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Number of Crimes and Crime Index of the Year 2004 for Kennesaw, Georgia
This table is based on crime that took place in Kennesaw Georgia and is based upon a population of 26,246 served by the Kennesaw Police Department
About the Crime Data*

Crime	2004 Number	2004 Rate Per 100,000
Murder	1	3.8
Manslaughter	-	-
Rape Total	2	7.6
Rape by Force	2	7.6
Attempted Rape	-	-
Robbery Total	9	34.3
Robbery with a Gun	4	15.2
Robbery with a Knife	4	15.2
Robbery other Weapon	-	-
Strong Arm Robbery	1	3.8
Assault Total	172	655.3
Assault with a Gun	2	7.6
Assault with a Knife	4	15.2
Assault with other Weapon	5	19.1
Assault with Hands, Feet, ect.	1	3.8
Simple Assault	160	609.6
Total Violent Crime	184	701.1
Burglary Total	86	327.7
Burglary - Forcible Entry	42	160.0
Burglary - No Forcible Entry	35	133.4
Attempted Burglary	9	34.3
Larceny Total	422	1,607.9
Motor Vehicle Theft Total	45	171.5
Auto Theft	15	57.2
Truck, Bus Theft	3	11.4
Other Vehicle Theft	27	102.9
Total Property Crimes	553	2,107.0
Total of All Crimes	737	2,808.0

Year 2004 Georgia Number of Reported Crimes

						Forcible		Aggravated		Larceny-	Vehicle
Year	Population	Index	Violent	Property	Murder	Rape	Robbery	assault	Burglary	Theft	Theft
2004	8,918,129	416,873	40,217	376,656	613	2,387	13,656	23,561	82,992	249,426	44,238

Year 2004 Georgia Crime Index Rates Per 100,000 Inhabitants

						Forcible		Aggravated		Larceny-	Vehicle
Year	Population	Index	Violent	Property	Murder	Rape	Robbery	assault	Burglary	Theft	Theft
2004	8,918,129	4,674.5	451.0	4,223.5	6.9	26.8	153.1	264.2	930.6	2,796.8	496.0

Year 2004 United States Number of Reported Crimes

						Forcible		Aggravated		Larceny-	Vehicle
Year	Population	Index	Violent	Property	Murder	Rape	Robbery	Assault	Burglary	Theft	Theft
2004	293,656,842	11,679,474	1,360,088	10,319,386	16,148	95,089	401,470	847,381	2,144,446	6,937,089	1,237,851

Year 2004 United States Crime Index Rates Per 100,000 Inhabitants

						Forcible		Aggravated		Larceny-	Vehicle
Year	Population	Index	Violent	Property	Murder	Rape	Robbery	assault	Burglary	Theft	Theft
2004	293,656,842	3,977.3	463.2	3,514.1	5.5	32.4	136.7	288.6	730.3	2,362.3	421.5

Georgia's 2005 Cities crimes and Rates as reported in the FBI's September 2006 release of the "UCR for Metropolitan Statistical Areas" (MSA) -- Statistics not available for all MSA'a
Albany -- Athens Clarke County -- Atlanta Sandy Springs Marietta -- Augusta Richmond County -- Brunswick -- Chattanooga -- Columbus -- Gainesville -- Hinesville Fort Stewart -- Macon -- Rome -- Savannah -- Valdosta -- Warner Robins

US States Crime 2004 -2005 Crimes per 100,000 and Ranking

United States Crime Statistics
* United States * Alaska * Alabama * Arkansas * Arizona * California * Colorado * Connecticut * Delaware * Florida * Georgia * Hawaii * Iowa * Idaho * Illinois * Indiana * Kansas * Kentucky * Louisiana * Massachusetts * Maryland * Maine * Michigan * Minnesota * Missouri * Mississippi * Montana * North Carolina * North Dakota * Nebraska * New Hampshire * New Jersey * New Mexico * Nevada * New York * Ohio * Oklahoma * Oregon * Pennsylvania * Rhode Island * South Carolina * South Dakota * Tennessee * Texas * Utah * Virginia * Vermont * Washington D. C. * Washington * Wisconsin * West Virginia * Wyoming *

Web	www.disastercenter.com

About the Crime Data: The crime index process divides an area population into the number of reported crimes within that area to yield a ratio of crimes per 100,000 people. The use of indexing enables us to compare the crime rate between different kinds of areas and communities. In recording the number of crimes to create the crime index, crimes and population are only counted once; because of this, the reported crimes and population of a county may be less than that of a city within that county. Petty larceny below $50 and arson are not included in these statistics.

While indexing is useful in determining relative risk, it does not represent the actual risk, because the number of crimes is only compared to the estimated number of permanent residents of the jurisdiction where the crime occurred. For example, while the crime rate in the nation's Capital is very high, the actual number of people in the Capital at any time is likely to be three times the number of residents. This situation carries over to crime rates in jurisdictions that primarily operate as industrial and resort areas.

When we can, we provide a more complete breakdown of types of crime than is normally available. (Not every jurisdiction submits crime data in the format that the FBI requests.) In Normal Text are the standard categories of crime. In Italicized Text are subcategories of the standard categories. In Bold Text are sums of Violent, Property and Total Crime. Except in States with a low population, we are not providing statistics for jurisdictions with a population of less than 10,000 people. Crimes associated with jurisdictions that do not have a permanent population, such as colleges and judicial departments are not included in the statistics.

For crimes associated with students in the United States start with School-associated violent deaths and number of homicides and suicides of youth ages 5–19, by location: 1992–2002.

The statistical data displayed here is based upon information submitted by local and State law enforcement agencies to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and of population estimates for those jurisdictions.

Georgia Cities and County Crimes and Index for the Year 2004 for Jurisdictions with a population over 10,000

Acworth PD -- Albany PD -- Alpharetta PD -- Americus PD -- Athens-Clarke County -- Atlanta PD -- Augusta-Richmond County -- Bainbridge PD -- Baldwin County -- Banks County -- Barrow County -- Bartow County -- Bibb County -- Brantley County -- Brooks County -- Brunswick PD -- Bryan County -- Bulloch County -- Burke County -- Butts County -- Calhoun PD -- Camden County -- Canton PD -- Carroll County -- Carrollton PD -- Cartersville PD -- Catoosa County -- Chatham County -- Chattahoochee County -- Clayton County -- Cobb County -- Coffee County -- College Park PD -- Colquitt County -- Columbia County -- Columbus PD -- Conyers PD -- Cordele PD -- Covington PD -- Coweta County -- Crawford County -- Crisp County -- Dade County -- Dalton PD -- Dawson County -- Decatur County -- Decatur PD -- Dekalb County -- Dodge County -- Doraville PD -- Dougherty County -- Douglas County -- Douglas PD -- Douglasville PD -- Dublin PD -- Duluth PD -- East Point PD -- Effingham County -- Elbert County -- Emanuel County -- Fayette County -- Fayetteville PD -- Floyd County -- Forest Park PD -- Forsyth County -- Franklin County -- Fulton County -- Gainesville PD -- Garden City PD -- Gilmer County -- Glynn County -- Gordon County -- Grady County -- Greene County -- Griffin PD -- Gwinnett County -- Habersham County -- Hall County -- Haralson County -- Harris County -- Hart County -- Heard County -- Henry County PD -- Hinesville PD -- Houston County -- Jackson County -- Jasper County -- Jones County -- Kennesaw PD -- Kingsland PD -- Lagrange PD -- Lamar County -- Laurens County -- Lawrenceville PD -- Lee County -- Liberty County -- Lowndes County -- Lumpkin County -- Macon PD -- Madison County -- Marietta PD -- McDonough PD -- McDuffie County -- Meriwether County -- Milledgeville PD -- Mitchell County -- Monroe County -- Monroe PD -- Moultrie PD -- Murray County -- Newnan PD -- Newton County -- Oconee County -- Oglethorpe County -- Paulding County -- Peach County -- Peachtree City PD -- Perry PD -- Pickens County -- Pike County -- Polk County PD -- Putnam County -- Rabun County -- Riverdale PD -- Rockdale County -- Rome PD -- Roswell PD -- Savannah PD -- Screven County -- Smyrna PD -- Snellville PD -- Spalding County -- St. Marys PD -- Statesboro PD -- Stephens County -- Suwanee PD -- Tattnall County -- Thomas County -- Thomasville PD -- Tift County -- Tifton PD -- Toombs County -- Troup County -- Union City PD -- Union County -- Upson County -- Valdosta PD -- Vidalia PD -- Walker County -- Walton County -- Ware County -- Warner Robins PD -- Washington County -- Waycross PD -- Wayne County -- White County -- Whitfield County -- Winder PD -- Woodstock PD -- Worth County
Copyright November 2006 -- The Disaster Center

While gun ownership is a right how is it legal for a goverment to require ownership. Isn't that like requiring speech or religion (both rights as well)?

The sourcing on this article sucks! The web page links back to FR and that article sites an email. I hate to say it but it just doesn’t make for a credible story like that. So what is the deal? Is this true or not?

A copy of part of the town ordinance:

“ARTICLE I. IN GENERAL

Sec. 34-1. Heads of households to maintain firearms.
(a) In order to provide for the emergency management of the city, and further in order to provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants, every head of household residing in the city limits is required to maintain a firearm, together with ammunition therefor.
(b) Exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who suffer a physical or mental disability which would prohibit them from using such a firearm. Further exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who are paupers or who conscientiously oppose maintaining firearms as a result of beliefs or religious doctrine, or persons convicted of a felony.
(Code 1986, § 4-3-10)

Sec. 34-2. Use of firearms.
No person shall fire a gun, pistol or other firearm in the city, except in the defense of person or property, and except peace officers or military forces of this state or the United States, in the discharge of official duties.”

Sounds like a good city to live in.

The area where I live in NY is lower than the crime rate in Kennesaw, GA and we’re not required to keep a firearm.

March 25th marked the 16th anniversary of Kennesaw, Georgia's ordinance requiring heads of households (with certain exceptions) to keep at least one firearm in their homes.

"Ain't nuthin but a bunch of Cracker, Red Neck, gunototin' hicks in Kennesaw. I'll be fixin' that sitchiashun in January '09. And yall know what ahm talkin about."

the city's crime rate decreased with the simple knowledge that the entire community was armed.

Our sheriff would agree -- he thinks everyone should have a concealed carry permit.

Baldwin is very solid. He ran for VP in 2004.

btt

I’m from Atlanta and can attest to validity of the mandatory gun ownership law in Kennesaw. It works. The crime rate is lower than other areas of Atlanta. I was just telling my friends in Moscow yesterday about Kennesaw and the importance of protecting our right to own guns.

Kennesaw, no doubt, doesn’t have a Sheriff Dupnik.

I know this is kind of an old article, but I’m responding do to all of the misinformation I’ve seen on it. First of all I’m a homeowner in Kennesaw and I do not own a gun. I’m not anti-gun in any way, I’ve just personally never felt the desire or need to own one. I had never heard anything about this gun law until about a year after I started living here. I’ve never seen this law enforced or heard of any court cases over it and after reading the law, it’s apparent why. The law says that if you don’t agree with it then you don’t have to obey it, which makes it a completely pointless law. If you’re attempting to draw conclusions about crime and gun ownership based on this law you really are just manipulating people. The crime rate of Kennesaw is consistent with the surrounding area and the percent of households that own guns might be slightly above average for the area. The crime and murder rates in my opinion are much more likely due to the economics of the city than anything else (Kennesaw is a suburb of Atlanta with mostly middle class families and one of the largest universities in the state located within it). All of that aside, as someone who works with statistics every day, I can say there is something that is very off putting about this article. The author is trying to draw a broad conclusion from a single data point. I’ll give you an example of that from another perspective. Japan is a country that has outlawed guns and has a very low crime and murder rate. If I were to look only at Japan, I might conclude that they have a low crime rate because they’ve outlawed guns. There are other factors (culture, social issues, economics, etc.) and other data points (countries, cities, etc.) I’m ignoring and not taking into account though. Misusing statistics to manipulate people has been a proud tradition of the media regardless of which side of the aisle you are on. In my opinion crime has much more to do with other issues (mostly economics) and has very little to do with gun laws.

The case of Kennesaw is always cited by gun control opponents, but any social scientist will tell you there’s no evidence the Kennesaw law had any impact on crime. Overall, there’s no good way to determine from a single community the impact of a law. Here are a few reasons why you cannot make any statement, whether it be for or against gun control, related to Kennesaw:

1. Crime was already fairly low in Kennesaw when the law was passed. Minor fluctuations up or down cannot be interpreted as significant, and even if the fluctuations were large, there’s no way to tell if the law, or other factors contributed because other things were also changing at the same time.

2. Kennesaw went from being a rural community to a suburban community fairly quickly. Never was this more true than in the 80s. The rate of gun ownership in rural households generally is lower than in suburban households. If anything, Kennesaw may have had a DECREASE in gun ownership through the 80s until today due to this change in demographics.

3. The law itself was never enacted to decrease crime and is not enforced. Like RobertIII, I personally know of plenty of households in Kennesaw who do not own guns (in fact - the ONLY people I know in Kennesaw are not gun owners). These are not people who lived there when it was rural - they moved there after it was suburbanized. Again, it’s very likely the rate of gun ownership has actually decreased there since the unenforced law was passed.

4. People are fond of comparing the crime in Kennesaw to very different communities without the law (e.g., the nation as a whole or other disparate communities). This is comparing apples to oranges, especially when looking at the racial and socioeconomic make-up of Kennesaw and how it differs from these other places. We can look at the incredibly low crime in industrialized countries with incredibly strict gun control. There are few exceptions here (yes, even Switzerland has very, very, very stringent gun laws - look up the actual laws - not what you read on a blog). If you cite Kennesaw and compare it to dissimilar or even somewhat similar communities, you also have to compare the U.S. with it’s incredibly lax gun laws to somewhat similar industrialized societies with strict gun laws. You can’t have it both ways.

5. Since we really don’t know about the actual rate of gun ownership there, you could argue that criminals THINK everyone has guns and so they don’t commit crimes there (clearly they do - there’s still a good bit of crime in Kennesaw). The U.S. is the most armed country in the industrialized world, yet our crime rate is incredibly high and our gun violence is the highest. If criminals really were prevented from committing crimes because of fear of gun owners, we should have a low rate of crime. But we don’t. Presumably criminals know about our high rate of gun ownership. I mean, some criminals are stupid but most are not.

Here’s what likely happens (my hypothesis):

6. When criminals know or think someone may have a gun (as would be very, very likely in the U.S. given the 200+ million guns we have in this country), they don’t necessarily avoid that person or household (though they may proceed to wait until the house is vacant and then steal guns - this is a lot bigger problem than most people realize), but it makes them more likely to bring a gun in the first place, and more likely to fire that gun. In other words, guns might not keep criminals in check, but might actually make them MORE likely to use guns in the commission of a crime in the first place. Think about drug gangs. Do you think any of them are stupid enough to try to seize another gangs drugs without weapons? They know the other guys have guns, and more than likely, they’re going to try to outnumber the other gang by having bigger and better guns. We call this an “arms race.” And you see this in the U.S. There weren’t a lot of people defending assault weapons, high capacity clips, etc. 30 or 40 years ago in the U.S. Now, even many previously rational gun owners are buying these types of guns and fighting against any related legislation. When the majority of criminals start using these types of guns in the commission of crimes, what will 2nd amendment enthusiasts be wanting next? It’s out of control.

Bottom line: you can not make heads or tales of the Kennesaw gun law. No responsible social scientist would. If you’re going to use Kennesaw then I’m going to use a larger data set: other industrialized nations compared to the U.S.. With that data the evidence is resounding: more gun restrictions = less crime (particularly gun violence) even though the relationship is not 100% perfect. I win.

The original post also cryptically mentions how his own personal family was spared tragedy because of the presence of a gun (even though it was never aimed at someone or fired). How does he know this? Did the gun dial the police? People who cite defensive gun uses, if you really ask them specifically what happened, are often fooling themselves about the protection afforded by that gun (there stories easily unravel...). In addition, many gun owners have all these tales of how their gun protected them, yet almost every non-gun owner doesn’t have a tale of “if only I had a gun!” In some circumstances, say when we have been victims of a crime, we know that the gun would have been useless anyway (element of surprise usually wins out) or the gun would have actually made things a lot worse. I won’t even go into the research about how someone in your household will be more likely to have that gun used on them by a family member - or themselves - than have it used for protection...... While some gun owners falsely believe their gun protected them, you also have to wonder why so many other gun owners find themselves in predicaments where they needed to “defend” themselves with a gun in the first place. It does really make one wonder.