"Where there are more guns there is more homicide."

"Across high-income nations more guns = more homicide."

"Across states, more guns = more homicide."

"More guns = more homicides of police."

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-an...

Could it be that states with high homicide rates lead to people in those states buying more guns to feel more protected at home (and not the other way around)?

For a real life example, I live in Seattle, and we had a giant spike in the first-time firearm ownership numbers last year. It was driven by a lot of people who previously had zero interest in owning guns who suddenly became more concerned about their safety due to all the violence happening adjacent to protests, as well as due to the local District Attorney refusing to prosecute a lot of violent criminals with many repeated offenses and letting them out (to clarify: when I say "violent", I am not talking about protests, I am talking about people with multiple battery and assault charges, robbery, gang violence, rape, etc.). So in the Seattle scenario, it was indeed an increased rate of crime and homicides that caused a spike in firearm ownership, not the other way around.

And what about Switzerland, with their extremely high rate of gun ownership but low rate of homicides?

I don't have an answer to these questions, but it makes me feel like it is a bit less simplistic than just "higher rates of gun ownership in high-income nations create higher homicide rates".

Politics is broken if the DA is not effectively enforcing laws. Guns can't fix it. (Just as every surveillance thread on HN has comments about "technology can't really fix this, it's a politics problem", guns are very much just technology when it comes to socioeconomics/politics of crime.)

Switzerland has very high regulation. Not just for guns, for everything. And a very effective (almost direct) democracy. And an almost universal very-very-very high standard of living. (Yet their suicide rate is pretty high! Used to be higher than the US' - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/suicide-death-rates?tab=c... ) Gun ownership there is more of a cultural heritage, and very much not a safety device.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-guns-do-not-...

There are many, many words written on how great guns are or how grave problem they are. I completely accept that if the plurality want this so be it, it's not as deadly as many other problems.

  | Country  | Homicide | Guns per 100 inhabitants |
  | US       |     4.46 |                    120.5 |
  | Serbia   |     0.72 |                    37.82 |
  | Honduras |    28.65 |                9.9-11.24 |
  |          |          |                          |
  | Cyprus   |     0.50 |                     36.4 |
  | Canada   |     0.72 |                    34.70 |
  | Finland  |     0.20 |                     32.4 |
  | ...      |          |                          |
  |          |          |                          |
  | Jamaica  |    38.20 |                      5.8 |
  | Eswatini |    37.16 |                      8.1 |
  | Brazil   |    23.93 |                      8.6 |
  | ...      |          |                          |