{"id":342623,"date":"2021-03-29T16:32:01","date_gmt":"2021-03-29T20:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=342623"},"modified":"2021-03-29T16:32:12","modified_gmt":"2021-03-29T20:32:12","slug":"debunking-the-myth-of-americas-unique-gun-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/debunking-the-myth-of-americas-unique-gun-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Debunking The Myth Of \u2018America\u2019s Unique Gun Problem\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdebunking-the-myth-of-americas-unique-gun-problem%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=342623&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/fb_image-4279.jpeg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span>Last week, Vox published an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2015\/10\/3\/9444417\/boulder-colorado-mass-shooting-gun-violence-america-usa\">analysis<\/a> of America\u2019s \u201cgun problem,\u201d writing \u201cThe public and research support gun control. Here\u2019s how it could help \u2014 and why it doesn\u2019t pass.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWhy is it that for all the outrage and mourning with every mass shooting, nothing seems to change? To understand that, it\u2019s important to grasp not just the stunning statistics about gun ownership and gun violence in the United States, but also America\u2019s unique relationship with guns \u2014 unlike that of any other developed country \u2014 and how it plays out in our politics to ensure, seemingly against all odds, that our culture and laws continue to drive the routine gun violence that marks American life,\u201d German Lopez wrote for Vox.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The piece then listed several key components of \u201cAmerica\u2019s gun problem,\u201d which included \u201cAmerica\u2019s gun problem is unique,\u201d \u201cmore guns mean more gun deaths,\u201d and \u201cother developed countries have had huge successes with gun control.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Unfortunately, these claims are based on statistical manipulation at best, and ignorance at worst.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>\u201cAmerica\u2019s gun problem is unique\u201d and \u201cmore guns mean more gun deaths\u201d simply isn\u2019t true<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span>The first section states that the supposed \u201cgun problem\u201d is unique to the United States, claiming that \u201cNo other developed country in the world has anywhere near the same rate of gun violence as America.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Citing 2012 United Nations data, the article shows that the United States has 29.7 homicides by firearm per 1 million people, compared to 7.7 for Switzerland, 6.8 for Belgium, 6.2 for Luxembourg, and so on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The section continues, adding \u201cTo understand why that is, there\u2019s another important statistic: The US has by far the highest number of privately owned guns in the world. Estimated for 2017, the number of civilian-owned firearms in the US was 120.5 guns per 100 residents, meaning there were more firearms than people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cAnother way of looking at that: Americans make up less than 5 percent of the world\u2019s population, yet they own roughly 45 percent of all the world\u2019s privately held firearms,\u201d Lopez adds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>These gun ownership statistics rank Yemen as the second highest rate of gun ownership, with 52.8 firearms per 100 residents. Montenegro and Serbia both have 39.1, with Canada and Uruguay having 34.7.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Lopez then claims that \u201cgun ownership is concentrated among a minority of the US population,\u201d with \u201cThese three basic facts demonstrat[ing] America\u2019s unique gun culture.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThere is a very strong correlation between gun ownership and gun violence \u2014 a relationship that researchers argue is at least partly causal,\u201d Lopez adds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The first \u201cbasic fact\u201d \u2014 that the United states leads the world in terms of gun violence \u2014 relies on one important and subtle word: \u201cdeveloped.\u201d Data from other sources, such as the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/goatsandsoda\/2019\/08\/05\/743579605\/how-the-u-s-compares-to-other-countries-in-deaths-from-gun-violence\"><span>Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation<\/span><\/a><span>, show that the United States had a lower rate of violent gun deaths per 100,000 people than 10 other countries in 2017. El Salvador (43.11 violent gun deaths per 100,000 people), Venezuela (42.15), Guatemala (29.61), Honduras (24.66), Jamaica (23.57), Colombia (22.40), Brazil (21.68), The Bahamas (20.60), Belize (15.69) and Trinidad and Tobago (15.19) all rank far higher than the United States (4.43 violent gun deaths per 100,000 people). This inconvenient fact is manipulated by filtering out supposedly non-developed countries, and voila! The United States is the worst, as required.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Next, let\u2019s look at the issue of civilian gun ownership. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/worldpopulationreview.com\/country-rankings\/gun-ownership-by-country\">World Population Review<\/a>, the United States does indeed lead the world in terms of civilian gun ownership, with 120.5 firearms per 100,000 people. Yemen has 52.8 firearms per 100,000 people, with Montenegro and Serbia both having 39.1 firearms per 100,000 people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Lopez attempts to make the rate of gun ownership relevant in the next section, claiming that \u201cNo matter how you look at the data, more guns mean more gun deaths.\u201d&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>This is simply not true. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Let\u2019s look at a few countries with very high firearm death rates. In 2021, El Salvador had 45.6 firearm-related deaths per 100,000 people. Venezuela had 49.22, Guatemala had 34.1, and Honduras had 60. They each had a gun ownership rate per 100,000 people of 12, 18.5, 12.1, and 14.1 respectively.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Now, let\u2019s look at the association between violent firearm-related deaths and the rate of gun ownership \u2014 the claim Lopez is making. In El Salvador, there are 3.8 deaths for every gun owned per 100,000 people. In Venezuela, that ratio is 2.66. In Guatemala, that ratio is 2.82. And in Honduras, that ratio is 4.26.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Given the argument that \u201cmore guns means more gun deaths,\u201d why does the United States have 0.10 deaths for every gun owned per 100,000 people? That\u2019s over 42 times less than Honduras. Switzerland has 0.11, and Finland has 0.10, both \u201cdeveloped\u201d countries by Lopez\u2019s definition.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>While it is obviously true that the number of guns is likely to be somewhat related to the existence of violence, the claim that the number of guns is a direct cause of increased violence is grossly unsubstantiated.<\/p>\n<p><b>Other developed countries have not had huge successes with gun control<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span>In the fifth section, Lopez claims that developed countries have had \u201chuge successes\u201d with gun control, but contradicts this claim by acknowledging that there is no statistical evidence which supports this conclusion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Lopez cites Australia as an example, which imposed a mandatory gun \u201cbuyback\u201d program after a 1996 mass shooting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201c<\/span><span>The result: Australia\u2019s firearm homicide rate dropped by about 42 percent in the seven years after the law passed, and its firearm suicide rate fell by 57 percent, according to one <\/span><span>review of the evidence<\/span><span> by Harvard researchers,\u201d Lopez writes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>However, Lopez then adds \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to know for sure how much of the drop in homicides and suicides was caused specifically by the gun buyback program and other legal changes. Australia\u2019s gun deaths, for one, were already declining before the law passed,\u201d but that some researchers \u201cargue that the gun buyback program very likely played a role.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The rate of gun violence in Australia \u2014 the only country Lopez discusses \u2014 was already so low that any changes \u2014 whether due to the policy or not \u2014 are not statistically significant, making it mathematically absurd that Lopez concluded that Australia\u2019s gun control policies were examples of \u201chuge success.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span>Ian Haworth is an Editor and Writer for The Daily Wire. Follow him on Twitter at <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ighaworth\"><i><span>@ighaworth<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><i><span>member<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, Vox published an analysis of America\u2019s \u201cgun problem,\u201d writing \u201cThe public and research support gun control. Here\u2019s how it could help \u2014 and why it doesn\u2019t pass.\u201d\u201cWhy is &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2311319,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/fb_image-4279.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"Debunking The Myth Of \u2018America\u2019s Unique Gun Problem\u2019","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/fb_image-4279.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"Debunking The Myth Of \u2018America\u2019s Unique Gun Problem\u2019","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2311319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}