“Have Increased Gun Sales Driven Violent Crime Rates Down?”

Backtracking on a search, I came across a newspaper item asking “Have Increased Gun Sales Driven Down Violent Crime Rates.” Of course, that question should be trivial to any modern “reporter.”

Here are the facts about gun control and violent crime; with data traced to official sources. Please click on the graphics for a clearer view.

These days it is almost absurdly easy to look up gun production numbers; crime rates, and crime numbers. Crime numbers and rates started dropping as soon as the State’s started relaxing their gun laws to allow concealed carry, and to allow self defense.

Since the peak of gun control mania in 1991, Americans have purchased more than 150 million new guns – more than thirty million in the last three years alone – and the number of violent crimes reported to the police are down by essentially half. To make matters even more interesting, the annual National Crime Survey reveals the percentage of crimes reported to the police has gone from just over one in four in 1991 to eight in ten in 2011.

So the overall reduction in violent crime is not 48 to 51 percent, it is close to 70 percent. At no cost to the police, to the penal system, or to the State’s legislatures. All that reduction is completely attributable to Americans who were fed up with being victims and did something effective about it.

They purchased the most effective known tool for defending their community, their family, and themselves. Many have become actively engaged in the shooting sports, and have become extremely effective deterrents to those contemplating a criminal lifestyle. While I have no real estimate of the number of young people who have decided not to become career criminals, the drop in the violent crime rates clearly indicate the number is very large.

Stranger

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