Data says no. We have added a massive amount of guns over the past 10 years and numbers have come down. Why?
I linked an article in Atlantic that references theories by leading sociologists. Gun proliferation is not among their reasons.
No, it's not. There is no "otherwise" in the data, sorry. I'll give you a simple illustration: Let's suppose that in 2015 there were 20,000 murders by gun. In 2016 the sales of guns soar, but then only 18,000 murders by gun occurred. Now, despite the decrease how many gun deaths would there have been if guns had never been invented and sold in the first place? Obviously, ZERO. So, the true metric is not the rate of increase or decrease in actual numbers, but the actual numbers, themselves, and what the otherwise would have been.
I believe the decrease in crime in this country is related to social programs, mostly championed by Democrats, that have reduced true poverty. When I say "true poverty" I'm alluding to the fact that now almost no one goes hungry, almost everybody has air conditioning and nice TV's, there are more and affordable entertainment choices, etc. etc. In other words, the great majority of us are living comfortably now, while connected and occupied by social media. And drugs are so easy to come by, despite their illegality, it hardly makes sense for a common consumer to commit murders to get them. And on and on and on. Like I said, there are multiple reasons why crime rates have come down.... gun proliferation not among them.
Wait, you're going to "suppose" statistics, propose an alternate reality that doesn't exist, and then point to your "true" metric? I suppose if this were Star Trek, you could use the Enterprise's warp engines to go back in time and prevent the invention of guns, or travel to an alternate dimension of your choice. But this is reality. Guns will never cease to exist. I also find it interesting that in your last post, you finally concede that crime rates are down, but you can't bring yourself to acknowledge that increased private gun ownership might be a contributing factor. Hang on to your biases, dude, they're serving you well.
