[WillPostForFood]

Homicide rate was 4 per 100k in the 50s, spiked up to 10 through the 60s and 70s, dipped a bit in the 80s, then dropped from 1991 to to now back to around 6.

The increase in crime in the 60s and 70s didn't correlate with more guns, the decrease in crime in the late 90's didn't correlate with fewer guns.

There is clearly something going on in the US that drives crime that is not guns. Culture, welfare state, war on drugs, inequality, segregation, failure of the family. Better cases to be made on any of those things than guns.

[alex_young]

A more likely culprit: Leaded gasoline [0].

I think the GP is correct to point out the gun thing too. Having lived in a place where guns aren’t as accessible and observing how people live, I’m sure there is some correlation.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesi...

[v9]

You're saying homicides have historically varied in the US by a factor of 2, and this variation cannot be correlated with notable changes in gun availability. Previous comments mentioned a factor of 10 difference in homicides compared to countries in Europe, arguably with the most notable explanatory correlation being gun availability. If the only crimes we are talking about are homicides, then there does seem to be a pretty good case.

Some people thrive on the empowerment, liberty and responsibility associated with these incredible death machines. But that's no reason to mistreat the data. For instance, the ratio associated with other death machines like cars, which have somewhat similar availability across the pond between US and Europe, is a more reasonable factor of 2/3.

[StavrosK]

Your causation goes the wrong way. The GP didn't say that less crime would cause fewer guns, but that fewer guns would cause less crime. You can't say "but guns stayed the same and crime both increased and decreased at points, which means that guns don't affect crime".

[WillPostForFood]

You can't say "but guns stayed the same and crime both increased and decreased at points, which means that guns don't affect crime".

I didn't say they don't affect crime, but if crime spikes, then drops then spikes, while gun ownership remains steady, then it is a piece of evidence that crime is largely driven by something other than the quantity of guns.

[StavrosK]

How? The fact that you can stop eating omelettes and still have the same amount of eggs in your fridge doesn't make you can make omelettes without eggs.

[lern_too_spel]

All of those are multiple times higher than Italy. There are other factors that cause decade-level differences in homicide rate, but if you want to bring the baseline homicide rate down, you could do worse than looking at access to guns.