pal@crystal.UUCP (12/31/84)
There have been two requests (from Prentiss Riddle and Michael Gray) for
statistics related to handgun/other deaths in the US and elsewhere.
My reference ("The honest politician's guide to crime control" by Morris and
Hawkins) has the following figures (book is copyright 1970, so these are old,
if anyone has newer figures, please post).
Gun deaths in the US, 1968:
8870 murder/homicides
10,000 suicides
2,500 "accidental deaths"
In addition,
64,950 aggravated assaults with guns
99,000 armed robberies.
Total non-fatal gun-inflicted injuries about 100,000.
750,000 people killed by private guns since 1900 (till 1968, I guess),
which is 30% more than all war deaths (US only).
Relative homicide rates:
(All weapons, not just guns)
US homicide rate is 7-8 times that in Britain, and "far outpaces all other
industrialized nations," with the usual disclaimers about cultures, etc.
Relative gunfire homicide rates (per 100,000)
Netherlands 0.03
Japan 0.04
UK 0.05
West germany 0.12
Canada 0.52 (guess they get some from across the border)
USA 2.70 (90 times that in the Netherlands!!!!!)
Choice of murder weapons:
US: 65% gun, 19% knife, 16% others
UK: 9.8% gun, 16.8% knife, most popular is blunt instrument/fists-hands.
Relative "effectiveness" of attacks with various weapons (US)
(Homicides as a percentage of all aggravated assaults with that weapon)
Gun 13%, Knife 3%, Fists 1.7%
<Mild flame on>
But, of course, guns don't kill.
If gun-control correlates to a decrease in gun deaths but not overall deaths,
the pro-gun people say "See, it's not the guns."
On the other hand, if gun control correlates to a decrease in ALL deaths,
they say "That's not a valid comparison, the other country has lower OVERALL
crime." Might gun control have something to do with that? "NAAAH, must be
cultural differences."
Moral: you can lead a horse to water...
Anil Pal
U. of Wisconsin - Madison
(All opinions personal)