International Gun Law Comparisons
Are there fewer gun deaths in countries that ban guns?
The United States is so much higher than other countries, it's amazing. Let me read quickly: In 2004 there were 5 gun deaths in New Zealand, 37 in Sweden, 56 in Australia, 73 in England, 184 in Canada and 11,344 murders in the United States. It's more than any other industrialised country. We are so significantly above what other countries do. The Virginia Tech killer, his home country is South Korea, they don't even get that many murders in a year, in terms of the murders that he committed in a day. In this country, we have a thirty, thirty-two murders in not just Virginia Teach we get thirty-two murders everyday in this county. Britain does not get that in a year either.
Explain the high gun-low violence and low gun-high violence theory?
Well actually Switzerland is a high gun ownership country but it is also a high gun violence country. In fact, among industrialized countries it is second only to the United States, second or third to the United States in terms of levels of violence in that country. And this is a country that one of the reasons it has high gun ownership is basically because every adult male, I believe, is part of the military, the security system for the country. So there, they don't have the standing army. They're considered to be part of the group that keeps the country safe. So you've trained a lot of people, you've got a lot of people with those guns, but they still end up with a high level of violence. So they're not a low violence country. They're a high ownership/high violence country. They actually make the case that the more guns, the more violence you're going to see. Mexico is a trickier situation. It's a country that has strict gun laws but because it has such a porous border with the United States, as we have seen with immigration disputes and other things, actually they see tons of guns flowing from the United States into Mexico. In fact, you read the reports and you will see a trafficking of not only illegal immigrants but of illegal drugs coming from Mexico into the United States. And then flowing back are illegal guns. The United States is the world's biggest exporter of guns as well as the world's biggest importer of guns.
What is the primary cause of death in countries that allow guns?
People die in countries pretty much the same all over. You're going to have the standard diseases, if you get into less industrialized countries, you're going to get diseases that we don't see. In terms of violent deaths most countries are fairly similar to the United States, but other countries don't have the level of deaths from guns that we see. Again, you can compare other countries to the United States, the number of knifings are the same, the number of beatings are the same, the number of hangings are basically the same. When you look at guns, all of a sudden the U.S. is 30 times more than Great Britain, it's significantly more than any other country you're going to look at.
How do domestic and foreign child firearm fatalities compare?
When we focus on the dangers to our children because of the easy accessibility of guns in the United States, that is the most shocking thing I think that we can look at. The number of homicides to children in the United States is five times higher than the next twenty-five industrialised countries in the world - combined. To have a child dying every four hours in this country, to have the number of murders, to have the number of suicides, to have the number of accidents, we are not treating our children well, we are not setting an example for the rest of the country. We make it too easy for young people to be the victims, for young people to die, for young people to be injured by guns in this country.
How are foreign gun deaths statistics compiled?
The United Nations compiles these statistics, and independent groups that look at mortality rates and death rates around the world.
Are statistics swayed to manipulate sympathy for gun control or gun advocacy?
Numbers can be used by any group to make their case. And that's why whenever anyone's arguing about statistics, it's very important to look at the source of the statistics, to figure out how they're compiled, to see whether it's a legitimate group putting them together, to see whether the academic paper is one that's been peer-reviewed and gone through the standard academic measures. The old line is always, "There's lies, damn lies in statistics." Statistics are only as good as the background that goes into it, and certainly numbers can be swayed by any side in this. One of the challenges with guns is that in the United States we don't have good statistics on who has guns and where those guns are. So a lot of things are based on surveys. In other countries, they've got better records on the guns, so those numbers are a little more definite. But a lot of the studies in the United States are based on samples of a couple hundred people responding to questions, and those are the sorts of things that can be manipulated, or twisted, or misunderstood pretty easily.
