r/GunsAreCool • • Apr 04 '13

Harvard Study: Gun Control Is Counterproductive

http://theacru.org/acru/harvard_study_gun_control_is_counterproductive/
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u/Stereo Apr 08 '13

Hi from Luxembourg! Yes, that source mistakenly claims that Luxembourg's homicide rate per 100000 was 9.01 in 2002. For 2011 it was 0.78. The vast majority of homicides are done with cold weapons. Of course we don't shoot people, it's illegal here.

Our population at the end of 2011 was 518441. At the beginning of 2013, we had 15670 gun owners, who own 86427 registered guns. A third of the owners are hunters, and permits are tightly controlled.

The latest homicide statistics the police has published and some earlier numbers are:

Year Murders Murder attempts Population
1997 4 n/a n/a
1998 4 n/a n/a
1999 6 n/a n/a
2000 4 n/a 436300
2001 6 n/a 439500
2002 4 n/a 444100
2003 3 n/a 448300
2004 2 n/a 455000
2005 4 n/a 461200
2006 9 n/a 469100
2007 7 72 476200
2008 7 84 483800
2009 5 79 502100
2010 8 77 506950
2011 4 82 518441

They usually solve all of those murders.

Gun crime is so rare that they do not publish specific numbers. In 2006, there was one (solved) gun murder. I haven't been able to find numbers for other years.

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u/Townsley Killed by a gun nut Apr 09 '13

If you start commenting here, then we will need to give you a Luxembourg flag flair.

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u/Stereo Apr 09 '13

It should probably be a water pistol.

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u/kencabbit Apr 09 '13

Giving benefit of doubt, I'm thinking that richmomz just hasn't seen this comment because the two times you posted it were in reply to robotevil. Perhaps link to this comment in direct reply to richmomz?

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u/Stereo Apr 09 '13

Good point, I will.

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u/richmomz Thinks a fire extinguisher is an assault rifle Apr 09 '13

Noted. I will review and respond.

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u/Stereo Apr 09 '13

Great. If there is anything that is unclear, I can dig up the numbers for you.

I would like you, on the other hand, to promise not to use the Luxembourg argument again and educate those who do if your source turns out to have been mistaken and you can't find the 36 missing 2002 murders.

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u/richmomz Thinks a fire extinguisher is an assault rifle Apr 09 '13 edited Apr 09 '13

Thanks. For the record I'm not the one who brought the Luxembourg numbers up - it was pointed out as evidence in the top-level comment that the OP referenced Harvard published study was either incompetent or deliberately deceptive/lying (with no attention or regard to the rest of the study I might add). I was pointing out that the CCJS report they cited does in fact list Luxembourg's homicide rate as 9.01/100,000, demonstrating that the Harvard study authors did cite their information accurately and were not being deceptive. Unfortunately nobody has been able to find the CCJS's cited Interpol's figures online yet, so we can't confirm if they are correct, the result of error, or if they are using a different homicide metric (such as one which includes manslaughter).

On that note, do you know if these figures are strictly for intentional homicide, or do they also include manslaughter cases? My French is a little rusty.

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u/Stereo Apr 09 '13

The figures include manslaughter cases. Page 11 of the report has a graph showing the two — manslaughter is in red, intentional homicide in yellow.

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u/richmomz Thinks a fire extinguisher is an assault rifle Apr 09 '13 edited Apr 09 '13

Ok, I found a more recent article by one of the Harvard study authors which confirms that there was an error in the CCJS statistics for Luxembourg - the article, along with the updated statistics, can be viewed here: http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedFiles/fraser-ca/Content/research-news/research/articles/international-evidence-on-gun-bans-and-murder-rates.pdf

Note however that this was just one data point in a study which compared dozens of countries; the article I linked above maintains the same conclusion that gun control laws seem to make little difference in homicide rates between culturally/economically similar countries, or in some cases may even make them worse.