Also Applies to Guns

A cartoon from xkcd implies a point that the author may or may not have intended to make.

3 comments:

Gringo said...

I have compared gun ownership rates with murder rates on a worldwide basis. Worldwide, there is a -0.1 correlation between the two. In Europe- including Russia- there is a -0.32 correlation. Russia has a low gun ownership with high murder rate. Switzerland and Serbia have high gun ownership with low murder rate.

In the US, the negative correlation gets even stronger.
From the Pew Report: The demographics and politics of gun-owning households.

The new research also suggests a paradox: While blacks are significantly more likely than whites to be gun homicide victims, blacks are only about half as likely as whites to have a firearm in their home (41% vs. 19%)

Run that correlation between blacks and whites for murder rate versus gun ownership rate, and you will get -1. Can't get any stronger than that.
At least the Pew Report didn't say "surprisingly."

Assistant Village Idiot said...

A sad paradox, Gringo. Because of the high rate of black youth violence, a lot of middle-aged and older black people, including guys who had military training, eschew guns in some sort of declaration that they are leaving that culture behind, trying to set a positive example, etc.

The best thing for reducing the crime rate might be older, calmer black guys arming themselves for the sake of their communities. But the culture moves in the opposite direction.

Eric Blair said...

Just saw something today on the cherry picking that most of these graphs do.

Really gets interesting when you compare the US to the rest of the Americas, because, really, the US and the rest of North and South America all had Some what similar origins and developments--that is, all settled by Europeans that displaced existing natives, gained independence from Europe, had slaves, and were peopled by more largely European immigrants.