NRA: 70 Million More Guns…38% Less Violent Crime

[BrettStah]

http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Read.aspx?ID=2445

70 Million More Guns…38% Less Violent Crime

Friday, September 22, 2006


Data released by the FBI on Monday showed that in 2005, the nation’s total violent crime rate was 38% lower than in 1991, when violent crime hit an all-time high. Rates of the individual categories of violent crime were also much lower in 2005 than in 1991. Murder was 43% lower, rape 25% lower, robbery 48% lower, and aggravated assault 33% lower. The FBI’s report came on the heels of a Bureau of Justice Statistics crime survey that found that violent crime was lower in 2005 than anytime in the survey’s 32-year history.

Defying the anti-gunners’ claim that more guns means more crime, from 1991-2005 the number of privately owned guns increased by more than 70 million.

The news media often characterize violent crime as a primarily gun-oriented problem, but the FBI’s report showed that only one in every four violent crimes in 2005 was committed with a gun. In 2005, as in previous years, most violent crimes were robberies and aggravated assaults, most of which were committed with knives or bare hands.

Recently, anti-gun politicians and activists have intensified their rhetoric over the “lack” of bans on handguns, so-called “assault weapons”, and .50-caliber rifles; gun registration, gun owner licensing, and mandatory background checks on sales of guns between friends and family members; and limits on the frequency of gun purchases, all of which they say are necessary to reduce the nation’s murder rate. But for the last seven years, the murder rate has been steady¾in the 5.5-5.7 per 100,000 population range¾at all times lower than anytime since the mid-1960s. In 2005, for example, the murder rate was 5.6.

Naturally, anti-gunners will downplay the downward trend in violent crime since 1991, and focus on the fact that the FBI’s report showed a 1% increase in total violent crime, and a 2% increase in murder in 2005, compared to 2004. But those changes are miniscule, compared to the huge decrease in crime over the last 14 years.

The FBI’s report once again confirmed that violent crime rates are lower in states with Right-to-Carry (RTC) laws. In 2005, RTC states had, on average, 22% lower total violent crime, 30% less murder, 46% lower robbery, and 12% lower aggravated assault rates, compared to the rest of the country.

As usual, Washington, D.C., which leads the nation in anti-gun laws, led the nation in murder, with a rate six times higher than the rest of the country. Neighboring Maryland, where gun control advocates have been particularly active recently, once again had the highest robbery rate among the states, but also tied for the unenviable distinction of “first place” in murder among the states. However, despite Maryland’s high crime counts, CeaseFire Maryland, the local Brady Campaign affiliate that recently released a paper demanding an “assault weapon” ban, was unable to point to any crimes in the state involving such a gun.

The FBI’s report must have displeased New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg (R). Despite the mayor’s recent posturing on the gun issue, and his self-laudatory comments about fighting crime, the Big Apple’s murder rate was more than double that of the rest of the state. Similarly, in Philadelphia, where anti-gun politicians are calling for a statewide one-gun-a-month law, the murder rate was more than seven times higher than the rest of Pennsylvania.

Adding to the reasons why voters should “Dump Doyle” in Wisconsin’s upcoming gubernatorial election, their state had the greatest total violent crime rate increase (15.1%) between 2004-2005. Murder was up 25.2%; robbery up 11.2%; and aggravated assault up 20.2%. Wisconsin is one of only two states that prohibits Right-to-Carry entirely, but in 2005, 11 of the 12 states that had the greatest decreases in total violent crime, and 12 of the 14 states with the greatest decreases in murder were Right-to-Carry states. The seven states with the lowest total violent crime rates in 2005, and 11 of the 12 states that had the lowest murder rates, were Right-to-Carry states.

Last, but not least, is good news from Florida, the state that during the last 20 years has been most often attacked by anti-gunners, for (among other reasons) setting the Right-to-Carry and “Castle Doctrine” movements in motion. In 2005, Florida recorded a murder rate 13% lower than the rate for the rest of the country (4.96 per 100,000, vs. 5.67 for the rest of the country). For the record, Florida’s 2005 murder rate was 58% lower than it was in 1986, the last year before the state’s landmark Right-to-Carry law took effect.


Copyright 2006, National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action.
This may be reproduced. It may not be reproduced for commercial purposes.

[RegBarc]

God bless the NRA. Never regretted my life membership.

Is there a linked correlation between gun ownership and a lowering violent crime rate? The two numbers in and of themselves prove nothing. But it certainly doesn't help the pro-gun control crowd.

[retrodog]

Originally Posted by RegBarc

God bless the NRA. Never regretted my life membership.

Is there a linked correlation between gun ownership and a lowering violent crime rate? The two numbers in and of themselves prove nothing. But it certainly doesn't help the pro-gun control crowd.

That's not the correct term

There are some of the numbers you ask for in states that have began concealed handgun permits. Too lazy to look it up right now but I've seen it published. I think Florida was one of these that I'd seen reported on.

[RegBarc]

Originally Posted by retrodog

That's not the correct term

There are some of the numbers you ask for in states that have began concealed handgun permits. Too lazy to look it up right now but I've seen it published. I think Florida was one of these that I'd seen reported on.

The book by John Lott, while having some natural enemies himself, elaborates on the numbers in great detail and makes a believable correlation. I'm more inclined to believe him than the writers of Freakonomics, however.

[Makita]

I recall a Georgia or Florida town that had Crime drop once Gun-laws were changed (allowing more/easier access to them).

However, with this article, I would have to ask/wonder: Could the War in Iraq causing some of this lower crime rate? I seem to remember in 'Times of Crisis' crime rates drop. (most current example would be 9-11, I beleive).

[retrodog]

Originally Posted by RegBarc

The book by John Lott, while having some natural enemies himself, elaborates on the numbers in great detail and makes a believable correlation. I'm more inclined to believe him than the writers of Freakonomics, however.

Apprehension in the mind of a criminal is a good thing. Armed citizens increases apprehension in the minds of criminals. I don't really need numbers to tell me that. But they're good to hear anyway.

[pseudonym]

Wow. So if we find a way to get about 200 million more guns out there, violent crime should disappear entirely. Sweet.

[Mikkel_Knight]

It's somewhat misleading.

Figure out how many more illegal guns are around and correlate that with the crime figures and crime would be up.

This is one of those studies that functionally supports what it was set out to do.

Yeah, registered guns (and owners) is up, but that's not the problem - never has been. It's all the nutjobs with unregistered/stolen/illegal guns that generate the majority of gun-related crimes...

[JP]

Correlation isn't causation. Average temperatures are up too since 1991, so maybe the cause of the decrease in violent crime is global warming?

And of course there's the previously existing theory, advanced most recently in the Freakonomics book, that the decrease in crime is due to the greater availability of abortion post-Roe and thus fewer unwanted children are growing up in bad situations and turning to crime and violence as they become adolescents.

[retrodog]

Originally Posted by JPriller

Correlation isn't causation. Average temperatures are up too since 1991, so maybe the cause of the decrease in violent crime is global warming?

And of course there's the previously existing theory, advanced most recently in the Freakonomics book, that the decrease in crime is due to the greater availability of abortion post-Roe and thus fewer unwanted children are growing up in bad situations and turning to crime and violence as they become adolescents.

But we were talking about abortions... post-birth abortions.

[aindik]

Originally Posted by JPriller

Correlation isn't causation. Average temperatures are up too since 1991, so maybe the cause of the decrease in violent crime is global warming?

And of course there's the previously existing theory, advanced most recently in the Freakonomics book, that the decrease in crime is due to the greater availability of abortion post-Roe and thus fewer unwanted children are growing up in bad situations and turning to crime and violence as they become adolescents.

It might not be causation. But it's pretty good evidence that there isn't causation in the other direction.

[JP]

Originally Posted by aindik

It might not be causation. But it's pretty good evidence that there isn't causation in the other direction.

Actually no, it isn't. More guns might still be having an increasing effect on violent crime - simply not enough of one to offset other factors that are bringing it down.

[retrodog]

Originally Posted by JPriller

Actually no, it isn't. More guns might still be having an increasing effect on violent crime - simply not enough of one to offset other factors that are bringing it down.

You never really get a straight story from either side.

[Martin Tupper]

As long as we are drawing causational correlations, according to the U.S.D.O.J., gun related crime peaked in 1993 and declined sharply until 1998.



Does anyone happen to remember what year the Brady Bill was signed into law and when it expired?

[Otto]

Originally Posted by JPriller

Actually no, it isn't. More guns might still be having an increasing effect on violent crime - simply not enough of one to offset other factors that are bringing it down.

I dunno about that. 70 million more but 38% down is still a huge whopper of a difference. There's only about 260 million or so privately owned guns in the country right now (estimates vary, of course), so a 70 million increase is nothing to scoff at. And consider the other statistics:
-There's more gun owners now than ever before. The number I read a lot is half of households.
-Since the late 80's, the number of states that passed right to carry laws increased to 40 from like 10.
-Gun control laws are less restrictive now. The pointless assault weapon ban expired in 2004 and has not been renewed (nor will it be, since it was useless from the beginning). The Brady Act's federally mandated waiting period is 10 years dead now and they have Instant Checks instead in most places.

Basically, guns have risen across the board since the time right around 1990, and gun control has also declined across the board, with more gun related rights being given to the people. And yet crime has fallen by major amounts.

While it's true other factors could decrease crime more than these factors could increase it, it's a safer statistical bet that these factors either do not contribute at all or also contribute to the decrease. The gap is much too wide, and you'd probably have to postulate some seriously major factor to outweigh the level of change in gun-related stats that has occurred since that time period.

[Otto]

Originally Posted by Martin Tupper

As long as we are drawing causational correlations, according to the U.S.D.O.J., gun related crime peaked in 1993 and has declined sharply since then.



Does anyone happen to remember what year the Brady Bill was signed into law?

Before you attribute the decline from 1993-1998 on the Brady Bill (which, admittedly, did mandate the waiting period during those years), I'd really prefer an explanation of the increase in gun crime during the previous five year period. Because gun crime is basically back at pre-88 levels according to that chart, so that makes me wonder what happened in '88 to cause the sudden increase, instead of wondering what caused the decrease starting in '93. It looks more like something happened from 88-93 that was eliminated in 93, causing a reversion to the previous state.

[JP]

Originally Posted by Otto

Before you attribute the decline from 1993-1998 on the Brady Bill (which, admittedly, did mandate the waiting period during those years), I'd really prefer an explanation of the increase in gun crime during the previous five year period. Because gun crime is basically back at pre-88 levels according to that chart, so that makes me wonder what happened in '88 to cause the sudden increase, instead of wondering what caused the decrease starting in '93.

The increasing prevalence of crack cocaine and the gang-warfare epidemic that came with it. That's one thing I've seen discussed in papers on the subject.

[JP]

Originally Posted by Otto

I dunno about that. 70 million more but 38% down is still a huge whopper of a difference. There's only about 260 million or so privately owned guns in the country right now (estimates vary, of course), so a 70 million increase is nothing to scoff at.

Whether the increase in ownership is a large or small percentage doesn't effect the logic (that it is an unsupported claim to say that because violence did not go up, more guns do not contribute to more violence).

I think what you've got there is an underlying assumption that if gun ownership contributes to any increase in violence at all, a large change in ownership must therefore create a large enough change in violence to easily overcome all other factors. But we don't provably know what relationship there is between gun ownership and violent crime, either to increase it or to decrease it or to have little or no effect, so assuming a large change in one must mean a large change in the other simply isn't valid. It's "begging the question".

Originally Posted by Otto

And consider the other statistics:
-There's more gun owners now than ever before. The number I read a lot is half of households.
-Since the late 80's, the number of states that passed right to carry laws increased to 40 from like 10.
-Gun control laws are less restrictive now. The pointless assault weapon ban expired in 2004 and has not been renewed (nor will it be, since it was useless from the beginning). The Brady Act's federally mandated waiting period is 10 years dead now and they have Instant Checks instead in most places.

Basically, guns have risen across the board since the time right around 1990, and gun control has also declined across the board, with more gun related rights being given to the people. And yet crime has fallen by major amounts.

The two trends do correlate, yes. But no one is arguing that they don't. The argument is whether or not the data supports the claim that more guns means less violent crime. As I pointed out earlier, the trend in world average temperature since 1991 probably also follows the decline in violent crime. As does the amount of daily average internet usage, or any number of other things. I have to see something more than "this went up and that went down, so this must have caused that".

[Mikkel_Knight]

Again, the amount of legal guns around isn't the reason why violence has gone down. I'd speculate that there is just a larger percentage now of legal vs. illegal arms.

I'd also speculate that the amount of crimes committed with registered firearms is miniscule compared to ones that are illegal.

Like I said earlier, this is the NRA's specific study designed to show their point of view. Another (anti-gun) organization could just as easily "skew" the numbers to show their point of view just as effectively (I'd imagine)

[BrettStah]

Originally Posted by Mikkel_Knight

Again, the amount of legal guns around isn't the reason why violence has gone down. I'd speculate that there is just a larger percentage now of legal vs. illegal arms.

I'd also speculate that the amount of crimes committed with registered firearms is miniscule compared to ones that are illegal.

The report that is quoted doesn't list just crimes committed with legal guns - it lists all gun crimes.

Originally Posted by Mikkel_Knight

Like I said earlier, this is the NRA's specific study

Data released by the FBI

[aindik]

Originally Posted by Martin Tupper

As long as we are drawing causational correlations, according to the U.S.D.O.J., gun related crime peaked in 1993 and declined sharply until 1998.



Does anyone happen to remember what year the Brady Bill was signed into law and when it expired?

Could you explain why "gun related crime" is an important number to look at? Who cares if a crime is committed with a gun, a knife, a baseball bat or an airplane flying into a building?

The important number is "violent" crime. Or "homicides." Not "gun-related" crime.

[JP]

Originally Posted by aindik

Could you explain why "gun related crime" is an important number to look at? Who cares if a crime is committed with a gun, a knife, a baseball bat or an airplane flying into a building?

The important number is "violent" crime. Or "homicides." Not "gun-related" crime.

If you're talking about the health and safety of our society "gun related" may indeed be an unimportant distinction. But when the discussion revolves around whether the presence of guns means more or less crime - as it does - whether a gun was involved does very much indeed matter.

[Makita]

Originally Posted by aindik

Could you explain why "gun related crime" is an important number to look at? Who cares if a crime is committed with a gun, a knife, a baseball bat or an airplane flying into a building?

The important number is "violent" crime. Or "homicides." Not "gun-related" crime.

Because the NRA is more concerned about Guns, in general and how they are used (in this instance)

It would be interesting to see how many guns were destroyed in 2005 and earlier with the various trade-in programs.

Also, post 9-11, how many more Police were on the streets in the larger cities? (Use this because the more police added to a higher-density poppulation would likely make the biggest impact on Crime)

[Otto]

Originally Posted by JPriller

Whether the increase in ownership is a large or small percentage doesn't effect the logic (that it is an unsupported claim to say that because violence did not go up, more guns do not contribute to more violence).

Not at all. There is such a thing as statistical significance. A 38% drop in crime at the same time as a 27% increase in guns is statistically significant.

Originally Posted by JPriller

I think what you've got there is an underlying assumption that if gun ownership contributes to any increase in violence at all, a large change in ownership must therefore create a large enough change in violence to easily overcome all other factors.

Again, not at all. What I am saying is that if it does not overcome other factors, given such a large change in both trends, then there must be some other factor or combination thereof that is larger than it is. And given the difference, it would have to be significantly larger.

Originally Posted by JPriller

But we don't provably know what relationship there is between gun ownership and violent crime, either to increase it or to decrease it or to have little or no effect

True. However the pro-gun-control crowd argue that gun ownership and gun availability does have a large impact on crime. If they are correct, then there must exist some other factor which we do not see. You can prove a thing is true by assuming the opposite and finding a contradiction.
-Assume there is a major relationship between gun ownership and crime, and that it is not an inverse relationship.
-Given a large increase in gun ownership, you should see a large increase in crime.
-Given that we see the opposite, there must be a larger factor contributing to decrease crime.
-Given that we know of no such factor and can't easily postulate one, it suggests that our assumption is faulty.

Originally Posted by JPriller

The two trends do correlate, yes. But no one is arguing that they don't. The argument is whether or not the data supports the claim that more guns means less violent crime.

That's not the argument I was making at all. I was saying that the counter-argument of "more guns causes more violent crime" is statistically unlikely, regardless of additional factors that contribute to crime.

I agree that the data does not necessary indicate a causative effect. However, it certainly does indicate that the counter-argument is probably false.

Basically, if more guns causes more violent crime, then there must be some major countering factor to cause the actual observed data. The difference is simply too large for that countering factor to be a small one.

[BrettStah]

Originally Posted by JPriller

If you're talking about the health and safety of our society "gun related" may indeed be an unimportant distinction. But when the discussion revolves around whether the presence of guns means more or less crime - as it does - whether a gun was involved does very much indeed matter.

If having more legally-owned guns causes a drop in homicides and/or violent crimes, it doesn't matter to me if the criminals are armed with a handgun or a knife - hopefully a well-armed citizenry deters criminals no matter what the criminal's weapon of choice is.