Howard Nemerov over at examiner.com brings an interesting UN study on gun control to our attention.

Between 2003 and 2007, Small Arms Survey compiled civilian firearms inventories for various countries around the world. The European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics – 2006, published under the auspices of the Council of Europe, compiled crime data for the greater European region for the years 2000-2003. This research group “included several members involved in recent UN [crime] surveys.” The latest (2003) values appear in the table below, in order to best correlate firearms ownership with murder rates (expressed as offenses per 100,000 population).

Collating Sourcebook data with SAS firearms per capita data, an interesting trend appears: Higher levels of civilian firearms ownership correlates with lower levels of homicide, and countries with the highest civilian firearms ownership averaged lower homicide rates.

Firearms Versus Homicide
Quartile	Firearms per Capita	Homicide Rate
1	0.374	1.6
2	0.147	2.5
3	0.083	2.7
4	0.020	3.5

The top quartile is comprised of developed western economies. These data contradict Annan’s assertion that firearms “damaged development prospects and imperiled human security” and the SAS assertion that firearms availability “undermined political and economic development.” The UN’s own reports prove that other factors besides gun control play a larger role in homicide rates.

The gist — which we have known all along, worldwide the more firearms per capita, the lower the homicide rate.  Maybe the founders were on to something.