Why Aren’t Guns Making Americans Safer?

By Alasdair Denvil

A shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, has left 10 people dead and seven injured. So we’re going to have yet another discussion about gun policy.

No, it isn’t “politicizing” to take positions on gun control and gun rights in the wake of a shooting. When there’s an earthquake, there’s nothing wrong with talking about building codes and emergency efforts, and debating what we did right or wrong in dealing with the situation. The same goes for mass shootings.

But there are some bad arguments – like the “politicizing” one above – that need to be challenged.

Like the idea that our gun policies make us safer. In accord with the Second Amendment, the United States has fewer prohibitions on gun ownership than most other “WEIRD” (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) countries, and it has more guns per capita than any other nation. Yet we have far higher homicide rates – both overall and gun-related in particular – than pretty much all of those other countries.

Look at the accompanying chart (compiled from data here, here, and here): U.S. homicide rates are typically anywhere from two to 10 times higher than …Read the Rest

Source:: The Blaze