Not that it would surprise anyone who’s been seeking facts, but murder is down while gun and ammo sales are way up. NRA’s ILA discusses the latest FBI crime report. They link to this tidbit also. Wow– what happened in 2006? See that little spike in the last quarter of 2001? We felt that one, so we already knew about it. We has recently started selling our ground breaking AK optic mount, and people started buying them up in droves after 9/11, along with high-end optics. You attack the U.S. and we prepare to respond as individuals, should individual action become necessary. That is as intended by our nation’s founders.
I’d like to have seen some mention of the word “rights” or of the second amendment, and how a right is not contingent upon certain crime rate parameters, but the ILA article will have to do. I can help them understand things a bit further;
At the expense of undercutting a future post I have planned, here’s the danger in these types of arguments; crime will at some point rise. For one reason or another, these things cycle up and down. If you place too much stock in the assertion that gun rights should be protected because crime is dropping while gun ownership is rising, you’ll eventually lose that argument and have to start over with a different one, in danger of looking like a hypocrite (Republicans? Are you listening?). Crime will increase and gun buying will at some stage decrease, and they will probably at some other point happen both at the same time.
If violent crime were high and increasing, wouldn’t access to the tools of self defense be that much more important? Hmmm? And again I ask; Hmmm?
Principles. It can’t be overstated. Gun rights should be protected because a right is a right. Violators of rights should be punished because they are criminals and we can’t afford to tolerate criminals. Principles don’t change with the ebb and flow of statistics just as Rosie would have gotten fat with or without legal access to a spoon.
Amen
Amen part 2.
I think the right way to approach news like this isn’t “see? guns reduce crime”, but “This doesn’t mean guns reduce crime; statistics show that guns and gun laws don’t have much effect on crime rates. But it does _disprove_ the idea that guns increase crime rates, which is really the only rational basis for gun control that could exist.”
Elmo said it well. Statistics like this aren’t (or shouldn’t be) the basis for our arguments, but they are useful for proving false the arguments presented by the “other” side.
“…they are useful for proving false the arguments presented by the “other” side.”
Absolutely. The stats show that the anti libertarians are incapable of predicting outcomes. They have no rational basis for connecting cause with effect, as they claim to have.
That’s really a distraction though, isn’t it? One can easily point out that “easy access” to cars and highways results in more death, and it helps criminals in their smuggling and evasion practices, but one would only point that out of one had an agenda against driving in general. If one were concerned about safety, one would propose more or better safety education, or would start a driving school, etc.
My bottom line is that we’d be better served by soundly dismissing the arguments of anti freedom idiotarians and have a real conversation, without them changing the subject and mucking things up. It’s like having a clan of rampaging chimps in the middle of a history seminar. It’s great if all you want is to disrupt the conversation, and that’s exactly what they’ve been doing.
They will fail every time if the conversation is kept rational and based in principle, which is why their only option is to redirect the conversation. They know that, but do we?