Right, I see your point. Absolute gun ownership isn't the number we should be discussing-- it's the number of guns that can be easily carried and used in public. In Switzerland guns are everywhere, but the ammo is stored in sealed containers to prevent frivolous and unaccountable use of the guns. In Canada you can't ever carry your gun around on the street and handguns are almost completely illegal for all intents and purposes. In most of America you can carry a semiautomatic pistol in public with no consequences. Firearm incidents occur when you increase the availability for people to get and posses guns in public-- whether they buy them at Walmart or steal them from unlocked cop cars. That's indisputable.

Except that data is there to prove the point - more guns correlates with more deaths. Regardless how you compare - different states inside US or different countries.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/u...

What a load of rubbish.

1. The compare gun deaths. This includes suicides and excludes all other murders. So it is a totally biased metric.

They even admit most gun deaths are suicides.

2. Ignore by far the most salient variables for predicting murders.

This is typical "advocacy research". They don't care about science; they only care about getting funded. The general public knows this, so for the most part their research is completely ignored.

Don't even get me started on the "suicide is always terrible" bullshit. Many suicides are rational responses to untenable situations. I'm glad that my grandfather had a gun, when AEC and his physicians had both failed him completely.