Harvard study confirms More guns = Less Crime

Once again American Universities are playing catch up with common sense, but it's still refreshing to see studies that confirm what we already knew.

From: CFIF.ORG

Very simply, the ability of law-abiding citizens to possess firearms has helped reduce violent crime in America.

Now, a Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy study shows that this is not just an American phenomenon. According to the study, worldwide gun ownership rates do not correlate with higher murder or suicide rates. In fact, many nations with high gun ownership have significantly lower murder and suicide rates.

In their piece entitled Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and some Domestic Evidence, Don B. Kates and Gary Mauser eviscerate "the mantra that more guns mean more deaths and that fewer guns, therefore, mean fewer deaths." In so doing, the authors provide fascinating historical insight into astronomical murder rates in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and they dispel the myths that widespread gun ownership is somehow unique to the United States or that America suffers from the developed world's highest murder rate.

It's great to hear this coming from Harvard Law. I'd recommend printing it out, reading it, highlighting a few passages and slip it in a catalog envelope with a letter and send it off to your Congressmen and Senators explaining that this is one of the many reasons why you support less restrictions on gun ownership.

You can find a copy of the study at Harvard Law: PDF (best to Save and read) and you can also find it at law.bepress.com