Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
Gun Control Advocates Purvey Deadly Myths Wall Street Journal, 11 Nov. 1998 By John R. Lott JR.
- The U.S. has a high murder rate because Americans own so many guns. There is no international evidence backing this up. The Swiss, New Zealanders and Finns all own guns as frequently as Americans, yet in 1995 Switzerland had a murder rate 40% lower than Germany's, and New Zealand had one lower than Australia's. Fin- land and Sweden have very different gun ownership rates, but very similar murder rates. Israel, with a higher gun ownership rate than the U.S., has a murder rate 40% below Canada's.
The international correlation between gun ownership and homicide is not perfect, so it possible for Dr Lott to cherry-pick a subset of countries to "prove" that there is no correlation. However, he has hasn't even done that competantly. Here is data on homicide rate and household gun ownership percentages taken from here
homicide gun ownership
USA 7.6 48
Switzerland 1.2 27
Finland 3.0 23
New Zealand 2.0 22
Australia 1.9 19
Sweden 1.3 15
W.Germany 1.2 9
I counted six errors of fact in just two of his sentences.
