It's The Guns - Revisited

 Despite my best, good faith efforts to illustrate the relationship (or lack thereof) between gun violence and gun ownership, there are those who remain unconvinced, some of whom have been nasty, insulting, little pansies about it.  They continue to cry "it's the guns" that are causing the epidemic of firearm related homicides.  Obviously, you can't have firearm related homicides without firearms, but that's where the correlation ends.  

Consider a basic equation: 

GO+X*XX=GH

GO represents the percentage of households that own guns and has been declining steadily since the 70's.  It's probably increased slightly since the pandemic, based on how many new buyers have been purchasing guns.  For the purpose of this exercise, we'll peg it at 35%

GH is the number of gun related homicides

It's simple math that if GO remains constant (or within a margin of error), and GH changes dramatically, there must be a factor that impacts the outcome of the calculation.  

Some visuals may be helpful.  

This chart represents the total number of homicides by year, from 1985 through 2021.*

Things to note:

Upward trend, beginning in 2013, totals in line with early 2000's

Massive decrease over the course of the 1990's

These are raw numbers, not per capita.

The red line illustrates the downward trend in firearm ownership, per household.

Takeaway:  Our murder rate has definitely increased since 2014, but remains nowhere near what it was a few decades ago.  

This next chart illustrates number of firearm related deaths resulting from mass shootings.**  

This chart shows a clear upward trend on deaths from mass shootings, particularly in the past three years.  Of note is how the total remains less than 10% of all firearm related homicides.  

Finally, because everyone loves charts, this one illustrates number of mass homicide fatalities by year.***  One could argue the average is trending downward.    

In summary, any rational, intelligent individual would conclude guns are not to blame for the increase in firearm homicides.  Looking at the data, one could argue there really isn't an epidemic.  Gun violence is absolutely something we need to address as a society, but we won't make any progress while simpletons blame everything on one factor.  You're not helping!

*Source - FBI CDE Expanded Data, includes all homicides, not just firearm related.  However the vast majority are.  FBI changed their data availability last year to where you're no longer able to download large chunks of data, instead being forced to use their explorer, which offers zero granularity.  

** Source - Gun Violence Archive

***Source - Mother Jones Mass Homicide Database (their name is mass shooting database, but it isn't)

This entry is part of my "Gun Series" that focuses on providing insight into the gun debate and gun violence.  You can find the other entries in the series HERE. 

 

About the author: Sean R is a recovering conservative who owns a consulting firm specializing in strategic marketing.  He's been a competitive shooter since the early 90's and holds a High Master classification in PPC and a Master classification in USPSA.  Additionally, he's served as an instructor for gun safety and competition courses.  He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his overly vocal white dog, Sadie..