Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Reassessing the Association between Gun Availability and Homicide at the Cross-National Level

  • Published:
American Journal of Criminal Justice Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper had two objectives. First, to examine the association between gun availability, gun homicide, and homicide in a manner that better accounts for potential simultaneity than previous cross-national research. Second, to examine the manner that the relationship between gun availability and violence is shaped by socio-historical and cultural context. The results lend little support to the notion that gun availability operates uniformly across nations to influence levels of violence. Rather, these results suggest that the nature of the relationship between gun availability and violence is shaped by the socio-historical and cultural processes occurring across nations.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. When considering the relationship between gun availability and homicide, instrumental variables must meet three conditions. First, they must be highly correlated with actual levels of gun availability. Second, they must not be correlated with the error term. Third, they must not affect homicide rates. Hoskin (2001) did not include instrumental variables that meet these conditions in his models. Nor did he provide results from post estimation tests that can support the notion that his instruments were valid. This raises the possibility that the models reported by Hoskin (2001) were misspecified.

  2. For a detailed discussion of cultural theories of homicide see Corzine et al. (1999)

  3. Available online at http://www.siuc.edu/~fsolt/swiid/swiid.html

  4. Post hoc analyses conducted using gross Gini indicators did not differ substantially from analyses using the net Gini indicator.

  5. We also considered the possibility that lagged gun homicide and homicide drove levels of gun availability (i.e. the reciprocal effects of crime on gun availability). These models showed no lagged effects of gun homicide on gun availability.

  6. We also explored combinations of the advanced nations such as including Asian industrial nations or other non-Western nations. Some differences were also found between the models that included industrial nations and those Western nations.

  7. The number of observations decreased substantially in the regional models. As such, the .10 alpha level was reported in the tables that included these models. This is common in cross-national research (cf. Pratt & Godsey, 2003).

References

  • Anderson, E. (1999). Code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city. New York: W.W. Norton Press.

  • Azrael, D., Cook, P., & Miller, M. (2001). State and Local Prevalence of Firearm Ownership: Measurement, Structure, and Trends. National Bureau of Economic Research (8570).

  • Bennett, R. R. (1991). Development and crime: a cross-national, time series analysis of competing models. The Sociological Quarterly, 32(3), 343–363.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berkowitz, L. (1983). Aversively stimulated aggression: some parallels and differences in research with animals and humans. American Psychologist, 38, 1134–1144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berkowitz, L., & Lepage, A. (1967). Weapons as aggression eliciting stimuli. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 7, 202–207.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cook, P. J. (1982). The role of firearms in violent crime. In M. E. Wolfgang & N. A. Weiner (Eds.), Criminal violence (pp. 236–291). Beverly Hills: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cook, P. J. (1991). The technology of personal violence. In M. Tonry (Ed.), Crime and justice (Vol. 14, pp. 1–71). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cook, P., & Ludwig, J. (2003). P. Cook. In J. Ludwig & P. Cook (Eds.), Evaluating gun policy: Effects on guns and violence (pp. 74–120). Washington D.C: Brookings Institute Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cook, P. J., & Ludwig, J. (2004). Does gun prevalence affect teen gun carrying after all? Criminology, 42(1), 27–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Corzine, J., Huff-Corzine, L., & Whitt, H. P. (1999). Cultural and subcultural theories of crime. In M. D. Smith & M. A. Zahn (Eds.), Homicide: A sourcebook of social research. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cox, A. A. (2007). Aiming for manhood: the transformations of guns into objects of American masculinity. In C. F. Springwood (Ed.), Open fire. New York: Berg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Felson, R. B. (1996). Big people hit little people: sex differences in physical power and interpersonal violence. Criminology, 34(3), 433–452.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gartner, R. (1990). The victims of homicide: a temporal and cross-national comparison. American Sociological Review, 55, 92–106.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hemenway, D., & Miller, M. (2000). Firearm availability and homicide rates across 26 high-income countries. The Journal of Trauma, 49(6), 3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hemenway, D., Shinoda-Tagawa, T., & Miller, M. (2002). Firearm availability and female homicide victimization rates among 25 populous high-income countries. Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association, 52(2), 100–104.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hepburn, L. M., & Hemenway, D. (2003). Firearm availability and homicide: a review of the literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 9, 417–440.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horowitz, R. (1983). Honor and the American dream: Culture and identity in a Chicano community. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

  • Hoskin, A. W. (2001). Armed Americans: the impact of firearm availability on national homicide rates. Justice Quarterly, 18(3), 569–592.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsiao, C. (2003). Analysis of panel data. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Jacobs, D., & Richardson, A. M. (2008). Economic inequality and homicide in the developed nations from 1975 to 1995. Homicide Studies, 12(1), 28–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kenney, D. A. (1975). Cross-lagged panel correlation: a test for spuriousness. Psychological Bulletin, 82(6), 887–903.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Killias, M. (1993a). Gun ownership, suicide, and homicide: An international perspective. In A. A. Frate, U. Zvekic, & J. J. M. van Dijk (Eds.), Understanding crime: Experiences of crime and crime control. Rome: UNICRI.

    Google Scholar 

  • Killias, M. (1993b). International correlations between gun ownership and rates of homicide and suicide. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 148(10), 1721–1725.

    Google Scholar 

  • Killias, M., van Kesteren, J., & Rindlisbacher, M. (2001). Guns, violent crime, and suicide in 21 countries. Canadian Journal of Criminology, 43(4), 429–448.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleck, G. (1979). Capital punishment, gun ownership, and homicide. The American Journal of Sociology, 84, 882–910.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kleck, G. (1984). The relationship between gun ownership levels and rates of violence in the United States. In D. B. Kates Jr. (Ed.), Firearms and violence: issues of public policy (pp. 99–135). Cambridge: Ballinger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleck, G. (1997). Targeting guns: Firearms and their control. New York: Walter de Gruyter, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleck, G., & Delone, M. A. (1993). Victim resistance and offender weapon effects in robbery. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 9, 55–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kleck, G., & McElrath, K. (1991). The effects of weaponry and human violence. Social Forces, 69(3), 669–692.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleck, G., & Patterson, E. B. (1993). The impact of gun control and gun ownership levels on violence rates. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 9(249), 288.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kohn, A. (2004). Shooters: myths and realities of America’s gun cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kopel, D. (1992). The samurai, the mountie, and the cowboy: Should America adopt the gun controls of other democracies? Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krug, E. G., Powell, K. E., & Dahlberg, L. L. (1998). Firearm-related deaths in the United States and 35 other high- and upper-middle income countries. International Journal of Epidemiology, 7, 214–221.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lester, D. (1991). Crime as opportunity: a test of the hypothesis with European homicide rates. British Journal of Criminology, 31, 186–188.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lott, J. R. J. (2000). More guns less crime: Understanding crime and gun control laws (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lott, J. R. J., & Mustard, D. B. (1997). Crime, deterrence, and right-to-carry concealed handguns. The Journal of Legal Studies, 26, 1–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Magaddino, J. P., & Medoff, M. H. (1984). An empirical analysis of federal and state firearm control laws. In D. B. Kates Jr. (Ed.), Firearms and violence: Issues of public policy (pp. 101–112). Cambridge: Ballinger.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDowall, D. (1991). Firearm availability and homicide rates in Detroit, 1951–1986. Social Forces, 69, 1085–1099.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDowall, D., & Loftin, C. (1983). Collective security and the demand for legal handguns. The American Journal of Sociology, 88(6), 1146–1161.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Messner, S. F., Raffalovich, L. E., & Sutton, G. M. (2010). Poverty, infant mortality, and homicide rates in cross-national perspective: assessments of criterion and construct validity. Criminology, 48(2), 509–537.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Messner, S. F., & Rosenfeld, R. (1997). Political restraint of the market and levels of criminal homicide: a cross-national application of institutional-anomie theory. Social Forces, 75(4), 1393–1416.

    Google Scholar 

  • Messner, S. F., & Rosenfeld, R. (1999). Social structure and homicide: Theory and research. In M. D. Smith & M. A. Zahn (Eds.), Homicide: A sourcebook of social research. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neopolitan, J. L. (1994). Cross-national variation in crime rates: the case of Latin America. International Criminal Justice Review, 4, 4–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ortega, S. T., Corzine, J., Burnett, C., & Poyer, T. (1992). Modernization, age structure, and regional context: a cross-national study of crime. Sociological Sprectrum, 12(257–277).

    Google Scholar 

  • Pratt, T. C., & Cullen, F. T. (2005). Assessing the macro-level predictors and theories of crime: A meta analysis. In M. Tonry (Ed.), Crime and justice: A review of research (Vol. 32, pp. 373–450). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pratt, T. C., & Godsey, T. W. (2003). Social support, inequality, and homicide: a cross-national test of an integrated theoretical model. Criminology, 41(3), 611–643.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pridemore, W. A. (2001). Using newly available homicide data to debunk two myths about violence in an international context. Homicide Studies, 5(3), 267–275.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pridemore, W. A. (2003). Demographic, temporal, and spatial patterns of homicide rates in Russia. European Sociological Review, 19, 41–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pridemore, W. A. (2005). Ruling Russia: Law, crime, and justice in a changing society. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pridemore, W. A. (2008). A methodological addition to the cross-national empirical literature on social structure and homicide: A first test of the poverty-homicide thesis. Criminology, 46(1), 133–154.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reed, J. S. (1982). My tears spoiled my aim and other reflections on Southern culture. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rengert, G., & Wasilchick, J. (1985). Suburban burglary: A time and place for everything. Springfield: Charles Thomas.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saar, J. (2004). Crime, crime control and criminology in post-communist Estonia. European Journal of Criminology, 1, 505–531.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Savolainen, J., Lehti, M., & Kivivuori, J. (2008). Historical origins of a cross-national puzzle: homicide in Finland, 1750 to 2000. Homicide Studies, 12(1), 67–89.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Springwood, C. F. (2007). Gun scapes: toward a global geography of the firearm. In C. F. Springwood (Ed.), Open fire: Understanding global gun cultures. New York: Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Squires, P. (2000). Gun control or gun culture: Firearms, violence, and society. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stamatel, J. P. (2006). Incorporating socio-historical context into quantitative cross-national criminology. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, 30(2), 178–207.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stamatel, J. P. (2009). Correlates of national-level homicide variation in post-communist East-central Europe. Social Forces, 87(3), 1423–1448.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sutton, J. R. (2004). The political economy of imprisonment in affluent Western democracies, 1960–1990. American Sociological Review, 69, 170–189.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swidler, A. (1986). Culture in action. American Sociological Review, 51, 273–286.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tark, J., & Kleck, G. (2004). Resisting crime: the effects of victim action on the outcomes of crimes. Criminology, 42(4), 861–909.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Unnithan, N. P., Huff-Corzine, L., Corzine, J., & Whitt, H. P. (1994). The currents of lethal violence: An integrated model of suicide and homicide. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wellford, C. F. (2004). Firearms and violence: a critical review. Washington DC: National Academies Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolfgang, M. E. (1958). Patterns in criminal homicide. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • World Bank. (2011). World bank indicators. from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator.

  • Worrall, J. L., & Pratt, T. C. (2004). Estimation issues associated with time-series—cross-section analysis in criminology. Western Criminology Review, 5(1), 35–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wright, J. D., & Rossi, P. H. (1986). Armed and considered dangerous: A survey of felons and their firearms. Hawthorne: Aldine de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zimring, F., & Hawkins, G. (1997). Crime is not the problem: lethal violence in America. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Criminal Justice, Wayne State University, 3263 Faculty/Administration Building, Detroit, MI, 48202, USA

    Irshad Altheimer

  2. University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Matthew Boswell

Authors
  1. Irshad Altheimer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  2. Matthew Boswell
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Irshad Altheimer.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 5 Nations included in analyses
Full size table
Table 6 Correlations and descriptive statistics for nations included in analysis (N = 233)
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Altheimer, I., Boswell, M. Reassessing the Association between Gun Availability and Homicide at the Cross-National Level. Am J Crim Just 37, 682–704 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-011-9147-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-011-9147-x

Keywords