Guns don't kill people...what does?

The Economist just released a little mini-report on gun ownership rates in various countries. So I decided to put those numbers together with homicide rates (gathered from Wikipedia). Gun ownership is in guns per 100 people, homicide rates are in homicides per 100,000. "Ratio" is homicides per 1000 guns (the second number divided by the first).

USA
Gun ownership: 90
Homicide: 5.9
Ratio: 0.066

Brazil
Gun ownership: 9
Homicide: 27.0
Ratio: 3.0

Russia
Gun ownership: 9
Homicide: 16.5
Ratio: 1.83

South Africa
Gun ownership: 13
Homicide: 40.5
Ratio: 3.12

France
Gun ownership: 32
Homicide: 1.64
Ratio: 0.051

Canada
Gun ownership: 32
Homicide: 1.85
Ratio: 0.058

Germany
Gun ownership: 30
Homicide: 0.98
Ratio: 0.034


Does anything jump out at you about these figures? South Africa has less than half the guns per person Germany does, but 40 times the homicide - almost 100 times the homicides per gun. Russia has less than a third the guns that Canada has, but more than 8 times the homicide (over 30 times the homicides per gun). And the United States has ten times the guns per person that Brazil has, but less than a third the homicide: 45 times the homicides per gun that we have.

To me, this says that gun availability has only a very weak link to murder rates. If we were to implement strict gun control laws that brought us down to the same level of gun ownership as Brazil - a decrease of 90%! - who's to say we wouldn't suffer continued high homicide, just as Brazil has?

Now, the U.S. ratio of homicides/gun is much more similar to Canada, France, and Germany than it is to Russia, South Africa, and Brazil. So one might argue that reducing our guns drastically would reduce our homicide drastically. But who's to say our homicide/gun ratio wouldn't just rise?

Something other than gun availability seems to be the primary cause of high murder rates. Economic inequality? Weak government institutions? Nutrition? I honestly have no idea. This makes me seriously doubt that gun control would solve our murder problem.

Of course, that doesn't mean gun control would be a bad idea, especially in big urban areas. And obviously who gets the guns is important as well, so this data in no way undermines the efficacy of things like background checks and strict licensing laws.