Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: Seattle Officials Aim for Gun-Law Changes [View all]Atypical Liberal
(5,412 posts)No one denies that there are a lot of factors that affect crime rates.
And pro-gun people around here are usually careful to note that increased firearms in circulation does not necessarily relate to decreases in crime rates.
But what we do say is that the anti-gun mantra, that "more guns equals more crime", is almost certainly false.
The FBI just released it's latest preliminary data for crime statistics, and, once again, violent crime has declined.
http://www.fbi.gov/sandiego/press-releases/2012/fbi-releases-2011-preliminary-annual-uniform-crime-report
Murder is down about 2%, and violent crime about 5%, and rapes around 6%.
This is part of a decades-long trend. Over the same period of time sales of firearms and ammunition have skyrocketed.
So the idea that increased numbers of firearms in circulation cause crime seems to me to be unfounded.
I have read that one of the biggest reasons for the decline of crime rates was the huge push to incarcerate people starting with the high crime rates in the 1990s, mostly for drug-related crimes. This had the effect of taking a huge swaths of the community and putting them behind bars during their child-bearing years. As immoral and racially-biased as this practice was and is, it did have the consequence of taking a large portion of the most economically and socially disadvantaged portion of our society - and thus the portion probably more likely to turn to crime as a way out - out of circulation. And not only were they thus not able to commit more crimes, but they weren't able to have children. Or at least, they weren't having children in their prime crime-comitting years.
In any case, I hope we can agree that violent crime has decreased since 1990 while the number of firearms in circulation have increased.
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