In the debate over gun violence in America, gun rights advocates like to cite the 2013 Pew Research Center study, derived from CDC data, that found national rates of gun homicide and other violent gun crimes are 49% lower now than they were during their peak in the mid-1990s, while rates of gun ownership have gone up. They boast that this study proves more guns equal less gun violence. There you go. End of discussion. But wait. There is a problem. The problem is that they don't bother to read much past the headline, and don't cross reference the study with other relevant data. If they did they would realize it doesn't support their argument at all, but rather just the opposite.
The headline of the Pew study reads:
Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware Pace of Decline Slows in Past Decade
The gun nuts, including conservative publications like Forbes (Disarming Realities: As Gun Sales Soar, Gun Crimes Plummet) have been gleeful about the message conveyed in the main title, if somewhat ambivalent about the subtitle; and while basking in the radiant glow of the report's first sentence, they probably didn't even notice the last sentence.
National rates of gun homicide and other violent gun crimes are strikingly lower now than during their peak in the mid-1990s, paralleling a general decline in violent crime, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data. Beneath the long-term trend, though, are big differences by decade: Violence plunged through the 1990s, but has declined less dramatically since 2000.
The third paragraph expands on the first.
Nearly all the decline in the firearm homicide rate took place in the 1990s; the downward trend stopped in 2001 and resumed slowly in 2007. The victimization rate for other gun crimes plunged in the 1990s, then declined more slowly from 2000 to 2008. The rate appears to be higher in 2011 compared with 2008, but the increase is not statistically significant. Violent non-fatal crime victimization overall also dropped in the 1990s before declining more slowly from 2000 to 2010, then ticked up in 2011.
The decade of steepest gun violence decline coincides with Federal Assault Weapons Ban.
Make no mistake, this is good news that firearm homicide and other gun crimes were lower in 2011 than they were in 1993 and that this trend paralleled roughly all violent non-fatal crime. But what could explain "the big differences by decade?" Note on the graphs above that the decline slows significantly around 2001 and actually levels out completely and starts back up slightly in and around 2004. So why could that be?
The Federal Assault Weapons ban was signed into law by President Clinton in 1994 and was allowed to expire ten years later in 2004. Of course correlation here does not prove that the ban caused the decline in gun violence, but it is significant and certainly worth noting that the beginning of the decline is proximate to the enactment of the ban and that leveling out and slight turn upwards matches very closely to the expiration of the ban. Another detail gun proponents ignore is that according to an October 2012 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the rate of serious violent crime declined 75 percent between 1993 and 2011, meaning that gun homicides actually declined at a slower pace than overall crime.
Number of gun owning households actually declines.
Also important to this discussion is that while the number of privately owned guns in America did go up during this period it is primarily due to multiple gun purchases by people who already owned guns. The number of households owning at least one gun actually went down.
The implicit argument made by conservative media is that there is a causal link between reports of booming gun sales in recent years and the overall decline of gun homicide over the past 20 years. But this claim misunderstands how gun ownership has changed during this time period. According to the General Social Survey, household firearm ownership has fallen from 43 percent in the 1990s to 35 percent in the 2000s. Overall household ownership is down from 50 percent in the 1970s. As Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, explained to The New York Times, "There are all these claims that gun ownership is going through the roof. But I suspect the increase in gun sales has been limited mostly to current gun owners. The most reputable surveys show a decline over time in the share of households with guns."
http://mediamatters.org/...
Gun nuts try to take credit for results in states with fewer guns and stricter gun laws.
Now lets debunk the gun nuts' delusions even further. After the expiration of the AWB many states strengthened their gun regulations while others loosened restrictions. Studies show that states with higher gun ownership rates and more relaxed gun laws actually have higher rates of gun violence than those states with fewer guns and stricter gun controls.
States with weak gun violence prevention laws and higher rates of gun ownership have the highest overall gun death rates in the nation, according to a Violence Policy Center (VPC) analysis of new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.
Meanwhile, states with the lowest overall gun death rates have lower rates of gun ownership and some of the strongest gun violence prevention laws in the nation. However, even in these states the human toll of gun violence remains unacceptably high and far exceeds the gun death rate in most Western industrialized nations.
The VPC analysis is based on data newly released this week and refers to overall gun death rates in 2011, the most recent year for which data is available.
http://www.vpc.org/...
The following graph shows gun ownership by region. It is clear that the South has more guns per capita while the East has fewer guns per capita.
So which states have the highest rates of gun violence?
The five states with the highest per capita gun death rates in 2011 were Louisiana, Mississippi, Alaska, Wyoming, and Montana. Each of these states has extremely lax gun violence prevention laws as well as a higher rate of gun ownership. The state with the lowest gun death rate in the nation was Rhode Island, followed by Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey. Each of these states has strong gun violence prevention laws and has a lower rate of gun ownership.
http://www.vpc.org/...
The differential is stunning.
States with the Five Highest Gun Death Rates:
1. Louisiana 45.6 percent gun ownership, 18.91 gun deaths per 1,000.
2. Mississippi 54.3 percent gun ownership, 17.80 gun deaths per 1,000.
3. Alaska 60.6 percent gun ownership, 17.41 gun deaths per 1,000.
4. Wyoming 62.8 percent gun ownership, 16.92 gun deaths per 1,000.
5. Montana 61.4 percent gun ownership, 16.74 gun deaths per 1,000.
States with the Five Lowest Gun Death Rates:
50 Rhode Island 13.3 gun ownership, percent 3.14 gun deaths per 1,000.
49 Hawaii 9.7 percent gun ownership, 3.56 gun deaths per 1,000.
48 Massachusetts 12.8 percent gun ownership, 3.84 gun deaths per 1,000.
47 New York 18.1 percent gun ownership, 5.11 gun deaths per 1,000.
46 New Jersey 11.3 percent gun ownership, 5.46 gun deaths per 1,000.
And for even more context, by comparison America’s gun death rates — both nationwide and in the states — dwarf those of most other Western industrialized nations. The gun death rate in the United Kingdom in 2011 was 0.23 per 100,000 while in Australia it was 0.86 per 100,000.
And so nationwide reductions in gun deaths are no thanks to more guns and lax gun laws but rather are the result of states with fewer guns and stricter controls. But you won't hear that from the gun nuts, the NRA or Fox News.