They found that gun ownership increased before crime. I think this study does more to show more guns does not equal less crime, than more guns equals more crime.
Pinpointing causation
The results do need to be interpreted with caution — this study method proves that more guns are linked to more gun crime and overall homicide, but not that access to guns directly causes this criminal uptick, said study researcher David Hemenway, the director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center.
"This study suggests that it's really hard to find evidence that where there are more guns, there are less crimes, but you can easily find evidence that where there are a lot more guns, there are a lot more gun crimes," Hemenway told Live Science.
It's possible that people stockpile guns in response to higher levels of crime. The researchers tried to tease out whether this was the case by testing whether gun ownership levels were a prerequisite for crime or a response to higher crime levels. Though they still couldn't prove causation, they did find that higher gun ownership levels preceded crime increases, not the other way around.
"It's difficult to imagine how the hypothesis that increased ownership reduces criminal behavior could be valid, given our findings," Monuteaux said.
Except they intentionally restricted the crime parameters. Not
all violent crime...just the small subset that gives them the result they wanted.
How do I know?
Because there are many more guns, and much fewer violent crimes across the board.
And when we look at the smallest gun ownership per capita states:
And then look at the Homicide Rate:
And then compare to Homicide By Firearm:
You see that states like Maryland, California and Illinois have low firearm ownership rates and higher murder rates and higher murder rates by firearms...whereas West Virginia, North Dakota and Montana have very high firearm ownership and low murder rates with even lower murder rates by firearms.
Pretty much blows the whole "by state" statistical model to smithereens.
But what we do know without doubt is Gun Ownership is on the increase, and Violent Crime is on the decrease nationwide.
As conceal carry increased, and the population increased by 50 million people, all violent crime decreased...and in many categories the decrease has been almost 50%.
The graph won't fit the page...here is a thumbnail
of the
FBI Graph:
Increased Conceal Carry:
These too are correlations...but pretty darned convincing correlations that More Guns = Less Crime.