This week, the FBI released its crime report for 2007 and, once again, gun control supporters are taking it on the chin.
It's not just that the nation's violent crime rate decreased slightly between 2006 and 2007. It's that every year since 2002 it has been lower than anytime since 1974, leading the Justice Department to say that violent crime is "near a 30-year low." Since 1991, violent crime has dropped 38 percent. Murder is now at a 40-year low, lower than anytime since 1966 every year from 1999 to the present, and down 43 percent since 1991.
"More guns means more crime?" Only in anti-gunner "La-La Land." Violent crime has fallen as the number of guns has increased 4.5 million a year. There are more gun owners, owning more guns than ever before, and violent crime is lower than anytime since Gerald Ford became president!
We can hardly wait to see the Brady Campaign try to spin this one with its asinine "state grades" stunt. In 2007, the major U.S. cities with the highest murder rates were cities with severe gun control. The top three? Detroit (where Michigan law requires a permit to purchase a handgun), Baltimore (where Maryland law restricts private handgun sales and requires a seven-day waiting period on handgun sales by dealers), and the District of Columbia (with its handgun ban and its firearm registration law). Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and D.C. had the highest robbery rates.
In 2007, as in years past, Right-to-Carry states had lower violent crime rates, on average, compared to the rest of the country with total violent crime lower by 24 percent, murder by 28 percent, robbery by 50 percent, and aggravated assault by 11 percent. Further, in 2007, 32 percent of murders were committed without firearms of any sort--knives accounted for 12 percent, hands and feet six percent, and blunt objects four percent. Rifles and shotguns (semi-automatic and otherwise) accounted for three percent each, and typically "assault weapons" have accounted for about one percent.
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