No. This is not via John Lott. From NSSF via their June 5th news release–Gun Sales Rise as Crime and Accident Rates Fall:
NEWTOWN, Conn.–New statistics show that firearm and ammunition sales are on the rise, coinciding with steady downward trends in gun crime, suicide and accident rates, in the U.S.
…
According to figures from government and independent sources, firearm crimes, suicides and accidental fatalities, including accidents among youth, are all trending downward.
“Reductions in gun crimes and accidental fatalities have been documented for many years, even as gun sales and ownership in our country continue to rise,” said Doug Painter, president of NSSF. “However, today’s anti-gun organizations rake in lots of cash by perpetuating the myth that more guns equals more bad news. Clearly, there is no relationship between gun ownership and firearm misuse.”
Shocking.
Not.
I wouldn’t run too far with this statistic.
I have observed over the years that all kinds of things appear to drive the crime rate.
In the macro sense, I’ll bet this is true, because there is a distinctly less vulnerable “air” about an individual who is armed. Crooks, at least the ones who LIVE, aren’t so stupid as to select armed or made-confident-by-being-armed victim. Low hanging fruit and all.
But at the state or national level? I am betting that the improved economy is the real cause.
Just thinkin’…
Rob
It’s good thinkin’ as far as it goes, but we have lots and lots of data on widely varying firearm laws, crime rates, ecconomic factors, population density factors, law enforcement rates, even racial factors, in different times and places.
The bottom line is very much what our country’s founders would have readily predicted; More guns = less crime. In fact, the greatest benefit from lawful gun ownership tends to come in dense, racially mixed, ecconomically depressed populations, making for some serious answering the Left will one day have to do, for the high crime rates in places like LA and WA DC, where the law abiding residents’ right to bear arms is heavily infringed.
Common sense is a hard thing to cloud, even with decades of smoke comming out of the Left’s huge, collective anus.