Citation

Kates DB, Mauser GA. J. Firearms Public Policy 2007; 19(1): 1-46.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Second Amendment Foundation)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This Article has reviewed a significant amount of evidence from a wide variety of international sources. Each individual portion of evidence is subject to cavil—at the very least the general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific evidence cannot remotely approach the persuasiveness of conclusions in the physical sciences. Nevertheless the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death, fewer guns equals less death mantra, especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra. To bear that burden would at the very least require showing that a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that have imposed stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide). But those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared across the world.

Keywords: Gun control