If anti-gun activists and anti-gun politicians share a common trait, it is
their unwavering belief that gun
ownership, and nothing else, automatically leads to crime. Cultural,
economic, environmental, and policing
factors–the things that sociologists, criminologists, and law enforcement
professionals universally agree
determine crime levels–are irrelevant, as far as anti-gunners are
concerned.

The flaw in anti-gun thinking is starkly demonstrated by a confluence of two
trends. Simply stated, while guns
have been going “up,” crime has been going “down.”

The number of privately owned guns rises several million every year and is
now at an all-time high. There are
more of every kind of firearm today–big handguns, small handguns,
semi-automatic handguns, semi-automatic
rifles, and all the other kinds of guns that anti-gun groups and politicians
single out in their various smear
campaigns. There are more of every other kind of gun too. And there are more
gun owners than ever before.
First-time gun buyers, including people who used to support “gun control,”
are contributing to a significant
increase in gun purchases following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The
number of states that have Right to
Carry laws is also at an all-time high–33, up from 10 states only 15 years
ago. Today, 54% of the U.S.
population, including 64% of handgun owners, live in Right-to-Carry states.

According to anti-gun thinking, crime should be rising by leaps and bounds.
In fact, quite the opposite is true.
The nation’s violent crime rate (the number of crimes per 100,000
population) has declined every year since
1991 and is now at a 22-year low. And murder is at a 35-year low. (FBI,
www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm) The trends
include the following highlights:

Since 1991, the nation’s violent crime rates have all decreased
substantially. Total violent crime (the
aggregate of murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggra
vated assault), has
decreased 33.2%; murder and non-negligent manslaughter has decreased 43.7%;
rape has decreased
24.2%; robbery has decreased 46.9%; and aggravated assault has decreased
25.3%.
National violent crime rates in 2000 were the lowest in years. Total violent
crime, the lowest since 1978;
murder, the lowest since 1965; rape, the lowest since 1978; robbery, the
lowest since 1968; and
aggravated assault, the lowest since 1985.
Further demonstrating the irrelevance of “gun control” to crime rates,
between 1991 (when violent crime
started declining nationally) and 2000, states that had the greatest
decreases in violent crime generally,
and in murder in particular, included both those that have some of the
nation’s least restrictive gun laws
(such as Texas, Alabama, South Carolina, and West Virginia) and those that
have some of the most
restrictive (such as California, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut).
In 2000, as in previous years, firearms were used in less than one-fourth of
violent crimes. Most violent
crimes were committed with hands and feet (32%), blunt objects and other
weapons (28%), and knives
(15%).
In 2000, states that had Right-to-Carry laws had lower violent crime rates
on average, compared to the
rest of the country. Their total violent crime rate was 21.9% lower, murder
was 28.4% lower, robbery
was 37.7% lower, and aggravated assault was 16.5% lower. (Rape, the violent
crime least likely to
involve firearms, was 0.8% higher.)
The only states that experienced increases in their murder rates between
1991 (when violent crime
began declining) and 2000 were Rhode Island (16%), Nebraska (12%), Kansas
(3%), and Minnesota (3%),
all of which still do not have Right-to-Carry laws.

Throughout the 1990s, NRA strongly supported successful initiatives in a
variety of states to increase prison
sentences for violent offenders and reduce parole, and during the last
several years encouraged Project
Exile-type programs which throw the book at felons who illegally possess
firearms. Several law enforcement
related factors are cited by the FBI, in its 2000 annual crime report, as
among the numerous factors “known to
affect the volume and type of crime.”

Though “gun control” is absent from the FBI’s (and most everyone else’s)
list of reasons crime has decreased, it
is at the top of anti-gun groups’ list. In particular, the anti-gunners
claim that crime is down because of the
Brady Act and the federal “assault weapons” law. Reasons to reject that
notion abound:

The Brady Act and “assault weapons” law were not imposed until 1994, three
years after violent crime
began decreasing nationally.
A study by sympathetic researchers found the Brady Act to have had no effect
on homicide and suicide
rates. (Jens Ludwig and Philip J. Cook, “Homicide and suicide rates
associated with implementation of the
Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act,” Journal of the American Medical
Association, 8/2/00.) The Brady
Act provision which has been in effect since Nov. 1998 is the “Instant
Check,” which anti-gun groups
oppose. It is disingenuous for the groups to claim crime-fighting benefits
for a law that they lobbied
against when it was under consideration in Congress, and which they have
called inadequate since its
adoption.
A congressionally-mandated study for the National of Institute of Justice
determined that the “assault
weapons” law had no effect on crime because those firearms were never used
in much crime in the first
place (Urban Institute, “Impact Evaluation of the Public Safety and
Recreational Firearms Use Protection
Act of 1994,” 3/13/97, overview at
www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/173405.htm).

The “assault weapons” law did not reduce the number of so-called “assault
weapons” privately owned. It merely
required that, after the law took effect, certain attachments be left off
any such firearms subsequently
manufactured. The differences between pre-law and post-law versions of
affected firearms are of no
consequence where the commission of a crime would be concerned. The number
of both pre-law and post law
rifles is greater today than ever before. Fortunately, this useless law,
derived from anti-gun groups’ opposition
to ownership of firearms for defensive purposes and their need for a hot
political “issue” to keep “gun control”
on people’s minds, expires on Sept. 13, 2004.

http://www.nraila.org/FactSheets.asp?FormMode=Detail&ID=121