You're clearly looking to veer this into a traditional debate along traditional lines. I don't think you'll find anyone in sociology who believes that any civic

You're clearly looking to veer this into a traditional debate along traditional lines. I don't think you'll find anyone in sociology who believes that any civic problems are monocausal. People who make these kinds of arguments are usually trying to ensure that, on a list of correlation coefficients, your favored cause is not considered highly correlative or "the sole problem," in your words. Inevitably, your next argument will be whataboutism for various other correlations you'd prefer we all look at. Actually, you'll find that the correlation coefficient between gun availability and homicides/suicides involving a firearm are quite high across countries (0.7 - 0.9) [1,2]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1485564/pdf/cmaj00266-0071.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1485564/pdf/cma... [2] https://journals.lww.com/jtrauma/Abstract/2000/12000/Firearm_Availability_and_Homicide_Rates_across_26.1.aspx https://journals.lww.com/jtrauma/Abstract/2000/12000/Firearm...