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If you read the national mainstream media, you have seen the claim over and over again - more guns equals more murders. Anyone who dares to question this "fact" is accused of lying. In big cities, government and private left wing groups sponsor gun "buy backs" or exchanges - the aim being to reduce the number of guns in the community and thus reduce violence. However, one thing they never do is compare the rate of LEGAL firearms ownership to the murder rate - and that is exactly what we are going to do here and now.
Murder rates are easy to obtain from FBI reports. Since the U.S. does not have national gun registration, there are no figures for legal gun ownership. There is, however, a way to approximate the legal gun ownership rate: The number of FBI background checks run on guns purchased. This is done through the National Instant Check System, or NICS for short. It isn't a perfect gauge of gun ownership because NICS checks are also done for CCW permits and some states require them on private sales while others do not. In some states, many legal sales are done without checks. Furthermore, a few illegal purchases by prohibited persons will slip through. Never the less, it is a good indicator of legal gun ownership - in fact, it is the best we have.
If there is a relationship between the rate of legal gun ownership and the rate of homicides, then there should be a somewhat consistent ratio between legal sales and the number of homicides. If there is no such relationship, than it is clear that the rate of legal gun ownership has no bearing on the murder rate.
First, let's look at the national, 50 state figures. The homicide rate in the U.S. is 4.7 per 100,000 population. The average of all 50 states background checks is 8245 per 100,000 population (Utah and Kentucky were excluded because they do recurring checks on CCW holders - boosting their NICS check totals.)
So, we can index the number of NICS checks and homicides:
NICS Checks/Murder rate = number of NICS checks per murder
Nationally, it looks like this:
8245 NICS Checks per 100k/4.7 Murders per 100k = 1755 NICS Checks per Murder
Of course the number of legally owned firearms per murder is much, much higher because people don't replace their guns every year. I have a legally owned handgun that hasn't been sold at retail in over 100 years. Still, it's a good indicator of the level of firearms ownership in a state.
So, if more legal guns equals more murders than we should see a fairly consistent ratio of murders to NICS checks - except that is not what the data shows.
For instance, New Hampshire has a very low murder rate of 1.1 per 100k - and a very high rate of firearms ownership, resulting in a ratio of 9598 NICS checks per murder. At the other end of the spectrum, New Jersey has a murder rate slightly below the national average (4.4 per 100k) and the lowest NICS rate in the nation, resulting in a ratio of 234 NICS checks per murder.
Consider these charts - if the anti-gun rights activists are correct and more guns cause more murders, than the bars should be close together.
Number of NICS Checks per Homicide
All states above have slightly lower than average homicide rates of 3.1 - 4.5 per 100k
What about states with high murder rates? Is there a relationship there?
Number of NICS Checks per Homicide
All states above have higher than average homicide rates of 6.0 per 100k or above
Again, no relationship is seen between legal gun ownership and homicides - even in states with the highest murder rates. There is, however, one area of consistency:
Number of NICS Checks per Homicide
All states above have lower than average homicide rates of 1.8 per 100k or below
When we look at states with the lowest murder rates - we find a very high rate of NICS checks per murder - every state in the bottom six has a high rate of legal firearms ownership. In fact, comparing the states with the highest homicide rate to those with the lowest rates, every state with a high homicide rate has a low rate of legal gun ownership. In fact, they have an index ratio of below 2,000 and in 6 of 9 cases the ratio was below the national average - meaning there are actually fewer, not more legal guns in these states. In contrast, as a result of very high legal gun ownership rates, all but one of the low homicide rate states has a ratio of above 4,000!
The bottom line: If there is any relationship between murder rates and legal gun ownership it is the reverse of the anti-gun rights claims - more legally owned guns are associated with lower, rather than hugher murder rates.
John Lott is right: More guns does equal less crime.
Full data is below:
| State | 2012 | NICS per 100k | NICS per Homicide |
| Utah | 1.8 | 46898 | 26054.44 |
| Kentucky | 4.5 | 78703 | 17489.56 |
| New Hampshire | 1.1 | 10557 | 9597.27 |
| Montana | 2.7 | 16888 | 6254.81 |
| Wyoming | 2.4 | 13986 | 5827.50 |
| Idaho | 1.8 | 10261 | 5700.56 |
| Iowa | 1.5 | 8524 | 5682.67 |
| Minnesota | 1.8 | 9730 | 5405.56 |
| Vermont | 1.3 | 6728 | 5175.38 |
| Maine | 1.9 | 8629 | 4541.58 |
| South Dakota | 3 | 13624 | 4541.33 |
| West Virginia | 3.9 | 15718 | 4030.26 |
| Alaska | 4.1 | 14616 | 3564.88 |
| North Dakota | 4 | 13952 | 3488.00 |
| Oregon | 2.4 | 8287 | 3452.92 |
| Colorado | 3.1 | 10208 | 3292.90 |
| Kansas | 2.9 | 9176 | 3164.14 |
| Washington | 3 | 8785 | 2928.33 |
| Wisconsin | 3 | 8676 | 2892.00 |
| Nebraska | 2.9 | 5758 | 1985.52 |
| Oklahoma | 5.7 | 11279 | 1978.77 |
| Massachusetts | 1.8 | 3500 | 1944.44 |
| Connecticut | 4.1 | 7906 | 1928.29 |
| Arkansas | 5.9 | 11150 | 1889.83 |
| Indiana | 4.7 | 8691 | 1849.15 |
| Tennessee | 6 | 10889 | 1814.83 |
| Illinois | 5.8 | 9831 | 1695.00 |
| Virginia | 3.8 | 6387 | 1680.79 |
| Pennsylvania | 5.4 | 8781 | 1626.11 |
| Texas | 4.4 | 7060 | 1604.55 |
| Missouri | 6.5 | 10228 | 1573.54 |
| Alabama | 7.1 | 11070 | 1559.15 |
| New Mexico | 5.6 | 8589 | 1533.75 |
| Nevada | 4.5 | 6583 | 1462.89 |
| Ohio | 4.3 | 6274 | 1459.07 |
| Mississippi | 7.4 | 10035 | 1356.08 |
| North Carolina | 4.9 | 6178 | 1260.82 |
| South Carolina | 6.9 | 7765 | 1125.36 |
| Arizona | 5.5 | 5934 | 1078.91 |
| Georgia | 5.9 | 5934 | 1005.76 |
| Florida | 5.2 | 5212 | 1002.31 |
| Louisiana | 10.8 | 9500 | 879.63 |
| Michigan | 7 | 5596 | 799.43 |
| Rhode Island | 3.2 | 2496 | 780.00 |
| California | 5 | 3611 | 722.20 |
| Hawaii | 2.1 | 1359 | 647.14 |
| Delaware | 6.2 | 3876 | 625.16 |
| New York | 3.5 | 2172 | 620.57 |
| Maryland | 6.3 | 2738 | 434.60 |
| New Jersey | 4.4 | 1030 | 234.09 |
NICS check data obtained from this article
Murder rates from FBI stats for 2012
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