OPINION:
There is a growing body of evidence that law-abiding citizens reduce violent crime. As data continues to be gathered by the FBI, CDC and interested parties from both sides of the firearms discussion, it is becoming ever more apparent that the Second Amendment, where fully implemented, does far more good than harm. The latest revelation to appear in FBI data from 2020 would seem to indicate that armed citizens now stop more crimes than law enforcement, something that should provoke those who advocate gun control to consider whether their policies do more harm than good.
As violent crime rates have risen dramatically in many big cities, another surge in gun sales has also occurred, with many millions of new gun owners realizing that, if law enforcement cannot protect them, their Second Amendment rights provide the best form of self-defense. At the same time, data is now emerging to show the benefits to society of having armed, law-abiding citizens carrying their weapons.
The lawmakers in the large cities, mostly progressive Democrat-led, want you to disarm — to do the opposite of what your best interests are. They are not interested in data. They are not interested in science, technology or facts. They want you disarmed and don’t care if, as a result, you can die.
Let’s review the facts of why it is important to follow the data and ignore the political rhetoric.
First, we are finally seeing admissions that Defensive Gun Use, which is incredibly hard to measure due to an understandable reticence to even admit to such events, especially in light of such high profile legal attacks as those made on the McCloskey’s in St. Louis in June 2020 by the local district attorney. The CDC now estimates Americans use their guns defensively between 500,000 and 3,000,000 times each year, that is to say from anywhere over 1,300 times per day to over 8,000 times each day. The vast majority of DGUs do not involve shooting, with display alone usually being sufficient to deter would-be criminals.
Second, we see violent crime rising mainly in major cities, with little or no such rise occurring in suburban and rural areas with less gun control. To give this some perspective, the seven worst cities for murder account for more than 15% of all the murders occurring in the U.S. And these cities, which all have strict gun control laws making possession by law-abiding citizens much more difficult than elsewhere, have seen murder rates rise by 30 to 50% in one year (from 2019 to 2020). Meanwhile, the rest of the country has seen little increase in the number of murders, with about half of all counties still not registering a single murder in 2020.
Third, we now have a significant piece of data from the FBI on Justifiable Homicide. In 2020, justifiable homicides by civilians exceeded those by Law Enforcement for the first time, by 343 to 298. This implies that lethal force was used for self-defense by law-abiding citizens who also convinced authorities they were genuinely in fear of their lives when they fired their firearms and took the life of others. In consequence, it is also possible to imply from these numbers that armed, law-abiding citizens stopped more violent crimes than police, and it is further likely that they also stopped many other crimes such as rape and car-jacking.
Finally, we have seen constitutional carry spread from Vermont (historically always liberal towards the Second Amendment) to 18 other states over the last 20 years (with five more states now considering bills favoring constitutional carry). Despite all the rhetoric and emotional claims of opponents and advocates of increased gun control, we have seen violent crime in all these states decrease consistently and persistently (except in some large cities in those states which maintain strong gun control measures, all of which happen to be controlled politically by Democrats).
President Biden has declared, absent of supporting facts of any sort, that gun violence is a public health epidemic. His solution to the observed rise in criminal violence is to ban and/or severely limit access to firearms by law-abiding citizens.
His so-called “commonsense” policies will decrease the ability of all Americans to exercise their Second Amendment right, claiming that this one part of the Bill of Rights is “limited.” Solid data on murder, homicide and violent crime plus the experience of decades of relaxing gun controls at state levels suggest he is completely wrong. There are no limitations to the right of self-protection or self-defense. Any infringement cannot be tolerated.
Self-defense is a fundamental right of every human being. In order to protect themselves, Americans are uniquely blessed to have the right to keep and bear arms enumerated as the Second Amendment. Constitutional carry needs to become the national standard. Anything less is un-American!
