Gun Sales Up and Crime Down

Joined
Jun 1, 2005
Messages
669
Likes
0
Feedback: 0 / 0 / 0
Saw this original thread on Shootingusa.com, but it was from a Black Bear Blog that was based on U.S. Treasury report and an original story from Hawaii Reporter.

Pretty interesting stuff along the lines of John Lott's work. Link and text are below.

http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?2eddcda2-aab4-4dd2-af10-20ea8b29e8b8

Report Finds Gun Crime Dropping As Sales Climb
By Dave Workman, 7/4/2006 9:20:59 PM
Gun crimes, suicides and firearms-related accidents declined last year at the same time that firearm and ammunition sales climbed, according to data from the US Treasury Department released by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF).

While this revelation tends to debunk long-standing claims by gun control proponents that more guns in circulation leads to more crime, gun rights organizations contend that this bolsters their contention that armed citizens deter criminals.

NSSF Public Relations Director Steve Wagner told Gun Week that approximately 4.7 million new firearms were sold in America last year, including those manufactured domestically and imported. The greatest increase was in retail handgun sales, which were up 3%. Long gun sales were up 1.8%. Ammunition sales were up 3.5%.

Wagner specified that these figures represent dollars generated, not actual volume of firearms and ammunition sold.

However, the bottom line is that there are millions more firearms in circulation, which some gun control advocates have been arguing for years would result in more death and crime.

Said Wagner: “The point of that release was just to help the media understand that the guys at the Violence Policy Center and Brady Center are selling a lie when they continue to tell people that more guns equals more bad news.”

Wagner said NSSF used data from several sources for its report. According to the FBI, there were 339,280 firearms crimes reported in 2005, which is down 2.4% from 2004 and 7% from 1998.

The Centers for Disease Control reported that firearm suicides were down 1.1%, to a reported 16,907, and they have declined 1.8% since 1998.

From the National Safety Council came data on accidental firearms fatalities, which tied the 2004 figure at an all-time low of 700. That is down 19.2% since 1998.

Also, according to National Safety Council data, there were 60 fatal firearms accidents involving children age 14 and under, which is an all time low. That figure has declined a whopping 50.4% since 1998.

A spokesman for one leading gun control organization said new guns are not so much the problem as are firearms that have been in circulation for a while.

Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, remarked, “It’s the guns that have been around a while that could wind up in criminal hands,” he explained, “not the guy who’s going out and buying a new $700 handgun. . . . The guns that cause the worst problems in this country are not selling for very high prices.”

Hamm zeroed in on alleged rogue dealers who have been identified as the source of an inordinate number of firearms connected to crimes.

“There are some bad apple dealers out there and the numbers over and over again indicate how totally responsible and respectable the vast majority of gun dealers are in this country,” he stated. “It’s a shame that the politics of this issue are so incendiary that the sides on this issue can’t work together to handle the bad actors in this industry.”

Hamm was not alarmed at the number of new firearms sold in 2005. He said new firearms sales “are not the issue to me.”

“You’ve got to hope that those guns are being sold by upstanding dealers who have better records than some of the dealers who were identified by the Justice Department as having sold hundreds of firearms they can’t account for,” he said.

The NSSF has responded to such problems with a program called “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy.” Aimed at stopping dealers from making straw man sales, this program warns potential violators of the penalties they face when caught.

''Various Factors

Expensive or otherwise, firearm sales are climbing for various reasons, Wagner suggested. He said one contributing factor to increased handgun sales has been the expansion of concealed carry across the country. This year, two more states have been added to the list, and it is reasonable to expect more handguns for personal protection will be sold as more people obtain concealed carry licenses.

“Also two more states passed right-to-carry laws,” he said, “and there is an increasing interest in self-defense and home defense and recreational shooting with handguns is continuing to rise too.”

Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, told Gun Week that the data “doesn’t surprise me.” However, he believes that there is more to the equation than expansion of concealed carry laws.

“I think the real driving force for gun sales wasn’t crime to start with,” he said, “it was Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters. People want to protect themselves.”

Chris Cox, who heads the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA), is also not surprised that crime and accident rates declined while gun sales went up. He credited expansion of right-to-carry laws to 40 states, and said the drop in accidents is due to the NRA’s firearm safety programs.

“These are the facts that the Hillary Clintons, Mike Bloombergs and Charlie Schumers won’t admit,” Cox stated. “Lawful Americans don’t break the law.”

According to NSSF, last year’s combined sales of firearms and ammunition generated $224.3 million in excise taxes. That money is earmarked for wildlife and habitat conservation, NSSF noted, and it is apportioned to the states through a program created more than 60 years ago called the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, also called the “Pittman-Robertson” fund after its two congressional sponsors. Since that law took effect, more than $5 billion has been generated by gun and ammunition sales, and sales of hunting related equipment, for wildlife conservation and enhancement projects. Each state’s share helps fund hunter education.


Dave Workman is the Senior Editor of Gun Week Magazine. More at http://www.gunweek.com
 
As much as I like stats to support the 2nd, I don’t think the increase of gun sales nation wide has had a direct correlation with the decrease in crime. If it were numbers for one city in particular I would have an easier time believing it.
 
derek said:
As much as I like stats to support the 2nd, I don’t think the increase of gun sales nation wide has had a direct correlation with the decrease in crime. If it were numbers for one city in particular I would have an easier time believing it.

Well DECREASES in gun sales can be directly attributed to MORE crime, like in DC and Boston, England, Australia, and Canada.
 
Pilgrim said:
Well DECREASES in gun sales can be directly attributed to MORE crime, like in DC and Boston, England, Australia, and Canada.
Which is exactly my point. It's easier to use the Stats to support a shift when the affected area and stats only pertain to one city and not the country as a whole.
 
Weapon of convenience as far as crime goes. Take the guns they use knives, take the knives and they use sticks, take the sticks and they use rocks and so on......

What politicians aren't telling people is that criminals aren't just going out and getting illegal guns because they can...they are getting them to aide them in committing their drug deals and or other crime. The only people getting shot in Boston are altar boys, right. Or at least that’s what the Globe and Herald will have you believe. Take the guns off the street and less people will be killed…..well less will be killed by guns. Get rid of the gangs and the drug violence and see how quickly gun violence is reduced. They won’t tell you that because that’s a battle they clearly will not win.

So target the guns and legal gun ownership and all the gun violence goes away…..it’s laughable but the people of the commonwealth believe it.
 
I don't know where they are getting their crime stats from...The data I've seem in my law enforcement journals suggests that in 05 crime went up about 5 percent. This is a slight rise after a few years of falling....But cities can do whatever they want with their own stats to reflect anything that want.
 
Derek,

I agree. I meant to post that in the original. I don't know that this proves that guns reduce crime or not. But, it is certainly good news in that it does positively prove that more guns do not make more crime.

I read recently that 75% of murderers had past criminal records, and saw a Philadelphia study that said approx. 70% of people who were "murdered" had some kind of a criminal record (I would imagine that this roughly holds on a national level). So, to Daceman's point, these are NOT altar boys getting shot.

rscalzo - I think I saw the same report. My recollection was that the report was just based on city raw data, and was specific to murders using actual #s of homicides. NYC was down, LA was down, but several others (Boston & Springfield) were up. I thought they had not correlated all of the actual data as that was a priliminary report. And as I recall, there were not rates mentioned. If you use homicide rate data (#'s homicides/1000 people) you account for population shifts. The report usually changes from the preliminary release.

Also, looking at the raw data, some cities that may have experienced increases in homicides had overall decreases in violent crime. Homicide numbers could be affected by one or two incidents as well, so if you're using percentages and you start with 5 homicieds for 2004, but suddenly in 2005, you have 10 that may mean that some guy went nutzoid and killed his family. But it registers as a 100% increase in homicides.
 
To put another perspective on this though...

What would happen if the antis could prove that crime DID go up a
few ticks when more guns were sold?

Shouldn't we still be trying to prove, that ethicially speaking, even given
such circumstances, that it is -wrong- to disarm people?

This is important- Why? Let's say the US economy collapses again in a
very major way.... that means that you're going to have more socioeconomic
problems- which invariably lead to more crime, some of it violent. This means
that regardless of "gun numbers" the violent crimes could increase, due to
a variety of factors that have absolutely nothing to do with "guns" but they
will still try to scapegoat it that way. Then such increases would make
all our parroting about "guns reducing crime" worthless. Additionally, statistics
can still LOOK BAD even though we know we're -right-. (EX- look at the amount
of people killed by doctor/healthcare mistakes every year, I don't see anyone
talking about banning doctors. Why? Because healthcare is generally
percieved as being beneficial.)

The pro-gun side of the equation needs to sell private/civilian gun ownership
as being a basic HUMAN RIGHT. It's a lot harder for an anti to blow us
off that way. It's about -self defense- more than anything else,
period. What they antis don't tell you is that they DO NOT believe
in this concept. They DO NOT BELIEVE that a woman should have a right
to use deadly force to defend herself from a rapist. They also do not
believe that a man or woman has the right to use deadly force to protect
their family against a home invasion, carjacking, or any other
violent crime. The antis would rather that everyone turn in their
guns to -possibly attempt to- make "the number go down a bit" but they
fail to acknowledge that anyone could possibly use a gun to defend themselves. Some
of these asshats would even want to include a defensive shooting as an incident
of "gun violence" if they could possibly get away with it... to them, even the death
of a criminal, even a criminal of the worst kind, is still something to be avoided at all costs,
and that, frankly, is just absurd.

Another thing that hurts us- is we have unquanitfiable numbers at
play. There is no (110% bona fide) data metric on the defensive use
of firearms. There's no statistic that can be reliably compiled at the end
of the year that says that guns prevented (insert some 6 digit number here)
of violent crimes from even occuring, most of which occured without a
shot being fired! A pro gun ownership LE org should start pushing some
sort of initiative to collect this sort of data, eg, something that will
-make it- into a large database.

The best statistical case in point- In Britain there are still THOUSANDS of so called
"gun crimes" every year, and the country has almost a unilateral ban on firearms.
(Aside from a few enthusiasts, who are probably less in number than the amount of LTC-A
holders in MA, not to mention the laws are 10 times as stict, and MA gun owners have it
good compared to those in GB). One would think that GB being an "island" of sort, that
gun control would be easier to accomplish, but that apparently is not the case.

-Mike
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom