There’s been much talk recently — including from President Obama — about there being a substantial correlation between state-level gun death rates and state gun laws.
Now correlation obviously doesn’t equal causation; there may be lots of other factors that are the true causes of both of the things that are being measured.
But if we do look for now at correlation, it seems to me that the key question should focus on state total homicide rates, or perhaps (for reasons I describe below) total intentional homicide plus accidental gun death rates.
And it turns out that there is essentially zero correlation between these numbers and state gun laws.To begin with, here’s why I focus on total homicide,
rather than gun homicide or all gun deaths.
First, few people care much about whether they are stabbed to death or shot to death.
And even if gun restrictions do decrease gun homicides, that effect may well be offset (or more than offset) by an increase in other homicides:
Some killers would kill with knives or other weapons instead of guns.
To the extent that today some attempted killings are stopped by defenders who have guns, those attempts might succeed if the guns become harder enough for defenders to get.
...But since people have been talking about simple two-variable correlations between gun laws and crime, I thought it would be helpful to note this correlation — or, rather, absence of correlation.
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