What about your neighbors in Austria, Finland, Iceland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, or Norway? Because tons of those neighbors also own guns, but you aren't re

What about your neighbors in Austria, Finland, Iceland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, or Norway? Because tons of those neighbors also own guns, but you aren't really any more likely to get shot there than you are in Germany (all of those countries have less than 3 deaths by firearms per 100k people). And if you're just looking at crime that is not intentionally self-inflicted, you're looking at less than 1 death per 100k. Almost all international statistics on gun ownership and gun violence in developed countries show a direct relationship between the two...at least until you take out the largest outlier, the United States. Then that relationship completely disappears. Because you aren't more likely to die because more people own guns. You're more likely to die when your neighbors are poor. A more rigorous approach, which keeps the US "outlier" but also doesn't discard developing countries shows an extremely strong relationship with crime: poverty. Specifically the number of people living below the poverty line. The US, despite it's level of wealth and development, has a huge poverty problem, and that poverty problem turns into violent crime problems in the US just like it does literally everywhere else in the world. Your neighbors in Austria, Finland, Iceland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, and Norway have figured it out: actual functioning gun regulation that still liberally allows for gun ownership (even scary assault weapons!), but stronger emphasis on a well functioning economic society. It's quite a bit ironic that the gun control policies that the US left so vigorously pushes for won't really have a measurable effect, but the poverty-reduction measures that they have all but abandoned actually would. I really wish they could be steered in the right direction, but I've given up hope.