VA-Gun sales soar. Gun crime goes down.

[Anti Federalist]

Some good news.

And since DC gun crime has gone down as well, seems to blow the "it's the neighboring states" argument as well.

Gaulieter Bloomberg must be displeased.


New study shows gun violence down in Virginia

Posted: Nov 26, 2012 7:29 AM EST Updated: Nov 26, 2012 7:29 AM EST

http://www.nbc12.com/story/20182856/new-study-shows-gun-violence-down-in-virginia

Posted by Phil Newsome - email

RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) -

A new analysis shows gun-related violence has actually fallen steadily in Virginia since 2006, despite the record number of firearm sales.

VCU professor Thomas Baker compared state crime data for 2006 through 2011 with gun dealer sales estimated by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The research shows the number of guns purchased soared to 73% in the six year period, while gun related crimes fell 24%.

Baker says the comparisons seem to contradict the premise that guns lead to more crime.

[Pericles]

Baker says the comparisons seem to contradict the premise that guns lead to more crime.

!FACT!

[Zippyjuan]

Gun crime has been falling all across the country- even in places where fewer people own guns.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/23/news/la-pn-crime-is-down-and-so-is-gun-ownership-20120722


Crime is down -- and so is gun ownership

July 23, 2012|By David Lauter

As the political debate over gun control heats up in the aftermath of the mass killing in Aurora, Colo., here are three important trends to keep in mind: Criminal violence in America has dropped to levels not seen in more than a generation, the percentage of Americans owning guns is down and public support for gun control measures has plummeted as well.

Do fewer Americans own guns now because crime has dropped so much? Or has crime dropped in part because fewer Americans own guns? Has support for gun control gone down because fewer Americans are experiencing gun violence in their daily lives, or because of other factors, particularly partisan differences? Each of those questions is a matter for debate.

The underlying trends, however, are not.

Start with the first one: Mass killings such as the one that took place in Aurora deservedly attract huge amounts of attention for the trauma they inflict on a community. But they are, thankfully, very rare events. Overall, the rate of violent crime in the United States, much of it gun-related, peaked around 1990 after rising steadily through the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Crime and violence have now declined nationwide and in almost all the country’s largest cities for more than two decades.

That shift to a more peaceful society has transformed whole sections of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and other major urban centers, allowing a renaissance of urban life that has been a striking social change.

The decline in gun ownership began some years earlier, according to data from Gallup and the General Social Survey, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. New York University political scientist Patrick Egan charted the decline in a recent blog post.

More at link.


It seems to be global. Britain has seen simliar declines- they have very strict gun laws.
http://www.economist.com/node/21559646


The decline of gun crime
STOCKWELL, in south London, is famous for two things: Portuguese restaurants and gun crime. Last year, at the Asian-run Stockwell Food and Wine store, a five-year-old girl, Thusa Kamaleswaran, was shot and paralysed in a botched attack by the Brixton-based GAS gang (which stands for Guns and Shanks, or knives) on the Stockwell-based ABM gang (All ‘Bout Money). The shooters were three young men, who arrived on bicycles and fled the same way, leaving security camera images which shocked the nation.

Mercifully, such tragedies are becoming rarer. The number of firearms offences recorded by police is at its lowest level this millennium. Last year 39 people died from gunshots, down from 96 a decade earlier. This is not just because of better medicine; the number of people entering hospital accident and emergency departments with gunshot wounds has also dropped, from 1,370 in 2003 to 972 last year.


Violence in general is dropping. But the fall in gun crime is especially steep (see chart). The number of offences involving guns dropped by 16% last year, whereas the number of crimes involving knives (which have only been properly recorded since 2010) fell by just 5%. The biggest improvements have been in places where gun crime once seemed uncontrollable. In both Manchester, once nicknamed “Gunchester,” and Nottingham, gun crime has fallen by almost half since 2006.

[Anti Federalist]

Gun crime has been falling all across the country- even in places where fewer people own guns.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/23/news/la-pn-crime-is-down-and-so-is-gun-ownership-20120722

More at link.

It seems to be global. Britain has seen simliar declines- they have very strict gun laws.
http://www.economist.com/node/21559646

Mmm, we have discussed this before.

Sales are based on "hard data", NICS checks, of which there is a record.

"Ownership" on the other hand is based on surveys, dependent upon honest answers from people.

I'm not going to admit to a survey taker, whether in person or on the phone, that I own guns.

Or, we could just admit that the police/prison state keeps crime down and give up and go home and wait for the surveillance cameras to be placed in our home.