More Guns, Less Crime in '09

American Thinker ^ | December 30, 2009 | Joe Gimenez

[neverdem]

Americans went on binges buying guns and ammunition in early 2009, worried that a radical leftist president and Democrat-dominated Congress would violate their Second-Amendment rights to keep and bear arms. The effects? Less murder, robbery, rape, and property crime, according to an FBI report released Monday. This gives the young president and Democrat Congress at least one proud but unintended accomplishment for which they'll never claim credit.

Indeed, gun buyers were out in droves in late 2008 and early 2009. While it's easy to infer that increased gun ownership figures align precisely with the drop in crime in the same calendar period, you won't see that headline in the New York Times, despite their penchant for such inferences about increases in crime coinciding with increasing "guns on the street."

The gun-buying started shortly before, and then took off after, Obama's election. The Toronto Star reported a 15% increase of 108,000 more FBI background checks in October 2008 than during the same month in 2007. People were already anticipating the dire consequences of an Obama victory. Then, in November 2008, the number of FBI background checks on applicants buying guns spiked 42% from the previous year. The FBI performed 12.7 million background checks in 2008, compared to 11.2 million in 2007, a 13% increase.

More evidence of rampant gun-buying loads up in the states. Through June 2009, the Texas Department of Public Safety received a monthly average of 12,700 applications for concealed handgun licenses, up 46% from the average in 2007. Even the New York Times noted how gun sales were up in 2009; in a June story, it focused on its less sophisticated neighbors in New Jersey. Even in liberal Massachusetts, gun permits surged 15% over the last two years (after falling several years before that).

While background checks and applications for concealed handgun licenses don't directly equate to the number of new guns on the street -- some applicants are refused, and applications can include multiple guns at the same time of purchase -- the numbers do indicate that more law-abiding Americans had new or enhanced arms in the first six months of 2009. Most criminals don't subject themselves to background checks.

(This is a good place to note that "new guns on the street" is just a liberal scare cliché we should not carelessly adopt. These statistics indicate the real dynamic: gun purchases and concealed licenses acquisitions are made predominantly by law-abiding citizens taking their guns home with them from the store, for self-defense, hunting, and target-shooting purposes.)

But shouldn't more guns equate to more murders and other violent crime? Only if you live in liberal never-never land.

That certainly has not been the case in early 2009. Guns are purchased so that good people can protect themselves against bad people. And moreover, self-protection is a basic human right, despite the fact that our new wise Latina Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor couldn't bring herself to acknowledge that this summer.

The newspapers west of the Hudson River are chock full of stories in which law-abiding citizens protected themselves by using guns. And these are just the incidents that are reported. The Armed Citizen blog does a great job of capturing these stories in their raw form, and every thinking American needs to make his own inferences about the value of guns in these situations: They prevent people from becoming statistics. Go through the news reports compiled on the Armed Citizen blog and make your own count of people who refused to become statistics.

For instance, in May, eleven students in Atlanta avoided becoming murder statistics thanks to the bravery of one among them who had a gun in his backpack. He used it to kill one robber and injure another. Chillingly, the news reports describe how the robbers were counting their bullets to make sure they had enough to kill their victims. One of the robbers was about to rape a woman as well. That's at least thirteen fewer violent crimes (murder, rape, robbery) that did not need to be included in the FBI's crime report for the first half of 2009.

As 2009 winds down, the Democratic Party deserves an off-handed "thank you" for inspiring more law-abiding citizens to purchase weapons and protect themselves from bad people, at least in the first half of the year.

But even while giving them that tribute, it's important to reflect that the only direct result of their gun control efforts in the past -- the Clinton administration's regulation forbidding U.S. military personnel from carrying personal firearms -- resulted in the deaths of thirteen people and an unborn infant in Fort Hood.

Sadly, those deaths will add to an increase in the second half of 2009's statistics -- and renewed calls for gun control legislation, to be sure.

[HiTech RedNeck]

[Guns] prevent people from becoming statistics.

At least, from becoming GRIM ones lol.

[rbosque]

My Rugar .45 by my bed will ensure I’ll live through a robbery. If libs don’t want to buy them, that means there’s less of them.

[DarthVader]

The thugs know the citizenry is buying guns and they are also reading regularly about how many of their fellow criminals are getting blown to smithereens by armed citizens.

[neverdem]

Why Regular Americans Are Turning Away From Democrats

If GOP wins big in 2010, credit California's Rep. [Kevin] McCarthy

Fort Hood Denial: Why the hard Left can’t accept the Islamic roots of Nidal Hasan’s shooting

Uranium Is So Last Century — Enter Thorium, the New Green Nuke Ignore page 2. It's a mangled rehash of page 1.

Some noteworthy articles about politics, foreign or military affairs, IMHO, FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.

[NoLibZone]

Not only has crime gone down with the astronomical rise in guns sales but it’s also down with a high unemployment rate.

Libs lost two arguments here.

[Gaffer]

.... is causing a drop in crime may be true, but is not shown by that report in any way, and cannot be proven....

Funny, coming from a 'liberal' (leaning that way, anyway). I wish you libs would apply that same sort of reasoning to your whole AGW 'theory' [hah! theory]. The liberal 'scientific' process is to hold a grudge against humanity for it is the source of all evil, take up a new hairbrained cause like AGW, tweak data that can be tweaked, fabricate data that cannot, and then to 'suggest' new ways of control and regulation that ONLY the intellectual liberals can manage.

Browse all you want...doesn't make a difference to me; you won't learn anything from it.

[borntobeagle]

Thanks for stopping by. Keep reading.

[papertyger]

What a petty little creature!

It’s not our report d**khead: it’s the FBI’s.

How about learning to read for comprehention before presuming to analyse logical fallacies.

[Wonder Warthog]

"I don't agree with most of you, and probably never will, but at the very least use reasonable logic, without fallacies, and I can respect your argument."

ROFLMAO---look up some of your compatriots "arguments" AGAINST guns if you really want to see lack of logic and fallacies. They constantly assert that CCW will result in "Dodge City in the streets" EVERY TIME another state passes CCW legislation, despite the fact that the social experiment has been done in dozens of states now, and in NO case has "Dodge City in the streets" happened.

[papertyger]

This is a throw away account I might monitor for a bit, but don't count on it.

Don't you just love the way liberals innocently say they're "just walking the dog" when what they really mean is they're sh*tting in your yard with every intention of walking away from the pile before you can complain..

[GOPJ]

The other thing that's changed is the public "mood" toward criminals. Before the internet the public "voice" was that of the MSM ( liberal) and the voice was only concerned about the rights of thugs. The MSM would even cover the whinings of liberals standing outside prisons when monsters were being put to death - to cover their sorrow.

Not so today - a crook is shot by a home owner and the internet lights up with applause. A monster who raped and murdered a child - his death isn't covered as sad. The death is covered with cheers and joy - a monster has been put to death... In short - the tone has changed.

Criminals aren't the victims - they're fair game when they try to hurt the innocent. That's also dropping crime.

More guns, less crime. Less acceptance of criminals, fewer criminals.

[MrNatural]

The post is an article written for an on-line site and is not an in-depth treatment of the topic, and should not be taken as such. This area of study has in fact been heavily researched. You sound like someone who is no stranger to bookstores; next time you are there, pick up a copy of "More Guns, Less Crime" by John Lott. Not to buy, just to browse the appendices. You will find reference to an extensive literature that makes the case for causation.

Certainly there are other influences on the rise and fall of crime rates; demographics for one. But the level of concern in the minds of potential assailants about the likelihood of an attack being met with deadly force in defense is clearly also an influence.

[Eaker]

This is a throw away account I might monitor for a bit, but don't count on it.

This sentence alone would get this post pulled and account banned at DU or any of the other socialist sites. The fact that it is still here is a testimony to FreeRepublic.

[teeman8r]

there was evidence of the young man who purchased a gun and had it in his back pack and foiled a robbery, several rapes and 11 murders... reducing the crime stats those crimes would have increased...

i think that is evidence... you apparently don’t.

teeman

[thefactor]

I was just going to post the difference between correlation and causation as well as my doubts about this post. I, however, would not have done it in such a condescending manner.

Don't act like you're doing us a favor by posting here. You're not.

The facts are these: Crime is down. Gun sales are through the roof.

However, crime is down in NYC as well, while LEGAL gun ownership in NYC is down. This lone fact does not disprove anything, but that's not the point. There are most likely many factors contributing to this drop in crime. Studies have shown that when criminals commit crimes, the possibility of their victims being armed does factor into their decision. Take that for what it's worth.

[US Navy Vet]

J5WV22EGO2
Since Dec 30, 2009
J5WV22EGO2 hasn’t created an about page.

[Allegra]

This is a throw away account I might monitor for a bit, but don't count on it. I lean more liberally, and enjoy browsing this site for some of the inane comments.

And we get a kick out of reading your judgmental and sanctimonious reflections.

We are so honored. {barf}

[Shooter 2.5]

Unarmed citizens can’t stop crime. An armed citizen can. More armed citizens, less crime.