Myth Busted: Less Guns, Less Crime

Another Liberal Ideal debunked

Hey folks,

HAPPY FRIDAY!! Yes it's finally Friday. Hope all is well with you and yours. Looking forward to another Family Day Trip this weekend. Going to the Martin County Nautical Flea Market and Seafood Festival. Josh is going to have a great time. So am I.

So what have we heard for YEARS from the Anti-Gun Left? Less Guns equal less crime. Now as I have discussed in the past, this is simply not true. Look, I personally HATE Guns. I do not like them at all. Too many accidents, and too many people have them without a clue how to use them. There was a statistic a while back that I saw said most people would have their own Gun taken away from them, and most likely they would be shot with it, in a situation. However, I also understand simple Logic. Less LEGAL Guns equal LESS protection for law-abiding Citizens. It does NOTHING to prevent or reduce crime.

First, if I was planing on committing a crime, I'm NOT going to go to Wal-Mart, or any other Legal place to buy my Gun. I'm not going to go and get finger printed, wait for a background check, nor am I going to TELL the Government what kind of Gun, give them the serial number, and register with the State. I'm going to go down to South and Landers, the corner where all the Crack Hoes and Pimps are, and buy one from a Dealer for say $200.00. All the Gun regulations in the world did not stop me from doing THAT.

Second, Criminals look for "Soft" or easy targets. If I think there is a chance you may have a Gun, I'm less likely to attack you. If I KNOW there is no way you have one, you are easy pickings for me.

Yet, we always hear, less guns equal less crime. Well, now REALITY proves this to be a hundred percent wrong. According to CNS - Violent Crime Declined As Gun Sales Climbed in 2009 Thursday, September 16, 2010 By Matt Cover

(CNSNews.com) - Violent crime continued to fall in 2009, even as gun sales reached an all-time high, according to statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This is “proof positive that gun prohibitionists have been consistently and undeniably wrong,” the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said in a statement.

Released Tuesday, the violent crime statistics are part of the FBI’s yearly Uniform Crime Report, which collects crime statistics from localities all across the country and is the most comprehensive report on crime in America.

According to the FBI, the number of violent crimes of all types declined in 2009 by 5.3 percent and property crimes declined 4.6 percent. In fact, the rate of violent crime declined 6.1 percent below 2008 figures.

In total, the FBI estimated that 1.3 million violent crimes were committed in 2009.

“Each of the four violent crime offenses decreased when compared with the 2008 estimates. Murder and non-negligent manslaughter and robbery had the largest decreases: 7.3 percent and 8.0 percent, respectively,” the FBI said in a press release summarizing the report. “In addition, aggravated assault decreased 4.2 percent, and forcible rape declined 2.6 percent.”

In fact, the types of crime most likely to be committed with a firearm, murders and manslaughters, experienced one of the greatest rates of decline in 2009 – 7.3 percent.

While violent crime was going down in 2009, guns sales were experiencing a record year. According to data from the FBI’s National Instant Background Check System (NICS), 2009 was the best year on record for gun sales.

According to the NICS figures, 14 million guns were sold in 2009, the biggest year since the system began recording data in 1998. The NICS figures are considered the most accurate measurement of gun sales because federal law requires that a NICS check be done prior to every firearm sale in America.

In fact, there were nearly 2 million more guns sold in the United States in 2009 than in 2008, the next best year for gun sales, when 12.7 million NICS checks were recorded.

The NCIS data do not capture all gun sales, however, as only federally licensed primary dealers are required to conduct them. Firearms sales between private citizens can still be done freely, without having to let the federal government know about it. This normally occurs at one of the nation’s many public gun shows, meaning that the firearms sales figures provided by NICS are actually lower than the true figures.

This means that gun sales likely exceeded the already record figure of 14 million indicated by the NICS.

Taken together, these two sets of statistics seem to undermine the claims of anti-Second Amendment groups such as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence that push for strict federal and state gun control laws, including an outright ban on so-called assault weapons.

Such groups have gone to great lengths to make a connection between gun ownership and violent crime, often pointing out that gun ownership “increases the risk” of injury of death.

“Keeping a firearm in the home increases the risk of homicide by a factor of 3,” the Brady Campaign’s Web site states.

Given that as gun sales have increased, violent crime has decreased seems to indicate that firearm ownership and the commission of violent crime is only incidentally, not causally, linked.

“What the data tell us is exactly the opposite of what the gun-ban lobby has predicted for several years,” said Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizen’s Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, in a statement. “Their dire predictions that America’s streets would run red have been shown up as a fraudulent sales pitch for public disarmament.”

“No matter how gun prohibitionists try to spin this,” said Gottlieb, “the bottom line is that they have been consistently and demonstrably wrong, and they know it. On the other hand, gun rights organizations have been consistently right when we argued that increased gun ownership would not lead to higher crime rates, and might even have a deterrent effect.”

So the Myth: Less Guns, Less Crime, busted by the REALITY, MORE Guns, Less Crime. Sorry. Just the facts.

Have a great Weekend. See you soon.
Peter

Note: From The Emails is a weekly Segment every Friday, or occasionally anytime, that appears here at the OPNTalk Blog. Please feel free to Email any Articles, Comments, Thoughts, Whatever, that you may like to share to opntalk@gmail.com As always, you never know what you may see here.

Watch lists, guns and government

From the Emails 070209

Hey folks,

Happy Thursday. Here is yet another From the Emails. This is something you will NOT read about in the MMD. No. That would go against Obama and the Loons that want to BAN all Guns.

The following was sent in by DH. It's by Bob Barr, former Senator and Libertarian Presidential Candidate.

Watch lists, guns and government by Bob Barr
As published in The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Monday, June 29, 2009 at 9:00 AM

The secret government "Terrorist Watch List," reportedly already swelled to more than 1.1 million names, will have an addendum, if gun control advocates in Congress have their way. This new addendum — also to be cloaked in secrecy — would empower the U.S. Attorney General to deny a person the ability to exercise their Second Amendment rights to purchase a firearm.

While it is not surprising that some members of Congress are again using fear of terrorism to implement a gun-control agenda, the openly unconstitutional legislative language proponents are employing is troubling.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) is leading the effort in the Senate, while another well-known gun control advocate — Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) — is directing the House initiative. They have introduced identical bills — the "Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009." This proposal would give the attorney general the power to unilaterally and in secret develop a watch list of persons believed to be unworthy of possessing a firearm or any explosive.

This new "dangerous terrorist" watch list would include names based not on hard evidence of criminal activity, but on nothing more than the subjective conclusion by the attorney general that a person is "appropriately suspected" (whatever that means) of engaging in some manner of assisting or preparing for acts of domestic or international terrorism. The American people would never be privy to what criteria might be employed by the attorney general to determine whether someone is an "appropriate suspect," and they would have no way of knowing why they might be denied the ability to purchase a firearm.

If a person were to be refused "permission" to purchase a firearm or explosive, and if they subsequently filed a lawsuit in federal court to find out why, the government still could keep such information secret. In other words, the attorney general could deny a U.S. citizen the ability to own a firearm, and never have to give the reason.

For legislators like Lautenberg and King, who apparently have absolute faith in unelected government officials to make the right decisions for the right reasons at the right times (and never be required to explain those decisions), one has only to consider the checkered history of post-9/11 "terrorist" watch lists to see the folly of such perspective. Stories abound of persons denied the ability to board a commercial aircraft, or greatly delayed in being allowed on board, for no reason other than their name erroneously appeared on some "watch list." Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), have been among this not-so-elite group.

A report earlier this year by the FBI's inspector general chronicled extensive internal problems with the terrorist watch list maintained by that agency. The IG found numerous examples of inaccuracies, incomplete entries, out-of-date information and inclusion of information "unrelated to terrorism." While the inconvenience of not being able to board an airliner for a business trip or a vacation can be a real headache, being refused the ability to purchase a firearm to protect one's life clearly raises the stakes.

The government already has remedies already at its disposal to keep firearms out of the hands of known or suspected terrorists. Under existing federal law, there are numerous categories of persons prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms; including persons in violation of immigration laws, convicted felons, illicit drug users and others. And if a person truly is a known or suspected terrorist, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — as the federal law enforcement agency primarily responsible for enforcing the nation's gun laws — certainly should be made aware of that information. We don't need a secret, anti-Second Amendment watch list to implement effective law enforcement in America.

LINK: The Bar Code

Remember the asinine "Right Wing Extremist Report? If you are not Pro-Death {Pro-Life} you may now be deemed a terrorist and with this new Law, be banned from owning a firearm. But could there be more to this?

I have started hearing some rumblings of people so fed up with our OUT OF CONTROL Government and their CLEAR quest for Tyranny, that they are starting to wonder if the only thing left is a NEW Civil War. I do not think we are there yet. But some are starting to wonder. Now the Obama Administration is talking about THIS? Dis-arm the populace so that this can not happen? I don't know. Kind of makes sense. However, this IS in a direct violation of the Constitution. But then again, Obama couldn't care less about the Constitution. He in as much said so.

Now I do not personally like Guns. I really don't. Guns do not scare me. Idiots with guns scare me. I really think that if you are to buy one, you should be required to be FULLY trained on safety and use. But I believe in the Constitution and the WISDOM of our Founding Fathers. I put more faith in them than I do in the crop of Idiots we have now attempting to rip the very foundation of this country out from right under of our feet.
Peter

Note: "From The Emails" is a weekly segment in the Friday edition of the OPNtalk Blog. If you care to send in News Articles, Comments, Stories, or anything else you may wish to share, please feel free to send it to opntalk@aim.com As always, you never know what you are going to see here.