Make America Great Again Ship Switzerland
There's a reason they don't call information technology Factbook. The latest example of a misleading factoid gone viral casts restrictive gun policy as a backfiring failure, with two countries as case studies.
On one side of the mail service is Honduras, with a population of 8.two million people and a government that "bans citizens from owning guns." Honduras has "the highest homicide rate in the entire world," the post claims.
On the other side is similarly populated Switzerland, which "requires citizens to own guns" and has the "everyman homicide rate in the entire globe."
A reader wanted to know if the mail service'due south counterintuitive message is right.
The source of the claim was non immediately articulate, though nosotros found some examples of websites and figures repeating the bulletin.
Here's why it'southward flawed.
Population
We'll intermission on the numbers and start with an overriding issue with the mail's premise. It holds up population as the sole constant that justifies comparing these countries' gun policy and violence.
Fifty-fifty though Honduras and Switzerland are No. 94 and No. 96 in the CIA's list of countries past population, this metric alone is not enough reason to compare the upshot of dissimilar gun control laws in either country.
In that location'south really no point in comparison the challenges of Honduras, a lower center-income country in Key America beleaguered by corruption and violence from the drug trade and gangs, to Switzerland, an affluent country nestled in western Europe.
"Of form, what you desire to do is compare countries where everything else is the same, except for guns and gun laws, to see if guns and gun laws have any event," said David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Inquiry Center at the Harvard School of Public Health. "Switzerland and Republic of honduras are non even close to being the aforementioned in many aspects of their lodge that will influence the levels of violence and homicide."
The mail ignores a litany of cultural, political and socioeconomic factors that play into gun violence, or a lack thereof. The gross domestic product per capita, to proper name one, is $2,435 in Honduras and $84,733 in Switzerland, according to the Globe Depository financial institution.
"The determinants of homicide rates are multiple and not very well understood, and guns laws may indeed be i among many, many determinants," said Christopher Mikton, World Health Organization technical officer for violence prevention. "But to betoken them out as the sole cause is incorrect."
But even if you lot choose to ignore the macrofactors, the post messes up the particulars, also.
Rates
Honduras indisputably has the highest homicide rate in the world, with estimates ranging from a rate of 90.4 intentional homicides per 100,000 people in 2012, according to the United nations, to 103.9 per 100,000 population, co-ordinate to the World Health Organization. This was significantly higher than the rates of neighboring El Salvador (41.two), which has reduced its homicide rate following a truce amid gangs, the UN said in its 2013 Global Study on Homicide.
The vast bulk, more eighty percent, of those homicides are linked to a firearm. Lethal shootings nearly often occur in urban centers and areas along the Atlantic coast and border regions, which suggests the violence is linked to drug trafficking patterns and gangs, according to a report on Honduras by the Small-scale Arms Survey, a Swiss-based research project.
Switzerland'southward homicide rate is amidst the lowest in the world, but the meme goes likewise far in saying information technology's the very lowest. Past the United nations and WHO measures, the most recent Swiss intentional homicide rate is 0.6 deaths per population.
Several countries — including Japan and Singapore, which have very strict gun laws, as well equally Iceland and Grand duchy of luxembourg — posted lower rates than Switzerland in either 1 or both of the United nations and WHO data sets.
Laws
The post is incorrect about the gun laws in each state.
Honduras doesn't "ban" citizens from owning guns.
The Small Arms Survey says the nigh popular gun in Republic of honduras is the 9mm handgun, "which tin can exist legally purchased and owned" — undermining the meme's merits that Hondurans are banned from owning guns. Because this weapon is banned in nearby United mexican states, the UN has said the divergence in laws fosters the exchange of illegal weapons between the countries.
An analysis of gun laws in six Latin American countries by Insight Crime, a foundation that studies law-breaking and policy in Primal America, characterizes Honduras' regulations as "lite" compared to the "restrictive" laws of Brazil and Mexico and "moderate" laws of Venezuela and Chile. Uruguay too has "light" gun control laws only an incredibly smaller homicide rate than Honduras of about 5.ix percentage per 100,000 people. (It also has less organized offense.)
The disparity in homicide rates and gun control laws showed "gun legislation, on its own, means little in terms of gun violence," the Insight Crime analysis found.
The gun civilisation in Switzerland is altogether different. The country boasts the third-highest firearm buying per capita rate, abaft the elevation-ranked U.s. and Yemen. Republic of honduras is No. 88.
A 2012 Time story about Switzerland's gun culture notes how citizens agree their right to ain guns as a patriotic duty, and Swiss children often join sharpshooting groups to hone their skills.
Only, again, Switzerland does non require "citizens to ain guns."
The government issues a gun to men for their mandatory military service, but the gun is taken home under "advisedly controlled conditions without ammunition," said Mikton, the WHO officer who is as well Swiss.
"As before long as they take finished their war machine service — typically around 30 years of historic period — they have to return the gun," he said.
Swiss gun laws are more strict than the post implies, though less tough than some other European Marriage countries. Swiss constabulary requires mandatory background checks on civilian handgun purchases and licenses for the concealed bear of weapons, and it bans automatic weapons.
Our ruling
The viral post aims to jolt readers with a counterintuitive implication: Gun laws can lead to deadly unintended consequences.
Merely the post is flawed on many levels. The comparing based on similar population size alone is shallow, and not-scientific. Moreover, Switzerland does not have the world's lowest homicide level, and the post is flatly wrong nigh the laws in each country.
This claim rates Pants on Fire!
Source: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/sep/30/viral-image/viral-flawed-post-compares-honduras-switzerland-gu/
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