Updated April 24, 2007: Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?
Date: Apr 25, 2007 10:51 AM
Updated April 24, 2007
Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of
International Evidence
Gary A. Mauser, Simon Fraser University and Don B. Kates, Criminologist

Abstract: The world abounds in instruments with which people can kill
each other. Is the widespread availability of one of these instruments,
firearms, a crucial determinant of the incidence of murder? Or do
patterns of murder and/or violent crime reflect basic socio-economic
and/or cultural factors to which the mere availability of one particular
form of weaponry is irrelevant? This article examines a broad range of
international data that bear on two distinct but interrelated questions:
first, whether widespread firearm access is an important contributing
factor in murder and/or suicide, and second, whether the introduction of
laws that restrict general access to firearms has been successful in
reducing violent crime, homicide or suicide. Our conclusion from the
available data is that suicide, murder and violent crime rates are
determined by basic social, economic and/or cultural factors with the
availability of any particular one of the world’s myriad deadly
instrument being irrelevant.

This paper is the latest version, and includes the latest updates.
http://www.garymauser.net/papers.html>

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !