It's not misleading to point out that a country with more guns has more gun-related deaths. Indeed, it would be misleading not to point this out. A death is a death, and a preventable death is a preventable death.
Consider this: in the 1970s, Britain switched from coal-gas furnaces to natural gas, which has a much lower level of carbon monoxide. During the period when the country made the switch, the suicide rate dropped by a third and has remained lower ever since.
When people no longer had convenient access to carbon monoxide poisoning, a significant fraction of people who would otherwise have committed suicide did not do so. The conclusion is that a person's likelihood of going through with committing suicide is at least partially a function of how easy it is to do it.
In the United States, over half of all suicides are via firearms. Looked at differently, two-thirds of all gun deaths are suicides. (Less than a thousand Americans die annually due to accidental gunshots, but they are responsible for over 20,000 injuries a year.)
Not surprisingly, if you look at the distribution of deaths due to injury by firearm, the death rates are highest in states that have the highest rates of gun ownership. The relationship is straightforward: states with more guns per capita have more gun injuries and deaths per capita.
The ten highest states by firearm death rate are: D.C. Alaska, Louisians, Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada, Mississippi, New Mexico, Arkansas and Alabama. The ten lowest states are: Hawaii, Massachussetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Maine and Iowa. (You could overlay a red-state blue-state electoral map over the same data and it would match almost perfectly.)
Looked at still differently, several recent studies have found that states with the weakest gun regulations have the highest rates of gun deaths by homicide, suicide, accidental deaths, deaths of children and so on, even when you control for the rate of household firearm ownership. That is, gun death rates are higher in states with weaker gun laws, independent of the level of gun ownership (though of course they also correlate).
Bottom line: if the United States had more of a Swiss approach to gun ownership, with its rigorous controls, restrictions and training requirements, its guns would kill far fewer people each year. But the very people most determined to own firearms are also most determined not to allow the government to exert the kind of regulation and oversight that would mitigate the risk.
Consider this: in the 1970s, Britain switched from coal-gas furnaces to natural gas, which has a much lower level of carbon monoxide. During the period when the country made the switch, the suicide rate dropped by a third and has remained lower ever since.
When people no longer had convenient access to carbon monoxide poisoning, a significant fraction of people who would otherwise have committed suicide did not do so. The conclusion is that a person's likelihood of going through with committing suicide is at least partially a function of how easy it is to do it.
In the United States, over half of all suicides are via firearms. Looked at differently, two-thirds of all gun deaths are suicides. (Less than a thousand Americans die annually due to accidental gunshots, but they are responsible for over 20,000 injuries a year.)
Not surprisingly, if you look at the distribution of deaths due to injury by firearm, the death rates are highest in states that have the highest rates of gun ownership. The relationship is straightforward: states with more guns per capita have more gun injuries and deaths per capita.
The ten highest states by firearm death rate are: D.C. Alaska, Louisians, Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada, Mississippi, New Mexico, Arkansas and Alabama. The ten lowest states are: Hawaii, Massachussetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Maine and Iowa. (You could overlay a red-state blue-state electoral map over the same data and it would match almost perfectly.)
Looked at still differently, several recent studies have found that states with the weakest gun regulations have the highest rates of gun deaths by homicide, suicide, accidental deaths, deaths of children and so on, even when you control for the rate of household firearm ownership. That is, gun death rates are higher in states with weaker gun laws, independent of the level of gun ownership (though of course they also correlate).
Bottom line: if the United States had more of a Swiss approach to gun ownership, with its rigorous controls, restrictions and training requirements, its guns would kill far fewer people each year. But the very people most determined to own firearms are also most determined not to allow the government to exert the kind of regulation and oversight that would mitigate the risk.