(NaturalNews) It isn’t a firearms statistic that liberal progressives and gun
banners like California Sen. Dianne Feinstein will want to hear but it’s true
nonetheless: According to the most recent statistics, the more guns that have
been sold in the Golden State, the fewer gun deaths and injuries there have
been.
According to the state’s office of the Attorney General, gun
dealers sold around 600,000 guns last year, nearly double the 350,000 sold in
2002, according to figures compiled by department officials.
During the
same period of time, however, “the number of California hospitalizations due to
gun injuries” fell by some 4,000 a year to roughly 2,900, a drop of about 25
percent, “according to hospital records collected by the California Department
of Public Health,” the Sacramento Bee reported.
Meanwhile, the
attorney general’s office said, the number of deaths from firearms fell from
3,200 a year to about 2,800, an 11 percent decline, according to California
health department figures.
“Most of the drop in firearm-related injuries
and deaths can be explained by a well-documented, nationwide drop in violent
crime,” the paper said.
California’s example is being repeated all
over the country
There’s more. Data show that the number of injuries
and death in the state caused by accidental discharge of firearms has fallen as
well, suggesting as one explanation, perhaps, that instruction in the use of
firearms may have improved (Note: California allows concealed carry of handguns,
but is much more restrictive than most other states, according to
USACarry.com).
There are some caveats to the California figures,
the SacBee reported. For one, state figures track gun sales, now gun
ownership, meaning the state treats “a family’s first gun purchase the same as a
collector’s twelfth.” Secondly, gun sales in California
reached their zenith in the mid-1990s, when violent crime also
peaked.
What is going on in California is being repeated all over the
country - again, to the chagrin of gun-banning politicians, Hollywood types,
academics and the mainstream media, the latter of which barely reports the
phenomenon.
Gun-related violent crime has also steadily fallen in
Virginia over the past six years, though the sale of firearms has risen
dramatically, “according to an analysis of state crime data with state records
of gun sales,” the Richmond
Times-Dispatch reported.
The total number of guns bought in the Old
Dominion climbed significantly - 73 percent - from 2006-2011. When you factor in
the increase in state population, firearms sales per 100,000 residents rose 63
percent, still a substantial increase.
But higher numbers of guns has not
translated into more violent gun crime. As in California, gun
crime has fallen in Virginia, dropping 24 percent over the same period. When
adjusted for the population increase, gun-related offenses fell by more than 27
percent, from 79 crimes per 100,000 in 2006 to 57 crimes in 2011 (Note: Virginia
has much less restrictive carry laws than does California).
The numbers
contradict what Americans are being told by the gun controllers and banners;
that more guns in circulation
equals more violent, gun-related crimes, notes Virginia Commonwealth University
Prof. Thomas R. Baker, who compared the state’s crime data for the
aforementioned timeframe with gun-dealer sales estimates obtained by the
Times-Dispatch.
Concealed carry is helping to lower crime, deaths
“While there
is a wealth of academic literature attempting to demonstrate the relationship
between guns and crime, a very simple and intuitive demonstration of the numbers
seems to point away from the premise that more guns leads to more crime, at
least in Virginia,” said Baker, who specializes in research methods and
criminology theory and has an interest in gun issues, the paper said.
Gun
control advocates refused to accept the reality of the data, but those who
understand the effects of more Americans accepting responsibility for their own
self-defense weren’t surprised.
“My opponents are constantly saying, ‘If
you got more guns on the street, there’s going to be more crime.’ It all depends
on who has the handgun,” said Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia
Citizens Defense League and an avid gun rights supporter. “As long as it’s going
into the hands of people like you or me, there’s not going to be a problem.
Criminals are going to continue to get their guns no matter what.”
Emily
Miller, the editorial page editor for the Washington Times, pointed out
in June that the drop in gun crime and armed violent criminal action has
directly coincided with a rise in the number of states that allow concealed
carry, an assertion backed by FBI crime data.
“If the gun grabbers
were right, we’d be in the middle of a crime wave, considering how many guns are
on the streets,” she wrote.
NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam made a
similar connection.
“This is not a one-year anomaly, but a steady decline
in the FBI’s violent-crime rates,” he told Miller. “It would be disingenuous for
anyone to not credit increased self-defense laws to account for this
decline.”