Pro and con on guns

A liberal medical economist (I think) compares gun deaths to other, bigger, public health problems.
http://laudre.livejournal.com/725979.html

OTOH, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/sunday-review/more-guns-more-killing.html?smid=tw-share&_r=4&&pagewanted=all
comparing us to Guatemala may not be entirely helpful, but the article also makes claims for two cases where a strong legal change made a strong change in desired variables: Australia and Bogota. These seem closer to causal experiments than the usual correlation sifting.

And http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/ makes a lot of strong correlation claims, though I haven't read the sources.

Krugman linkes

A little note on the rapid social progress of the US. E.g. back in the halcyon Reagan days, only a minority of Americans said they approved of interracial marriage. Something of a jump during the Clinton years, then another rise with Obama... do Democratic presidencies make poll responses more liberal?
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/seneca-salem-and-stonewall/

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/obama-and-redistribution/

Just as I was sympathetic to The Spirit Level, but not entirely convinced, so Krugman, though concerned about inequality, can't agree with Stiglitz that it's directly crippling recovery.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/inequality-and-recovery/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/more-on-inequality/