Pew is not exactly known as a right-wing group, yet their figures show a ‘startling’ trend: gun homicide rates have been declining for decades:
‘National rates of gun homicide and other violent gun crimes are strikingly lower now than during their peak in the mid-1990s, paralleling a general decline in violent crime, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data.’
Gee, could that have something to do with the increase of ‘conceal-carry’ permits?
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 
May 8, 2013 at 12:09
No way to know for sure. Socialists will use this as evidence that any gun control legislation passed in the past decade succeeded. Truth be told, New York in the mid-90’s was crime-ridden cesspool, that improved after the cost of living skyrocketed to the point where not as many criminals could afford to live there. So some of them moved down in my lovely state.
Xanthippa says:
Just look at how well strict gun control is working in Mexico…
May 8, 2013 at 21:14
i agree gun control is bad and it inherently makes the country less safe. but keep in mind that $$$ is the main factor that affects violent crime.
Xanthippa says:
I’m sorry but I don’t understand what you’re getting at. Expand on the topic, please.
May 10, 2013 at 09:19
sorry for lack of explaining, but finances are the motivation for just about anything. people of poorer backgrounds are more likely to commit gun violence statistically. by prices raising in NY, which may of been giuliani’s plan all along, they had to move down to jersey probably. when economies are good, gun violence generally goes down. though even in our weak economy, it seems to be going down anyway.
i’m just saying ideology is nice and all, but money get’s EVERYONE’s feet moving.
Xanthippa says:
Well, I suspect that that is only true in the regions of the world where even the ‘poor’ people are richer than the median human being throughout our history would ever hope to be. The very poor people – historically speaking – could never afford to keep and maintain arms, even for self-protection. And while acquiring and maintaining arms is relatively cheaper now than ever, do you think the truly poor people, like, say, the refugees in Sudan, are the ones committing the majority ‘gun crimes’ in their region?
I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pick on you. I just get very, very upset when I see people who live in relative comfort or ‘poverty by choice’ are cast as victims, and this perceived victimhood is then used to reduce their responsibility for their own actions.
No, it does not mean that there is no suffering – there is! But it is behaviours rooted in able individuals’ failure to be accountable for their actions and a sense of entitlement to be taken care of by ‘the society’ which breeds gun violence. This is the indulgence of a bloated welfare state and not ‘true poverty’.
For example, I don’t think that individuals living on minimal allowance from the government due to a legitimate disability, who could be argued are the ‘poorest’ in our society, are the ones most likely to commit gun violence. Rather, it is the people who have learned to ‘game the system’ and live on welfare (often committing welfare fraud in the process) who claim to be poor but often are far from it who are most likely to commit gun violence.
In my never-humble-opinion (and, it is no more than an opinion), it is the criminalization of drugs and the unique incentives for US police forces to enforce the drug laws in particularly draconian manner (and its accompanying vicious cycle of for-profit jails, just one form of modern-day slavery) that is at the root of much of the gun violence in the US today.
May 11, 2013 at 09:55
i agree xan that there is a huge difference between being poor in a developed country and being poor in general. It’s all relative. Most poor people in the US struggle with their bills and live in crime ridden neighborhoods, but they have television, playstation, a smartphone and even internet. but even with welfare, the five boroughs (mostly) are much harder to live in than before the crime era.
May 8, 2013 at 15:02
Any evidence for that comment? Like a comparative analysis of gun homicide rates in jurisdictions with and without conceal-carry permits? No? Thought not. But don’t let that stop you from making moronic ideologically driven claims with no basis in reality.
Xanthippa says:
My dear self-described ‘bigoted fecophile’, that has always been your job here – to toss out some outrageous nonsense and thus drive some nice traffic to my blog!
And, you are doing a great job with it…
May 8, 2013 at 19:01
Hey, kaffir – way to put the “ass” into “assume!”
See my post below for links to the exact studies you blithely assume don’t exist.
Either you assume the nonexistence of facts you are ignorant of – in which case you will change your mind after learning the truth – or you assume that the rest of us are ignorant of those facts – in which case you will either veer off on some different but equally disingenuous course of empty rhetoric, or just slink silently away to avoid admitting your foolishness.
May 10, 2013 at 12:16
Blah, blah, blah….. here:
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10881&page=R1
Lott’s research has been widwidely discredited. Quote:
“No link between right-to-carry laws and changes in crime is apparent in the raw data, even in the initial sample; it is only once numerous covariates are included that the negative results in the early data emerge. While the trend models show a reduction in the crime growth rate following the adoption of right-to-carry laws, these trend reductions occur long after law adoption, casting serious doubt on the proposition that the trend models estimated in the literature reflect effects of the law change. Finally, some of the point estimates are imprecise. Thus, the committee concludes that with the current evidence it is not possible to determine that there is a causal link between the passage of right-to-carry laws and crime rates.”
Do you ever get tired of being a retarded, bigoted sack of shit, Codeslinger?
May 9, 2013 at 12:20
My job is to let you know that you a sickening bigot and a moron. You job, or at least as you perceive it, is to post thoughtful and interesting commentary. I just thought you should know that your ability to interpret data and suggest causal links is in line with the intellect of a retarded baby. Thus you are failing miserably at your job.
May 11, 2013 at 01:37
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
I already gave you the causal connection. I even bolded it, so you couldn’t miss it. But, oh well, here it is again:
When the law makes it harder to shoot people, more people get stabbed or beaten to death, and the increase in stabbings and beatings more than undoes the decrease in shootings.
Why is that? Well, when the law deprives people of firearms, it enables criminals to take full advantage of the fact that they are mostly bigger and meaner than you are. So you are more likely to get stabbed or beaten to death. Obviously.
Here is another part of the picture:
Criminals don’t break into your house to get into gunfight. Criminals break into your house to steal your stuff – and maybe rape your wife. If they they find themselves looking down the barrel a gun instead, they will turn tail and run. But you cannot count on the police to make that happen. The police will never get there in time. Obviously.
Do you ever get tired of being a clueless progressive sycophant, kaffir?
May 8, 2013 at 18:40
Xanthippa:
Yes. Most definitely.
The decrease in violent crime has a lot to do with the increase of conceal-carry permits.
And there is abundant research to prove it.
One of the earliest, and still one of the best, studies of the subject published in a peer-reviewed journal was the following:
Lott, John R, & Mustard, David B, 1997: Crime, deterrence, and right-to-carry concealed handguns. Journal of Legal Studies, 26(1):1-68.
Abstract: Using cross-sectional time-series data for U.S. counties from 1977 to 1992, we find that allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes, without increasing accidental deaths. If those states without right-to-carry concealed gun provisions had adopted them in 1992, county- and state-level data indicate that approximately 1,500 murders would have been avoided yearly. Similarly, we predict that rapes would have declined by over 4,000, robbery by over 11,000, and aggravated assaults by over 60,000. We also find criminals substituting into property crimes involving stealth, where the probability of contact between the criminal and the victim is minimal. Further, higher arrest and conviction rates consistently reduce crime. The estimated annual gain from all remaining states adopting these laws was at least $5.74 billion in 1992. The annual social benefit from an additional concealed handgun permit is as high as $5,000.
The most comprehensive and up-to-date analysis was carried out by John Lott, and published in book form:
Lott, John R, 2010: More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws, 3rd Edition, University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-49366-4.
Here is a link to More Guns, Less Crime, 2nd edition, dating from 2000 and available from archive.org in various electronic formats.
In this book, Lott extends the results of the earlier statistical analysis to cover city-, county- and state-level crime data for the entire United States over a period of 3 decades from 1977 to 2005. The findings strengthen those of Lott and Mustard beyond a shadow of a doubt. Let me amplify that:
No honest person can doubt that MORE GUNS = LESS CRIME.
And, before some disingenuous kaffir comes along with the specious contention that “Canada is not the United States,” let me add a Canadian study which, unsurprisingly, comes the exact same conclusions:
Mauser, G A, 2003: The failed experiment: gun control and public safety in Canada, Australia, England and Wales. Occasional Paper Number 71, Fraser Institute.
Abstract: Gun laws must be demonstrated to cut violent crime or gun control is no more than a hollow promise. What makes gun control so compelling for many is the belief that violent crime is driven by the availability of guns and, more importantly, that criminal violence in general may be reduced by limiting access to firearms. In this study, I examine crime trends in Commonwealth countries that have recently introduced firearm regulations: i.e., Great Britain, Australia, and Canada. The widely ignored key to evaluating firearm regulations is to examine trends in total violent crime, not just firearms crime. Since firearms are only a small fraction of criminal violence, the public would not be safer if the new law could reduce firearm violence but had no effect on total criminal violence.
And that is exactly what we find: when the law makes it harder for criminals to shoot people, more people get stabbed or beaten to death, and the increase in stabbings and beatings more than undoes the decrease in shootings.
Only one kind of person can consider this an improvement, and that is one whose goal is to create widespread helplessness and fear in order to cow the people into accepting a totalitarian police state.
Xanthippa says:
Thank you, CodeSlinger, for the most excellent resources!
Sorry it took me so long to approve – am still ironing out some ‘kinks’ due to the new hardware and its slightly buggy software…
May 8, 2013 at 23:25
Xanthippa:
Here is one more Canadian study for good measure:
Langmann, C, 2012: Canadian firearms legislation and effects on homicide 1974 to 2008. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 27(12):2303-2321.
Abstract: Canada has implemented legislation covering all firearms since 1977 and presents a model to examine incremental firearms control. The effect of legislation on homicide by firearm and the subcategory, spousal homicide is controversial and has not been well studied to date. Legislative effects on homicide and spousal homicide were analyzed using data obtained from Statistics Canada from 1974 to 2008. Three statistical methods were applied to search for any associated effects of firearms legislation. Interrupted time series regression, ARIMA, and Joinpoint analysis were performed. No significant beneficial associations between firearms legislation and homicide or spousal homicide rates were found after the passage of three Acts by the Canadian Parliament: Bill C-51 (1977), C-17 (1991), and C-68 (1995). Nor were effects found after the implementation of licensing in 2001, and the registration of rifles and shotguns in 2003. After the passage of C-68, a decrease in the rate of the decline of homicide by firearm was found by interrupted regression. Joinpoint analysis also found an increasing trend in homicide by firearm rate post the enactment of the licensing portion of C-68. Other factors found to be associated with homicide rates were median age, unemployment, immigration rates, percent of population in low income bracket, Gini index of income equality, population per police officer, and incarceration rate. This study failed to demonstrate a beneficial association between legislation and firearm homicide rates between 1974 and 2008.
Again and again it is proven that the only effect of gun control laws is to make people more defenseless and less free.
Which is exactly what progressives want.
So they push the egregious lie that gun control will keep people safe.
Gullible idiots who swallow it are so useful to them.
Xanthippa says:
There are two completely unrelated things I’d like your thoughts on:
1. Given that 3-D copiers have been able to make guns (all bits but one, easily manufactured part, I believe) which are fully functional, at least for a limited amount of time, and that 3-D printer kits are available for a few hundred dollrs (even the top-of-the-line, complete ones, are available for just a few thousand), will any gun-control laws even be enforceable in 10-years’ time?
2. The urban populations in North America seem significantly more likely to have similar views on gun control to European and other ‘high density’ populations while the North American rural populations seem significantly more likely to perceive guns as tools highly necessary for self-protection… How strong do you think the co-relation is between population density and gun necessity/gun control and the necessarily corresponding median length of police response-time?
May 10, 2013 at 23:36
Xanthippa:
Well, you know the old adage: when seconds count, 911 is minutes away.
This is so basic and obvious that one would think everyone must understand it. But city people don’t seem to. At least, they act as though they don’t.
I think the problem is that city people live in a morbidly artificial environment in which the division of labour is carried to pathological extremes. They have no idea what it means to fight their own battles and bury their own dead. They don’t grow their own food. They don’t raise their own children. They don’t even fix their own plumbing. So it’s quite predictable that they don’t want to defend themselves, either.
Regarding 3D-printed firearms… the CAD files for those 3D-printed handguns have been ordered to be taken down by the U.S. Office of Munitions Control – ostensibly to prevent “terrorists” from getting their hands on them – but thankfully, hundreds of thousands of copies had already been downloaded by then. Add to that the fact that in the U.S. there is no constitutionally legal way to prevent people from manufacturing firearms for their own use, and the cat is well and truly out of the bag.
Government attempts at gun control have suddenly become utterly quixotic and irrelevant, at least in America.
In Canada, we have a ways to go yet. Here, the government still thinks it has the right to prevent individuals from exerting their own skills and ingenuity to create devices with which to defend their own persons. Now that is the epitome of modern-day slavery.
Speaking of which, you wrote:
it is the criminalization of drugs and the unique incentives for US police forces to enforce the drug laws in particularly draconian manner (and its accompanying vicious cycle of for-profit jails, just one form of modern-day slavery) that is at the root of much of the gun violence in the US today.
Exactly so!
Excessive meddling by the increasingly intrusive government is the root of this problem, and many others.
And that is doubly true in Canada.
Xanthippa says:
Thank you, CodeSlinger! It is good to know we are in agreement on this.
May 11, 2013 at 02:05
Kaffir:
Lott’s work has been discredited? Don’t be ridiculous!
Lott’s work has survived the concerted attack of the entire progressive intelligentsia for over a decade.
Your quote is from Chapter 6 of
Wellford, C F, Pepper, J V, & Petrie, C V (eds.), 2004: Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review, National Academies Press.
This chapter is not so much an analysis of Lott’s work as it is an agenda-driven hit piece. This is clear from the fact that it does its best to collect together those works which are critical of Lott, but pointedly ignores the vast bulk of the work on the subject, which replicates his findings and agrees with his conclusions. In fact, this chapter is so full of contrived statistical posturing and specious argumentation that the authors themselves couldn’t even stomach it without qualification – which they pushed off into Appendix A, where they hoped no one would notice it. Here is a quote from that appendix:
“The thrust of Chapter 6 of the committee’s report is that studies purporting to show a relationship between right-to-carry (RTC) laws and crime rates are fragile. … If this analysis of Lott’s work showed that his findings are not supported by his data and models, then the conclusion that his results are fragile might be sufficient. But my reading of this chapter suggests that some of his results survive virtually every reanalysis done by the committee. Lott argued that murder rates decline after the adoption of RTC laws even after allowing for the effect of other variables that affect crime rates. The committee has confirmed this finding as is evident in its Tables 6-1, 6-2, 6-5 (first row), 6-6 (first row), and 6-7 (first two rows). This confirmation includes both the original data period (1977-1992) used by Lott and data that run through 2000. In view of the confirmation of the findings that shall-issue laws drive down the murder rate, it is hard for me to understand why these claims are called ‘fragile.’”.
I repeat: no honest person can doubt that MORE GUNS = LESS CRIME.