> ...If there is a strong geometric (linear,
> exponential, etc.) correlation between the number of guns available and
the
> number of deaths, where most of the variance is explained by this one
> correlation, then all other extraneous factors such as religious,
political,
> racial, educational or even environmental factors are rendered secondary.

For those who want to play with the numbers, you can go to:

http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10.html

I ran a query for 1999-2000 for males 15-24 for firearm homicides and got
this result:

Sex   Year Deaths Population    Crude Rate
Males 1999 3569   19334049    18.4596615
Males 2000 3548   19635939    18.06890926

So we should be able to conclude that the number of guns was slightly
reduced or remained about the same from 1999-2000.

This number did not include suicides, here are the results for the same
group:

Sex   Year  Deaths Population Crude Rate
Males 1999  2083   19334049   10.77373912
Males 2000  2043   19635939   10.40439166

Be forewarned, you can lose a lot of your workday at this site as it allows
you to slice and dice the numbers in all sorts of ways.  ;-)

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