The bumper sticker says “Guns Don’t Kill People, People Kill People.” This implies that if a gun is not available a person with murderous intent will find another way to kill.
It’s absolutely true that people kill with things other than guns. In 2013, for example, there were 16,121 murders in the U.S., 11,208 with guns. This leaves just under 5000 murders by other means. According to the FBI the most common method other than firearms, are a knife or blunt object, or other non-personal weapon which includes drowning, strangulation and throwing out of a window. CDC numbers on Homicides.
On average, over the last ten years or so, there are roughly 15,000 murders in the U.S. each year. Of those, roughly 10,000 are with guns, and 5,000 with other methods. I should note that guns kill roughly 30,000 people each year. The vast majority are suicides, at about 19,000 per year. Accidental gun deaths account from roughly 500 to 1000 per year. CDC data on Gun deaths.
The question is whether all those murders who use guns would switch to something else, something a bit messier, like a knife or a tire iron. It is certainly possible.
I will admit that some people want to kill and they succeed. I’ll admit that some of those people will kill with guns, and if a gun is not available, they will kill with another weapon. Murder, unfortunately, is part of human nature.
In general, if you take account of environmental factors, human nature is pretty uniform around the world. Humans are all the same species, and act in remarkably similar ways in every society on earth. And some of those people are killers. Statistically the murder rate should be fairly stable around the world, excepting certain environmental factors, like wars or other forms of social chaos. And, in fact, the countries with extremely high murder rates, like Honduras and El Salvador, are in the midst of economic and political chaos. UN Global Study on Homicide.
The murder rate in the U.S., therefore, should be roughly the same as the murder rate in other similar countries, like those in Europe, Canada, and Australia. But it isn’t. The United States has one of the highest murder rates among developed nations. According to data from the UN, the murder rate in the US is roughly 5.0 per 100,000 people. The average for developed countries is around 1.3 per 100,000. This makes the U.S. roughly 3.5 times more murderous. Data from the Worldbank UN Data on homicides. Here’s an interesting chart from Slate. Justice Department Statistics
Now consider the weapon used to kill in the U.S. Guns kill roughly 10,000 people per years, and other weapons kill about 5,000. If you factor out the gun killings in the U.S., the murder rate drops by two-thirds, and puts us at roughly the same murder rate in the rest of the developed world.
The multiplier is guns. The other possible explanations are that we are in the midst of a civil war or Third World levels of social chaos, or Americans are simply more violent than other human beings. We aren’t in a civil war, and according to the NRA the problem can’t be guns.
The only way for the bumper logic to work is if Americans are simply more murderous that any other people on earth. So the NRA is saying that Americans are the most murderous people on earth.
By the way, the common Republican talking point that the issue is mental health and not guns only works if Americans are three times crazier than anyone else on earth. Well, they may be right about that one.
