Just days after the fatal Washington naval yard shooting two reported were released that suggested more guns don't mean a safer nation.
A study released Wednesday by the American Journal of Medicine looked at data on gun ownership, violent crime, and mental illness from 27 industrialized countries, the Los Angeles Times reported.
America had an average of 88.8 guns per 100 people, while Japan had only 0.6, CNN reported. In the U.S. there were 10.2 deaths per 100,000 people, in Japan there were about 0.06.
"This argues against the notion of more guns translating into less crime," lead authorDoctor Sripal Bangalore, a cardiologist and director of the cardiovascular outcomes group at New York University School of Medicine, said.
South Africa won the "most guns award" with 12.7 firearms for every 100 people. Despite the drastically higher gun ownership rate than the U.S., South Africa had a similar number of gun related deaths as America; 9.41 for every 100,000 residents.
The study also looked for a link between mental illness higher crime rates. They were able to find one, but it was weaker than the correlation between gun ownership and death.
"The gun ownership rate was a strong and independent predictor of firearm-related death, whereas the predictive power of mental illness burden was of borderline significance," the investigators said, CNN reported. "Regardless of exact cause and effect, the current study debunks the widely quoted hypothesis that guns make a nation safer."
The second study published in the American Journal of Public Health analyzed data from the U.S. exclusively, they compared gun-related demographics in different states, the LA Times reported.
The study found the higher per capita gun ownership, the higher the rate of death-by-firearm. The finding still rang true even when other factors, such as urbanization, poverty rates, and alcohol use, were taken into account.
Garen Wintemute, of UC Davis, believes it is unclear if more people own guns in areas with higher rates of violent death, or if the deaths are related to more firearm ownership.
