Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
It has been pointed out to me that the 1903 gun law in England was rather weak, and that real gun control started in 1920, so I have added a line to the table below.
Second and third columns are homicide rate per 100,000
Year England & Wales USA Ratio Source
1903 0.93 2.6 1/3 [1]
1920 0.84 7.1 1/8 [1]
1988 0.6 9.0 1/15 [2]
Over 85 years, there are lots of changes that that could affect the homicide rate. Furthermore, the years 1903 and 1988 could be atypical and give a misleading picture. I made no claim that this data proved that gun control was responsible for the change. It was the original poster that claimed (based on incorrect data) that a change in the opposite direction meant that gun control increased crime.
To investigate the effects of the 1920 law we should compare the homicide rate in England 1911-1920 to the rate 1921-1930, and also do the same comparison for other nations (to see if, for example, demographic changes caused by World War I caused the change.) My source has data covering that period for Australia, England, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Scotland, and the USA.
