Harvard Study: Gun Bans Don't Reduce Murder Rates

In a Harvard study, researchers asked, "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?" To find an answer, they reviewed the crime data of several European countries. They discovered "that countries with HIGHER gun ownership often had LOWER murder rates." Key findings:

• Russia, which enforces very strict gun control on its people, has a murder rate 4 times higher than the US. [So much for the Left's false assertion that the US has the highest murder rate in the world.]
• Luxembourg, "where handguns are totally banned and ownership of any kind of gun is minimal, had a murder rate nine times higher than Germany in 2002."
• Norway, Finland, Germany and France—all nations whose citizens enjoy significant gun ownership—had remarkably low murder rates.

Harvard researchers concluded the study with this:

Over a decade ago, Professor Brandon Centerwall of the University of Washington undertook an extensive, statistically sophisticated study comparing areas in the United States and Canada to determine whether Canada's more restrictive policies had better contained criminal violence. When he published his results it was with the admonition:

If you are surprised by [our] finding[s], so [are we]. [We] did not begin this research with any intent to "exonerate" handguns, but there it is—a negative finding, to be sure, but a negative finding is nevertheless a positive contribution. It directs us where not to aim public health resources. [Brandon S. Centerwall, Author's Response to "Invited Commentary: common Wisdom and Plain Truth," 134 AM. J. EPIDEMIOLOGY 1264, 1264 (1991)]

Summarizing the Harvard study, Steve Adcock noted:

Further, the report cited, "the determinants of murder and suicide are basic social, economic, and cultural factors, not the prevalence of some form of deadly mechanism." Meaning, it's not guns that kill people. People kill people.