I’m preaching to the choir, but that’s fun, so here I go.
The wild and wacky left keeps ranting about how more guns cause an increase of crime and homicide. And they say it’s a “scientific fact” that restricting guns reduces crime.
Baloney. It certainly doesn’t.
Consider this (pasted from Wikipedia):
The trend for shall-issue laws began in Indiana in 1980, Maine and North Dakota followed in 1985, and South Dakota in 1986.[12]
In 1987, Florida went from may-issue to shall-issue.
In 1989, four states became shall-issue: Georgia, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia went from may-issue to shall issue. Tennessee went from no-issue to may-issue.
In 1990, two states became shall-issue, Idaho and Mississippi. Idaho had been may-issue, Mississippi had been no-issue.
In 1991, Montana became shall-issue, going from may-issue to shall-issue.
In 1994, four states became shall-issue: Alaska, Arizona, Tennessee, and Colorado. Tennessee had been may-issue since 1989; Colorado was also may-issue. Alaska and Arizona had not previously issued permits.
In 1995, seven states became shall-issue: Nevada, Utah, and Virginia had previously been may-issue, whereas Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and North Carolina had previously been no-issue.
In 1996, three more states became shall-issue: Louisiana, South Carolina and Kentucky. Of these, Kentucky had been no-issue, whereas South Carolina and Louisiana had been may-issue. This brought the entire Deep South to having shall-issue licensing regimes, and increased the number of shall-issue states to 30. Only 7 states remained no-issue under state law.
In 2001, Michigan became shall-issue. It had previously been may-issue.
In 2003, Alaska repealed its law restricting concealed carry of firearms, becoming the second state where concealed carry is unrestricted. Unlike Vermont, it kept its licensing scheme in place so that residents could apply for permits for reciprocity purposes with states that require a residential carry permit. Concealed carrying of firearms remained illegal for anyone prohibited from possessing firearms under federal or state law, but any non-prohibited person no longer required a permit to carry a firearm.
Also in 2003, four more states became shall-issue: Minnesota and Colorado had been may-issue, and Missouri and New Mexico which had been no-issue.
In 2004, Ohio became shall-issue. It previously had been no-issue.
In 2006, two states became shall-issue: Kansas and Nebraska. These both had previously been no-issue; this left Wisconsin and Illinois as the only two no-issue states. 37 states were shall-issue, 2 were unrestricted, and 9 were may-issue.
So…starting in 1980, we saw a breathtakingly rapid acceleration of shall-issue concealed-carry gun laws in the early 1990’s through the early 2000’s. More people were carrying guns concealed more often than ever before.
The radical left would have us believe that this could only have one effect - more crime, more “blood on the streets, more homicide. But what actually happened during this same time. Let’s take a look:
During the exact same period of time that law-abiding Americans were having their 2nd Amendment rights to carry without infringement reaffirmed, the overall violent crime rate dropped like a rock, and today that rate is nearly half what it was in 1990.
Why? Easy. Because criminals understood that the chances of being shot by a victim was going up, so they were less motivated to do the crime. For criminals, good, decent people being able to level the odds convinced them to ply their trades without threatening or killing their victims.
Guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans deter crime, plain and simple.
But there’s more!
Radical lefties still insist that more gun purchases apart from concealed carry drive crime rates up. If they’re correct, we should see increasing gun purchase rates preceding times of significant increases of crime. Too bad for the lefties, that simply isn’t true. Consider the following:
There are so many interesting facts in this graph. Here’s a few to ponder:
First, the huge spikes in gun purchases tend to happen not before but after major crime and shooting incidents. You can see this in nearly all the shootings on the above graph, starting with Columbine, with a tiny blip, and continuing to Aurora and Sandy Hook, a much larger blip, and then in 2015 after the Charleston and San Bernardino shooting. While all these were horrific, I think it was the San Bernardino shooting that sent a chill down the spine of America. At that event, innocent and unsuspecting people at a Christmas party were gunned down by two nutcases who were radicalized by violent, Islamic extremism. Now, mass shootings could be anywhere, and the guy next door coming to a company celebration could be the shooter. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to arm up against such an ever-present and usually unseen and unknown danger.
Second, it was only after 2008, when Barack Obama, who was notably anti-gun, was elected that the slow, steady rate of gun purchases started to increase. Why? Simple: because people saw the handwriting on the wall and feared that their ability to protect themselves and their families was in jeopardy. They correctly assessed that if they needed to protect themselves against rampant violence in the future, they had well better get armed up before the government violates my 2nd amendment rights.
Lastly, the lefties would have us believe that more guns equals more homicides. So as Americans buy more guns, we would see the homicide rate in our country going up, right? Well, too bad for the lefties, it just isn’t true. Take a look:
During the rapid expansion of SHALL ISSUE states between 1992 and 2000, and MORE, not less, people were buying and carrying guns, the gun homicide rate dropped by almost fifty percent. And it stayed low through the end of the data on the graph, bottoming out close to 50% lower than in 1990.
Again, the main driver of this decrease was one thing - people now had the ability to protect themselves, so homicidal maniacs were either now too afraid to attack somebody, or they were deterred when a good, decent, law-abiding citizen showed them the business-end of a self-protection weapon.
The left may rage on and on about it, but the data simply does not in any way validate their belief that more guns equals more crime and death. The opposite is actually true. When criminals know their lives could be at risk, they’re going to turn their cowardly little tails and run. And well they should.
Want a more peaceful America? Arm and train every decent, law-abiding citizen how to defend and protect themselves and those they love.
So dang simple.