More guns equals more killing, right? Not Necessarily.
A study published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy this spring calls into question the conventional wisdom behind arguments for more strict gun control. Namely, the idea that fewer guns would equal less deadly violence.
BizPac Review cites the study and asks:
Will a Harvard man listen to Harvard research?
Probably not, if the Harvard man is Barack Obama, and what Harvard’s saying flies in the face of liberal pieties – and misconceptions and lies – about gun ownership, gun violence and gun control in the United States.
Like the recently reported CDC study about gun violence Obama commissioned himself, the message to gun grabbers is clear:
They’re wrong.
A Harvard study released in the spring – to virtually no media attention – focused on the prevalence of gun ownership in the United States versus those strict gun-control countries in Europe the left is so fond of talking about.
It was called, with disarming bluntness, “Would banning firearms reduce murder and suicide?”
Its answer was: “No.”
Looking at historical patterns in the United States from the colonial and post-colonial days, and in Europe going back to the time before guns were even invented, two Harvard researchers came to a clear conclusion:
“Nations with higher gun ownership rates … do not have higher murder or suicide rates than those with lower gun ownership…”
One key piece of evidence to support the study’s surprising conclusion? Russia. Under communist rule, the former Soviet union was largely disarmed by the government for the better part of a century, has a homicide rate four times higher than the U.S.
They authors of the study conclude with an important point: “[We] did not begin this research with any intent to ‘exonerate’ hand‐ guns, but there it is — a negative finding, to be sure, but a negative finding is nevertheless a positive contribution. It directs us where not to aim public health resources.”
In other words, if guns aren’t the true source of the problem, we’d best be honest and open about that, so we can better focus on finding real solutions.
I suspect those solutions have much more to do with reversing the breakdown of the two-parent family, and our culture’s wide-armed embrace of moral relativism.
Violence is, ultimately, a symptom of our society’s rejection of God.
We have ceased to be a society that values self-sacrificial love.
In other words, the source of the problem isn’t the number of guns on our streets. It’s the number of fathers who’ve abandoned their children.
Nathan Harden is editor of The College Fix and author of the book SEX & GOD AT YALE: Porn, Political Correctness, and a Good Education Gone Bad.
Like The College Fix on Facebook. / Follow Nathan on Twitter @NathanHarden
(Image: Stanislav Yanchenko / Wikimedia Commons
Please join the conversation about our stories on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, MeWe, Rumble, Gab, Minds and Gettr.