It is great to see someone apply mathematics to this issue and to see someone use the best currently available data. That being said I would like to see some further analysis on this topic. I am not sure if you have the data to do these analyses but I would like to see the impact of a few other considerations when attempting to determine the impact of gun availability on homicide rates. I also have questions on some of your data and any possible filters you may have made.

Here are some of my concerns for about the data, but I do understand that the limited availability of data could restrict these analyses. For example when comparing data on the expected out comes when the aggressor and the aggressed are engaged in a confrontation I would have liked to see how several factors affect outcome. Does the situation affect the outcome? If both the aggressor and the aggressed are engaged in criminal activity or are known criminals does the availability of guns affect the rate of incidents or the expected outcome? When the aggressed is not engaged or known to engage in criminal activity does that affect the expected outcome? When access to guns is limited do the aggressors use a substitution to facilitate the activity?

With these considerations and refined data I would like to see additional analysis. If a substitution is chosen to a gun how does that affect outcomes? How does legal use a gun for defense affect outcomes when the aggressor used a substitution to facilitate assault with a deadly weapon? How does use of a legally owned gun affect non gun induced homicide? When guns are readily available does the rate of assault with a deadly weapon reduce? When guns are readily available does the rate of assault with a gun reduce? Does the training of aggressed on self-defense affect the outcome?

I ask these questions not because I want to see the data used for policy reasons but because I want to be personally responsible and hope that others can get information that will lead them to be personally responsible. I understand that the study pointed out several times that limited data is available and that may result in many desired aspects to not have the data needed for analysis. I also understand that the data, since it was not collected for the intent of this study, may not be able to be used for the type of analysis I would like to see. I hope to see more analysis on this topic and with the quality and detail of the work in this study I hope that those who participated in this study are able to produce more analysis of data for this topic.

This is my first post on academic studies so I hope that everything I have said is appropriate for posting in this forum but since it is scientific curiosity I would think this acceptable.