God, guns and crime

Michael Shermer over at Skeptiblog had an interesting discussion on whether more God, or more guns, equal less crime. He based his discussion on his interaction with Professors Byron Johnson (More God, less crime) and John Lott (More guns, less crime).

Both these premises could of course lead to massive correlation-causation confusion. Shermer found the evidence advanced by John Lott much more convincing than Johnson's. It should be noted that John Lott is a very controversial figure, but that despite questions about his methodology and even ethics, on the whole his premise that more guns equal less crime has held up, at least in developed countries.

According to Shermer, Johnson's conviction that more God equals less crime, is based primarily on prison conversions. Shermer is very skeptical about prison conversions and I share his skepticism. I am not aware of research that shows what percentage of felons who converted to any religion in prison, remained in and practiced their new found faith after prison (and of course did not engage in crime again).

Sadly, the contrary may be true. Shermer quoted Gregory Paul from his well-known 2005 study: "In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies,..." I doubt that these correlations will hold true in a country such as South Africa, but this should be food for thought in religious communities everywhere.