Video games and firearm homicides

Aaron Carroll

March 2, 2018

I’m too tired to argue. Some have suggested that the reason we have so many gun deaths in the US is because of video games. So here’s a chart. On the x-axis you have video game spending per capita for the top ten countries in the world. On the y-axis you have firearm homicides per 100,000 pop. I don’t think it’s the video games causing gun homicides. YMMV.

Data:

	Video game spending per capita	Firearm homicides per 100,000 pop
Japan	$ 120	0
Korea	$ 79	0.02
USA	$ 74	3.43
UK	$ 62	0.06
Australia	$ 55	0.16
Canada	$ 54	0.38
Germany	$ 50	0.07
Switzerland	$ 47	0.21
France	$ 46	0.21
Ireland	$ 46	0.25

@aaronecarroll

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Aaron Carroll

Aaron E. Carroll, MD, MS is co-Editor-in-Chief of The Incidental Economist and tweets at @aaronecarroll. He is the Chief Health Officer at Indiana University. He is also a Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Associate Dean for Research Mentoring at the Indiana University School of Medicine. In addition to contributing regularly to The New York Times and the Atlantic, he is the author of four books, most recently The Bad Food Bible.

Video games and firearm homicides

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Aaron Carroll

The Incidental Economist

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