After every mass-shooting incident, both sides in the Second Amendment debate sound off. The left believes “commonsense gun control” leads to less crime. The right believes “more guns equals less crime”.
Both sides tend to leave it at the level of chanting points, without ever really submitting evidence, much less proving anything [1].
So I thought I’d give it a shot. What brings more “gun safety” – more guns, or less?
Definition Of Terms: To start with, I took crime data from the states and the the 70 or so largest US cities – places with over 250,000 people.
For lack of a better measure, I used each state’s governor s the bellwether of the city’s political makeup – which may not be academically perfect, but as a practical matter it’s as useful a measure of each state’s sympathies as we have.
States of Affairs: And the murder rates break down like this:
- Democrat States: 12.2 murders per 100,000
- GOP States: 11.0 murders per 100,000 (all figures henceforth will be per 100,000).
Well, that looks pretty even; that’s like an 10% variation. Hardly outside the margin of error, really (although as we discussed some time ago, there’s plenty of variation there, too).
The differences in violent crime, robberies and aggravated assaults and rapes and the like, are a tad more dramatic – but only just:
- Democrat States: 841.18
- GOP States: 749.12
Democrat states have 12% more violent crime. Again – could be just statistical noise.
Urbanity: But if you’re from Minnesota, or most states with a large urban area that controls half the population, you know that state politics don’t tell you everything. In places like Illinois, Wisconsin, Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Iowa, even New York and California, solid-blue cities float in huge placid prosperous lagoons of red.
Again – I broke out “control” by the city’s current mayor, or in the case of the few cities using Manager/Commission government, the control of the commission.
So when you break out the murder rates of American cities of over 250,000, they come out more like this:
- Democrat Cities: 12.9
- GOP Cities 7.77
So the murder rates in cities that have mayors from the Democrat Party are 60% higher than in GOP-run cities.
OK, that’s significant. And the violent crime rates are similarly skewed:
- Democrat Cities: 875.3
- GOP Run Cities: 561.0
There is 56% more violent crime in cities run by Democrats.
More Guns, Less Guns…: But when cornered by Gun Rights supporters, gun control activists punt to the line that “it’s all about the availability of guns”.
The only true measure of the availability of guns is “can you find one that you can afford without breaking the law?”
But I figured I’d meet the left and the gun grabbers halfway on this one; I measured all cities by the “Brady Campaign Scorecard” rating of the state in which they reside (which is a little unrealistic, since some cities have “tougher” gun laws than their states; I’ll work on that).
The assumption: A “high” Brady rating, an A or B, implies “tougher” gun laws and, by extension, fewer guns (for the law-abiding).
And the numbers break out like this (“winners” will be in bold type):
| Brady Rating | All Cities | Democrat Cities | GOP Cities | Difference |
| A | 12.48 | 13.3 | 8 | Democrat cities rate 66% higher |
| B | 12.75 | 13.75 | None | No B-rated GOP cities. |
| C | 14.16 | 16.1 | 6.4 | Democrat cities have 251% higher murder rate. |
| D | 10.22 | 10.7 | 11.25 (two cities) | GOP cities 5% higher. Skewed by Oklahoma City’s crime rate. |
| F | 10.51 | 11.77 | 8.03 | Democrat cities 47% higher. |
Violent Crime by Brady rating
| Brady Rating | All Cities | Democrat Cities | GOP Cities | Difference |
| A | 816.73 | 909.88 | 499.5 | Democrat cities rate 82% higher |
| B (only Boston and Chicago) | 835 | 835 (only Boston reported) | NA | No B-rated GOP cities |
| C | 913.85 | 1032.2 | 440 | 235% higher in Democrat cities |
| D | 727.97 | 770.35 | 558.45 | 38% higher in Democrat cities |
| F | 758.1 | 805.75 | 673.56 | 20% higher in Democrat cities. |
So the big variables seem to be not so much the availability of guns or the strictness of gun control laws, which doesn’t seem to be correlated with any rises and falls in murder or violent crime rates.
But being controlled by the Democrat party? There’s a straight line correlation there.
Now, I’m not saying that Democrats cause crime. Democrats bleed just like the rest of us do.
But the pathologies that one-party “progressive” Democrat rule inevitably brings do seem to be correlated with higher murder and violent crime rates.
Correlation doesn’t mean causation. But it suggests a possible path to causation.
[1] I know – the Second Amendment crew does submit evidence, and has proven its case to everyone but our idiot media. I’m just saying it for purposes of argument.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.