Do we know what it is?
You seem quite confident.
Americans have 101 guns per 100 citizens. Finns have 34.2 guns per 100 citizens. Icelanders have 30.3 guns per 100 citizens.
America has 110x the murder rate than Finland has. America has 13,000x the murder rate Iceland has.
Whatever the cause is, 3x the guns ≠ 110x the murder rate (or 13,000x the murder rate).
A more interesting comparison might be to examine countries with similar murder rates to the U.S., regardless of arbitrary "developing or not developing" boxes, and ask what the two countries have in common. For instance, countries with similar murder rates to the U.S. include:
• Burundi (1.2 guns per 100 residents)
• Cuba (4.8 guns per 100 residents)
• Kazakhstan (1.3 guns per 100 residents)
• Kyrgyzstan (0.9 guns per 100 residents)
• Latvia (19 guns per 100 residents)
• Niger (0.7 guns per 100 residents)
• Rwanda (0.6 guns per 100 residents)
• Somalia (9.1 guns per 100 residents)
• Turkey (12.5 guns per 100 residents)
• Turkmenistan (3.8 guns per 100 residents)
• Ukraine (6.6 guns per 100 residents)
What about the U.S. makes it more like these countries, murder-rate-wise, than more developed countries with higher gun ownership, like Finland or Iceland (both of which have far and away higher gun ownership than all the countries on that list)?
We know it's not guns. So what's the cause?
You seem quite confident.
Americans have 101 guns per 100 citizens. Finns have 34.2 guns per 100 citizens. Icelanders have 30.3 guns per 100 citizens.
America has 110x the murder rate than Finland has. America has 13,000x the murder rate Iceland has.
Whatever the cause is, 3x the guns ≠ 110x the murder rate (or 13,000x the murder rate).
A more interesting comparison might be to examine countries with similar murder rates to the U.S., regardless of arbitrary "developing or not developing" boxes, and ask what the two countries have in common. For instance, countries with similar murder rates to the U.S. include:
• Burundi (1.2 guns per 100 residents)
• Cuba (4.8 guns per 100 residents)
• Kazakhstan (1.3 guns per 100 residents)
• Kyrgyzstan (0.9 guns per 100 residents)
• Latvia (19 guns per 100 residents)
• Niger (0.7 guns per 100 residents)
• Rwanda (0.6 guns per 100 residents)
• Somalia (9.1 guns per 100 residents)
• Turkey (12.5 guns per 100 residents)
• Turkmenistan (3.8 guns per 100 residents)
• Ukraine (6.6 guns per 100 residents)
What about the U.S. makes it more like these countries, murder-rate-wise, than more developed countries with higher gun ownership, like Finland or Iceland (both of which have far and away higher gun ownership than all the countries on that list)?
We know it's not guns. So what's the cause?