The US has a lot of guns and a lot of murders compared to England, Canada, and most of Europe. This is something Piers Morgan likes to point out to Americans who then struggle to defend the wisdom of gun ownership and the 2nd Amendment: “How do you justify 4.8 murders/year per 100,000 population when there are only 1.6/year per 100,000 in Canada, 1.2/year per 100,000 in the UK, and 1.0/year per 100,000 in Australia — countries with few murders and tough anti-gun laws?,” he asks. What Piers doesn’t mention, is that these anti-gun countries have far higher contact crime (assault) rates than the US, see below.
Contact crime rates for 17 industrialized countries. From the Dutch Ministry of Justice. Click here for details about the survey and a breakdown of crimes.
The differences narrow somewhat when considering most violent crimes, but we still have far fewer than Canada and the UK. Canada has 963/year per 100,000 “most violent crimes,” while the US has 420/year per 100,000. “Most violent crimes” here are counted as: “murder and non-negligent manslaughter,” “forcible rape,” “robbery,” and “aggravated assault” (FBI values). England and Wales classify crimes somewhat differently, but have about two times the US rate, 775/year per 100,000, if “most violent crimes” are defined as: “violence against the person, with injury,” “most serious sexual crime,” and “robbery.”
It is possible that the presence of guns protects Americans from general crime while making murder more common, but it’s also possible that gun ownership is a murder deterrent too. Our murder rate is 1/5 that of Mexico, 1/4 that of Brazil, and 1/3 that of Russia; all countries with strong anti-gun laws but a violent populous. Perhaps the US (Texan) penchant for guns is what keeps Mexican gangs on their, gun-control side of the border. Then again, it’s possible that guns neither increase nor decrease murder rates, so that changing our laws would not have any major effect. Switzerland (a country with famously high gun ownership) has far fewer murders than the US and about 1/2 the rate of the UK: 0.7 murders/ year per 100,000. Japan, a country with low gun ownership has hardly any crime of any sort — not even littering. As in the zen buddhist joke, change comes from within.
Homicide rate per country
One major theory for US violence was that drugs and poverty were the causes. Remove these by stricter anti-drug laws and government welfare, and the violent crime would go away. Sorry to say, it has not happened; worse yet, murder rates are highest in cities like Detroit where welfare is a way of life, and where a fairly high fraction of the population is in prison for drugs.
I suspect that our welfare payments have hurt Detroit as much as they’ve helped, and that Detroit’s higher living wage, has made it hard for people to find honest work. Stiff drug penalties have not helped Detroit either, and may contribute to making crimes more violent. As Thomas More pointed out in the 1500s, if you are going to prison for many years for a small crime, you’re more likely to use force to avoid risk capture. Perhaps penalties would work better if they were smaller.
Charity can help a city, i think, and so can good architecture. I’m on the board of two charities that try to do positive things, and I plant trees in Detroit (sometimes).
R. E. Buxbaum, July 10, 2013. To make money, I sell hydrogen generators: stuff I invented, mostly.