Guns Decrease Crime

The lamestream media told you:

“Crime in the U.S. dropped dramatically in 2009, bucking a historical trend that links rising crime rates to economic woes,” according to unidentified wire service reports. Extensive numerical measures of the drops for property and violent crime are provided by the FBI, with drops in the single digit range for all categories.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

The connection between private gun ownership and reductions in rates of crime were unexamined by unidentified wire service reports, expressing surprise that crime has dropped despite a bad economy which, according to the wires, seems backwards and is inexplicable.

“Gun sales rose dramatically in 2009, as fears of a democrat crackdown on Second Amendment rights drove millions more to gun stores than in previous years,” notes the Uninvited Ombudsman. “Whether this had an effect on the crime numbers dropping seems likely, and has been well documented in the past, but cannot be proven from anecdotal FBI reports,” he said. Wire services failed to note the likely trend, preferring instead to express surprise that crime dropped.

Past crime reports have more accurately indicated that arrests have dropped, since that is largely how crime rates are measured. However, crime rates and arrest rates are only indirectly linked. Get-tough enforcement programs, or budget cutting to police forces, have a far greater effect on arrest rates than anything else. Despite the media's confidence in its report, the actual rates of committed and attempted crime are essentially unknown with any precision.

Although the wires said crimes are down, the actual FBI announcement more accurately said “the number of violent crimes brought to their attention” are down. Detailed stats here: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/prelimsem2009/index.html