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January 2, 2010
Even AP Confirms: Guns Do Not Cause Crime
Posted by Van Helsing at January 2, 2010 12:08 PM
It certainly won't come as news to any informed person that more guns do not mean more crime. But it is news when AP acknowledges the fact.
The number of officers killed in the line of duty by gunfire increased 24 percent from 2008, according to preliminary statistics compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a national nonprofit organization that tracks officer-related deaths.
We know what to expect next: high-pitched demands for the State to confiscate firearms, Second Amendment be damned.
The availability of guns compounds the problem, criminologists say.
Here we go. But wait…
Pennsylvania, the state with the most gun-related officer deaths so far this year, has among the strictest gun laws in the country, according to a ranking by the pro-gun-control Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Other states, like Louisiana, Oklahoma and Kentucky, have very little oversight and had few, if any, officer gun deaths this year.
Spokesman for the Officers Memorial Fund Kevin Morison is quoted:
[F]olks who are willing to intentionally target police officers seem to be able to find a way to accrue guns regardless of what the laws in those state would be.
There are certainly more guns in circulation, due to the boom in firearms sales caused by the terrifying takeover of the government by radical leftists. But the FBI confirms that more guns on the street have not meant more crime.
The oft-cited credo that more guns equal more crime is being tested by facts on the ground this year: Even as gun ownership has surged in the US in the past year, violent crime, including murder and robbery, has dropped steeply.
Add to that the fact that many experts had predicted higher crime rates as the US grinds through a difficult recession, and the discrepancy has advocates on both sides of the Second Amendment debate rushing to their ramparts.
After several years of crime rates holding relatively steady, the FBI is reporting that violent crimes — including gun crimes — dropped dramatically in the first six months of 2009, with murder down 10 percent across the US as a whole.
Concurrently, the FBI reports that gun sales - especially of assault-style rifles and handguns, two main targets of gun-control groups - are up at least 12 percent nationally since the election of President Obama, a dramatic run on guns prompted in part by so-far-unwarranted fears that Democrats in Congress and the White House will curtail gun rights and carve apart the Second Amendment.
These fears will not remain unwarranted once Chairman Zero and friends turn their attention from nationalizing our major industries and passing around hundreds of $billions of "stimulus" loot to pacifying a potentially rebellious populace.
On tips from scottthong and AnonymoUS. Hat tips: Interested-Participant, Free Republic, Buckeye Firearms Association.
