State Gun Laws -vs- Homicide Rates

RicInOR · Oct 7, 2015

Zero correlation between state homicide rate and state gun laws

By Eugene Volokh October 6
There's been much talk recently — including from President Obama — about there being a substantial correlation between state-level gun death rates and state gun laws. Now correlation obviously doesn't equal causation; there may be lots of other factors that are the true causes of both of the things that are being measured. But if we do look for now at correlation, it seems to me that the key question should focus on state total homicide rates, or perhaps (for reasons I describe below) total intentional homicide plus accidental gun death rates. And it turns out that there is essentially zero correlation between these numbers and state gun laws.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ate-and-state-gun-laws/?tid=pm_opinions_pop_b

Same - shortened.
https://goo.gl/giHFTP

etrain16 · Oct 8, 2015

Interesting. It certainly pokes a big hole in their argument about stricter gun laws.

meener777 · Oct 8, 2015

I did nearly the exact same analysis myself and came to the same conclusion. The reason by the way, as far as I can tell, that this is true is not because there is absolutely no impact at all from firearms on homicide rates. They certainly do make homicide attempts more deadly. However, the number one factor in homicide rates is socioeconomic and it completely drowns out any signal from guns/gun control laws. In other words, its dense cities with disenfranchised populations who turn to crime/drugs/etc., it is ACTUALLY a people problem, not a gun problem.

Stomper · Oct 8, 2015

Whoduh thunkit?!!

donaldc · Oct 8, 2015

I actually did this calculation myself and came to the same conclusion, though we used slightly different data. I used the 2012 FBI crime statistics (Table 20 "Murder by State, Types of Weapons, 2012") and the 2013 State Scorecard from the Brady Campaign and found a correlation of 0.0423311378351983. I had trouble finding the 2012 scorecard to match the 2012 FBI data, but I assume the results would be similar.