FBI: Gun sales up, murders down
Devil's Advocate
Gun-sales-up-murders-down
FBI: Gun sales up, murders down
December 22, 8:09 AM
Law Enforcement Examiner
Jim Kouri
The Federal Bureau of Investigation reports a ten percent drop in
murders during the first six months of 2009, while at a time US gun
sales are going through the roof, according to reports obtained by the
National Association of Chiefs of Police. Meanwhile, gun sales to
private citizens soared almost 30 percent during that same period.
Gun rights advocates claim that these numbers are further proof that
there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, state
officials from the Second Amendment Foundation, a civil rights group.
Further, the SAF contends that the increase in private citizen
gun-ownership may have had an impact on reducing violent crime. In a
survey conducted by the National Association of Chiefs of Police of the
nation's police executives, with regard to private citizens owning
firearms for sport or self-defense, 93.6 percent of the respondents
supported civilian gun-ownership rights. Ninety-six percent of the
police chiefs and sheriffs believe criminals obtain firearms from
illegal sources and 92.2 percent revealed they hadn't arrested anyone
for violation of the so-called "waiting period" laws. When asked if
citizens' concealed-weapons permits would reduce violent crime, 63.1
percent said yes. The latest FBI data show that homicides declined by
10 percent from the same period in 2008. Meanwhile, data released by
the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)
shows that during the first six months of this year, gun sales were
up. January 2009 background checks rose 28.8 percent over the same
month in 2008, February's NICS checks were up 23.3 percent and in
March they were up 29.9 percent over March 2008. The trend continued
in April, with NICS checks up 30.3 percent, while May showed a
slowdown, up only 15.5 percent, and in June they were up 18.1 percent.
"What this shows," said SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb, "is
that gun prohibitionists are all wrong when they argue that more guns
result in more crime. Firearms in the hands of law-abiding citizens
are no threat to anyone. Perhaps violent criminals were actually
discouraged by all of those gun sales earlier this year, because the
media made a point of reporting the booming gun market.
"Anti-gunners," he continued, "have lost another one of their baseless
arguments. Millions of Americans bought guns during the first six
months of this year, many of them for the first time. Yet with all of
those new guns in circulation, coupled with an increased demand for
concealed carry licenses around the country, the streets have not been
awash in blood, as gun banners repeatedly predict. "Hard facts trump
hot air," Gottlieb concluded. "These people are consistently wrong
about our rights. Millions of people bought guns, especially
semiautomatic sport-utility rifles that gun grabbers want to ban
because they say people aren't safe with all of those guns in private
hands. Well, the people disagree, and so does the data." In fact,
while gun-control enthusiasts point to accidental shootings or misuse
of firearms cases to bolster their claims, numerous studies have shown
there are between 600,000 and one million protective uses of firearms
by citizens (Northwestern University School of Law, Gary Kleck & Marc
Gertz). "Studies have shown that the incidents of proper use of guns by
US citizens far outweigh any abuses or misuses. In my own law
enforcement career, must guns used in a crime are illegally obtained.
If a suspect is willing to walk into a bank full of people to rob it,
I doubt he'd be worried about violating some gun law," said former
NYPD detective Mike Snipes, now the owner of a private security firm.
"This obsession with gun control by politicians and activists has more
to do with disarming law-abiding citizens and less to do with fighting
crime," he added.
The Second Amendment Foundation is the nation's oldest and largest
tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group
focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and
possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more
than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs
designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun
control.