"The number of firearms in civilian hands in the U.S. has increased. But gun grabbers who tell you those firearms are hitting the streets to the benefit of criminals are simply lying."

For gun grabbers, these numbers just don’t add up

by Sam Rolley

Anti-2nd Amendment activists constantly claim that the key to reducing the amount of gun crime in the U.S. is reducing the number of firearms in the nation. Despite their claims, the nation’s crime rates are falling as the number of U.S. gun owners continues to grow.

The Washington Post published an article in early October that detailed how sometime around 2009 the number of guns in the U.S. began eclipsing the number of people in the nation. Based on firearms statistics from 2013, the latest available, The Post determined that there are currently about 357 million firearms spread among 317 million U.S. residents.

President Barack Obama’s seemingly unending talk about tougher firearm laws has actually played a key role in the U.S. firearm explosion, causing wary gun owners to stock up on weapons that could be made scarce by federal bans.

Via the Post:

A 2012 Congressional Research Service report published exactly one month before the Sandy Hook school shooting put the number of civilian firearms at 242 million in 1996, 259 million in 2000, and 310 million as of 2009.

If that 310 million number is correct, it means that the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency was an inflection point: It marked the first time that the number of firearms in circulation surpassed the total U.S. population.

In fact, FBI data for 2014 shows that U.S. violent crime is at a 44-year low and robbery is at a 48-year low. According to the agency’s numbers, total violent crime rate decreased 0.9 percent from 2013 to 2014. The decrease in overall crime is comprised of a 1 percent drop in murder and a 6 percent drop in robbery offset by a 1.8 increase in rapes and a 1.3 percent increase in aggravated assaults.

Of course, some areas of the nation have seen an opposite trend in violent crime rates. Most of them are bastions of liberal gun control laws.

As the National Rifle Association recently noted:

The murder rate in Detroit, which is subject to Michigan’s handgun registration law, was nearly 10 times the rate for metropolitan areas generally, at 43.5 per 100,000 residents. The rate in Baltimore, subject to Maryland’s handgun registration and waiting period law, and its “assault weapon” and “large” magazine ban, was not far behind, at 33.8 per 100,000. By comparison, the murder rates in Jacksonville and Miami, the largest cities in the state where the Right-to-Carry movement began in 1987, were far behind, at 11.2 and 19.2, respectively. Chicago accounted for the most murders of any city, followed by New York City, Detroit, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

The number of firearms in civilian hands in the U.S. has increased. But gun grabbers who tell you those firearms are hitting the streets to the benefit of criminals are simply lying.

Link:
http://personalliberty.com/for-gun-grabbers-these-numbers-just-dont-add-up/