Letter: No logical link between guns and crime

Sir: It is a pity that you gave no source for the "research" that shows "strong links between guns and high crime rates" ("Government to resist calls for firearms ban", 2 May), because the figures in your chart are hardly correct.

Switzerland has a population of about 7 million people who own approximately 5 million guns, 600,000 of them assault rifles. This represents rather more than the 15 per cent of households in the chart.

No one really knows how many households contain guns in the US, but the 1990 population of 248,710,000 and the 1993 figure (source: FBI) of 16,189 murders by firearm give a rate of 65 per million. However, it is not true to say that the US has lax gun laws; they vary enormously from state to state and even city to city. New York City has ferociously strict handgun control, but a general murder rate of 23.2 per 100,000 population. In New Hampshire, where no one without a criminal record may be refused a licence to carry a concealed, loaded firearm, the general murder rate is 2.0 per 100,000 population.

Numerous studies of international figures of the kind you purport to show demonstrate no easy, logical or consistent relationship between levels of legal gun ownership and murder by firearm.

Peter Brookesmith

Kensington Rifle and

Pistol Club

London W14