Startling data about worldwide homicide rates compared to gun ownership rates

Ok, so maybe to this crowd, it’s not so startling. Nonetheless…

Wikipedia conveniently provides a summary showing homicide rates and gun ownership rates for every country in the world. I added a computed column showing the total homicide rate (involving guns and NOT involving guns) compared with the gun ownership rate. I’ve attached a PDF of the spreadsheet.

What do the results say? Take a look!

In the US, the homicide rate divided by the gun ownership rate is 0.037. If we sort the entire data set based on that ratio, the United States comes in 13th place worldwide with 158 countries scoring worse, in some cases much, much worse.

Here are the top 13 countries sorted in descending order of the ratio of homicide rate divided by gun ownership rate:

Iceland at .01
Switzerland at .01
Norway at .02
Austria at .02
Serbia at .02
Bahrain at .02
Germany at .026
Oman at .027
Saudi Arabia at .03
Sweden at .03
France at .035
United Arab Emirates at .036
United States at .037

Notice how these top 13 countries are all clustered around 0.02 +/- 0.01. Pretty low numbers, and all very close to the same. By the time we get down to Italy at 25th place, the rate has doubled. That is a pretty fast drop-off for a dataset of 171 countries.

Some interesting examples from further down the list:

18th place: Canada at 0.05
23rd place: Finland at 0.068
24th place: Denmark at 0.075
48th place: China at 0.204
65th place: Japan at 0.5
91st place: Russia at 1.146
106th place: South Korea at 2.36
171st place: Ethiopia at 56.25

The actual numbers refute the belief that more guns = more homicides. In fact, it seems to be the opposite. As you scroll down the list, you will generally see that as gun ownership rates go down, homicide rates go up.

Check this out:

The rate of gun ownership for the top 13 countries is 39 guns/100 people.
The rate of gun ownership for the bottom 158 countries is 8 guns/100 people.

Facts, folks…they speak volumes.

What does the data say to you?

Homicide rate by gun ownership rate - Sheet1.pdf (160.5 KB)

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But, why let facts get in the way of agenda? :man_shrugging:t4:

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Exactly!

As responsible gun-owners, we should be arming ourselves not just with legal guns, but with factual data.

“All politics is local”. If that’s true, then we at the local, grassroots level need to have factual answers to counter lies about responsible gun ownership.

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I think you mean the bottom 13 countries, sorted in ascending order.

Also, what is the source of the data? I looked at your file, but there is no source listed that I can find.

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It confirms what I heard about Nordic countries, from folks both in LE and private citizens. Once winter cold and darkness begin, people start to drink crazy, and heck breaks lose as far as homicides and suicides. Climate has a lot to do with it.
These comparisons are not for shallow analysis that MSM does. There is no “Western countries” or “civilized countries”, no single culture and no single driver for crime.

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Top 13 of one, bottom thirteen of another - the top 13 I refer to are those with the lowest incidence of homicides to gun ownership, arguably the “top 13 safest” countries.

Reference: List of countries by firearm-related death rate - Wikipedia

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Every datum cited is from Gunpolicy.org, University of Sydney School of Public Health. Is that a reliable source of firearms-related data?

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The US data looks the same as what I’ve seen elsewhere. No reason to think it’s not.

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Well who are you going to believe? The libs or your lying eyes??

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Believe the data.

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I meant that facetiously. From a dem/liberal point of view.