In recent years, victim disarmament advocates have been making more use of international firearms homicide rate comparisons. The United Kingdom used to be their go-to example, but that’s largely fallen by the wayside since, not only has its crime rate been growing as America’s has dropped, but they were outed for faking their low numbers.
These days, the line is, “The United States has the highest firearms murder rate of any developed nation,” along with assorted variations on the theme. Typically, they also throw in the fact that we have far more guns per person than any other country (I see that as a point of pride). When they want a specific example, they point to Australia and its post-Port Arthur confiscation and proclaim, “Australia hasn’t had a mass shooting since,” carefully ignoring at least four mass shootings (using the anti-rights Gun Violence Archive’s definition of 4+ people shot, not counting the shooter). And then there’s the low confiscation compliance rate which has caused them to hold multiple “amnesties.”
Now, it’s true that Australia’s firearm-related homicide rate is only 0.16/100K, compared to the United States at 3.60/100K. But we’re allegedly talking about developed nations.
The United States is ranked first in the world by Gross Domestic Product. Australia comes in at number 13. Australia’s GDP is roughly one-fifteenth of the United States, less than 7% of ours. Peaceful Sweden is another country that the gun people controllers like to point to, with its 0.19/100K firearm homicide rate. But we’re talking economics, too. Sweden’s GDP ranks 23rd, well behind even Australia, and is just one thirty-sixth that of the US.
Instead, let’s try a country quite close by which is closer to Australia’s GDP than Sweden’s.
Our southern neighbor Mexico ranks 15th, with a GDP 83% of Australia’s. For that matter, there’s Brazil in the #9 slot. If Sweden is economically developed surely Brazil counts. But the gun grabbers don’t like to talk about them for some reason.
Said reason being:
Firearms-related homicide rates per 100K
| Australia (13) | 0.16 |
| Sweden (23) | 0.19 |
| United States (1) | 3.60 |
| Mexico (15) | 6.34 |
| Brazil (9) | 19.99 |
At this, the controllers are screeching that GDP is meaningless, that GDP per capita is the indicator of development. Well, no; that’s more an indicator of average wealth than development. And by per capita GDP Mexico does trail the US’s #7 ranking at #70. I think that says more about wealth distribution than development.
With Chinese made goods filling most department stores, I think we can agree that China is an industrially developed nation. They are producing that stuff we’re importing.
So is Mexico. Let’s look at our imports from various countries. We get $14.3 billion worth of vehicles from China. But we get $75.2 billion worth of vehicles from Mexico. That’s more than than we import from Japan, Korea, Germany, or any other country.
For total imports, Mexico is our second largest provider, behind China and ahead of Canada.
Yes, they’re developed. And with 15 guns per 100 people they have a firearms homicide rate almost double that of the US with 101 guns per hundred people. Brazil, with a mere 8 guns per 100 people, still manages a firearms homicide rate 5.5 times ours.
If guns and gun ownership were the problem, the United States would have depopulated itself decades ago.
Louisiana ranks 13th in gun ownership, but #1 in murder rate. Maryland is 43rd in gun ownership, but #5 in murder rate. Baltimore alone has a murder rate of 55.4/100K (and note that Maryland has strong gun control laws).
It isn’t the guns or the honest owners.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar.
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