This is a response to the letter of March 9 stating many reasons why additional restrictions on gun won’t help (“More restrictions won’t resolve gun violence,” PDN).
Instead of an argument based in speculation, let me try one based on fact.
The following is from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation,which tracks gun violence worldwide:
The IHME estimates what it would expect a country’s rate of gun violence deaths to be based solely on its socioeconomic status.
Based by that measure, the US should only be seeing .79 deaths per 100,000 people — almost five times less that it’s actual rate of 3.85 in 2016 (“Gun violence: How the U.S. compares with other countries,” NPR, Oct. 6, 2017).
All of the so-called western democracies have the same basic laws, crime rates, mental health issues and depictions of violence in films and video games.
The only real difference is the number of guns in civilian hands.
Why gun advocates can’t make this connection is a mystery.
After all, if guns made you safer, the U.S. would be the safest country on earth.
Robert Pyles,
Sequim