Quote:
Originally Posted by bp243
It would seem plausible to consider our USA gun-related deaths per capita with all other countries. For those countries that have lower gun-related deaths per capita, it would mean following up with the philosophy behind the gun controls in those countries. If we really want change, it's important to uncover those countries who are doing it the way that reduces the amount of deaths. Is that something that you'd be willing to do?
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Perhaps we'd be looking in the wrong direction.
America has a gun homicide rate of 5.9 per 100,000, and we have relatively non-restrictive gun laws. However the two countries in the Americas right behind us in population, Brazil and Mexico, have very RESTRICTIVE gun laws. You'd expect them to have a lower homicide rate per 100,000, but they don't: Mexico, with only two gun stores in the entire country and where owning a gun legally means exhaustive paperwork and months of waiting, has a gun homicide rate nearly twice ours at 11.1 per 100,000, while Brazil, where the minimum age to own a gun is 25, every gun purchased has to have a license (which is purchased and renewed at significant cost), and where even carrying a gun outside is limited to special groups such as police, has TRIPLE our rate at 18.5. per 100,000.
Guns are only a tool. Limiting them does NOT necessarily reduce the crimes committed with them.