Author Archives: Guy Smith

Worldly Women and Guns

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The gun control industry has made much of an obscure study concerning firearm fatalities in high-income countries. Because all politics (by low minded people) is wedge politics, they grabbed the one horrible sound bite from the study, namely that “86% of all women killed by firearms were US women.” (emphasis mine) We have already covered … endlessly … that though America’s suicide rate is not high, the preferred means for American suicide is with a gun (Canadians have an identical suicide rate, but own fewer guns, and thus tend to poison themselves more often). Thus, it is of little surprise that more suicidal American women die by guns and thus more American women are “killed by firearms.” Even this study noted that “the US firearm suicide rate … for females … was 14.4 times higher.” But the gun control industry spin goes deeper. They like contrasting America with other “high-income” … Continue reading →

Understand­ing California’s Crime Collapse

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Some gun control groups claim that California’s drop in violent crime since the early 1990s is due to gun control. But a causal review of California gun-related legislation shows that when violent crime started falling in the Golden State, there was no significant gun control legislation. If not gun control, what then explains the drop in violent crime in general, and firearm crimes in particular starting around 1993. My preliminary research indicates it is traceable to California’s Three Strikes law and the firearm penalty enhancements passed in that same year. But it is worth digging into the data to see if we can understand why. Up to 1993, violent crime in California was significantly higher than the rest of the country. Like most other places, robbery was a leading cause of violent crime.  In fact, in the pivot year, robbery accounted for 38% of all violent crime. The rate of robbery as a subset of … Continue reading →

Suicides and Guns

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Gun control groups love to say that there are “30,000 deaths from gun violence every year.” What they don’t say is that 62% of those are suicides, almost all of which are committed with legally acquired handguns (no assault weapons or extra capacity magazines required). The common retort is that if America had fewer guns, there would be fewer suicides. Yet a brief examination of international data shows this to be utter buncombe. The World Health Organization (WHO) tallied suicides around the globe, and the Small Arms Survey estimated private gun ownership rates. WHO also noted how people exit this life when it gets too rough for them. The chart to the right pretty well debunks that guns are the determinant variable for suicides. The United States has way more guns than anyone else, yet their suicide rate is not terribly higher than international averages (11.1 suicides for every 100,000 … Continue reading →

Negligent Discharge and CCWs

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A Gun Facts fan asked what we know about concealed carry licencees and negligent discharges (accidental discharges). Frankly, there isn’t much out there. I wish there were concise statistics on this subject, but such events are rare enough that nobody in government, criminology or epidemiology finds it worth the trouble to investigate. The best we can do is triangulate some other numbers.  a) According to the CDC, in the most recent reporting year, there were 606 accidental firearm deaths. Not all of these were really accidents and not all were negligent discharges. There is no breakdown, but Gary Kleck’s Targeting Guns cites one set of studies (investigative reports by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company) that note most accidental gun deaths were due to dumb behavior (not negligent discharge) – people drunk, playing with guns, walking into a hunter’s line of fire, etc. b) There are about 11 million CCW holders in the … Continue reading →

LCPGV: The 20 Year Canard

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The new anti-gun agitprop masters are in the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. I’ll be writing about them frequently because they are: Getting good at creating falsehoods. Are drafting laws and getting them passed in California. Have money … and lots of it. Their most recent con is claiming that California’s 20 year drop in gun deaths is due to gun control laws. “Proof in the Data: Thousands of Lives Saved” is their tag line and is accompanied by a chart showing the firearm death rate in the Golden State. There are a number of major problems with their numbers (mainly Cal’s fast falling suicide rate) but more importantly is what they omit, namely criminal control laws. Their chart begins in 1993, a year with no significant gun control laws in California and the year when violent crime nationwide was peaking. If anything Cal rode a national wave. But … Continue reading →

Industrialized Data

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During a CCTV televised discussion, an anti-gun agitator rebutted my statement that the United States had a lower firearm homicide rate than international averages (here is one of my favorite charts that proves the point and shows zero correlation between gun availability and gun homicides). His snarky remark (and I closely paraphrase) was “That’s easy when you compare us to places like Somalia!” Actually, the worst nations don’t report their homicide rates. If they did, the United States would look even better than it does now. His belabored point was that in “industrialized” countries with allegedly civil societies (sans guns), life is oh so much better. Someone should tell all the Swedish rape victims. But his challenge required some investigation. Here is what we can see from international data, which incidentally is not always of great quality or cross-border compatibility (click any chart to enlarge it).   Firearm Homicides: The United … Continue reading →