	17-19%
Number	47-53 million	70-80 million	40-45 million

[8]

* A 2005 nationwide Gallup poll of 1,012 adults found the following levels of firearm ownership:

Category	Percentage Owning a Firearm
Households	42%
Individuals	30%
Male	47%
Female	13%
White	33%
Nonwhite	18%
Republican	41%
Independent	27%
Democrat	23%

[9]

* In the same poll, gun owners stated they own firearms for the following reasons:

Protection Against Crime	67%
Target Shooting	66%
Hunting	41%

2) NationMaster.com

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-crime-murders-with-firearms

VIEW DATA:

Totals

Bar Graph

Showing latest available data.

Rank	Countries	Amount
# 1	South Africa:	31,918
# 2	Colombia:	21,898
# 3	Thailand:	20,032
# 4	United States:	9,369
# 5	Philippines:	7,708
# 6	Mexico:	2,606
# 7	Slovakia:	2,356
# 8	El Salvador:	1,441
# 9	Zimbabwe:	598
# 10	Peru:	442
# 11	Germany:	269
# 12	Czech Republic:	181
# 13	Ukraine:	173
# 14	Canada:	144
# 15	Albania:	135
# 16	Costa Rica:	131
# 17	Azerbaijan:	120
# 18	Poland:	111
# 19	Uruguay:	109
# 20	Spain:	97
# 21	Portugal:	90
# 22	Croatia:	76
# 23	Switzerland:	68
# 24	Bulgaria:	63
# 25	Australia:	59
# 26	Sweden:	58
# 27	Bolivia:	52
# 28	Japan:	47
# 29	Slovenia:	39
= 30	Hungary:	38
= 30	Belarus:	38
# 32	Latvia:	28
# 33	Burma:	27
# 34	Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of:	26
# 35	Austria:	25
# 36	Estonia:	21
# 37	Moldova:	20
# 38	Lithuania:	16
= 39	United Kingdom:	14
= 39	Denmark:	14
# 41	Ireland:	12
# 42	New Zealand:	10
# 43	Chile:	9
# 44	Cyprus:	4
# 45	Morocco:	1
= 46	Iceland:	0
= 46	Luxembourg:	0
= 46	Oman:	0
	Total:	100,693
	Weighted average:	2,097.8

DEFINITION: Total recorded intentional homicides committed with a firearm. Crime statistics are often better indicators of prevalence of law enforcement and willingness to report crime, than actual prevalence.

SOURCE: The Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2002) (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention)

Bureau of Justice Statistics

see

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/dataonline/Search/Homicide/State/RunHomTrendsInOneVar.cfm

or the brand new website (till 2009) on which I CANNOT get gun crime but can get total

http://www.ucrdatatool.gov/

Estimated murder rate *
Year	United States-Total

1960	5.1
1961	4.8
1962	4.6
1963	4.6
1964	4.9
1965	5.1
1966	5.6
1967	6.2
1968	6.9
1969	7.3
1970	7.9
1971	8.6
1972	9.0
1973	9.4
1974	9.8
1975	9.6
1976	8.7
1977	8.8
1978	9.0
1979	9.8
1980	10.2
1981	9.8
1982	9.1
1983	8.3
1984	7.9
1985	8.0
1986	8.6
1987	8.3
1988	8.5
1989	8.7
1990	9.4
1991	9.8
1992	9.3
1993	9.5
1994	9.0
1995	8.2
1996	7.4
1997	6.8
1998	6.3
1999	5.7
2000	5.5
2001	5.6
2002	5.6
2003	5.7
2004	5.5
2005	5.6
2006	5.7
2007	5.6
2008	5.4
2009	5.0

Notes:	National or state offense totals are based on data from all reporting agencies and estimates for unreported areas. * Rates are the number of reported offenses per 100,000 population
	United States-Total – The 168 murder and nonnegligent homicides that occurred as a result of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 are included in the national estimate. The 2,823 murder and nonnegligent homicides that occurred as a result of the events of September 11, 2001, are not included in the national estimates.
Sources:	FBI, Uniform Crime Reports as prepared by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data