The Facts about Guns
The Facts about Guns
Gun-related homicides and crime are “strikingly” down from 20 years ago, despite the American public’s belief that firearm crime is on the upswing, a new study said Wednesday.
Looking back 50 years, a Pew Research Center study found U.S. gun homicides rose in the 1960s, gained in the 1970s, peaked in the 1980s and the early 1990s, and then plunged and leveled out the past 20 years.
“Despite national attention to the issue of firearm violence, most Americans are unaware that gun crime is lower today than it was two decades ago,” the researchers say.
A Pew survey of Americans in March found 56% believed gun-related crime is higher than 20 years ago and only 12% said it’s lower. The survey said 26% believed it stayed the same and 6% didn’t know.
The new study found U.S. firearm homicides peaked in 1993 at 7.0 deaths per 100,000 people. But by 2010, the rate was 49% lower, and firearm-related violence — assaults, robberies, sex crimes — was 75% lower in 2011 than in 1993, the study found.
In fact, gun-related homicide rates in the late 2000s were “equal to those not seen since the early 1960s,” the study found.
Despite the decline, the United States still has a higher rate of homicide than other developed countries, the study says. But America doesn’t have a higher rate for all other crimes. The United States also has a higher rate of gun ownership than any other developed country, the study said.
Two new studies released at the beginning of May 2013 have shown that the primary factor in the reduction of the number of gun homicides and violent gun crimes is not gun control, but rather the proliferation of legal gun ownership.
In a study released by Pew Research, violent gun crimes are significantly lower now than they were at their peak during the mid 1990s. Gun homicides declined 49% from 1993 to 2010, despite the fact that population in the United States grew during the same period. Other violent crimes involving firearms including robberies, assaults, and sex crimes declined 75% in 2011 as compared to 1993. The data also showed that six-in-ten firearms deaths are actually suicides, meaning they are not victims of criminal violence.
According to Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were 31,672 deaths from guns in the U.S. during 2010. Nearly 20,000 of those deaths were gun related suicides.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans are unaware of this decline in firearms violence. The Pew study found that 56% incorrectly perceive that gun crime is actually higher now than it was two decades ago.
The same trends are mirrored in a May 2013 Justice Department study from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. According to this study, firearms homicides in 2011 are down 39% since 1993, while non-fatal violent crimes involving firearm declined 69% during the same period.
One interesting aspect of the DOJ study showed that in 2004, state prison inmates were surveyed regarding the source of the firearm they used during the commission of their offense. The survey showed that less than 2% purchased their firearm at a gun show or flea market, 37% obtained a gun from a friend or family member, while 40% obtained their firearm from an illegal source.
There is also clearly no relationship between the number of guns and firearms related violence. In December 2012, the FBI reported a record 2.78 million background checks for firearms purchases. In November 2012, the number of background checks was just over 2 million. The total of FBI background checks for 2012 numbered 19.6 million, an increase of 19% over 2011.
Fortunately, mass murders, while tragic, are exceeding rare. Mass shootings represent less than 1% of all shooting related homicides.
While many gun control advocates, including Senator Diane Feinstein attempted to use the Newtown tragedy to advance her Assault Weapons Ban proposal, an DOJ analysis of the 1994 ban failed to show that there was a “significant impact” on assault weapons use and failed to support the allegation that large capacity magazines lead to more violent gun crimes.
In all of these studies, there is no data that supports the idea that a reinstatement of any Assault Weapons Ban would have an impact on future tragedies.
While researchers have been unable to reach a clear consensus on exactly why crime rates have declined so dramatically, advocates of gun control have used the events in Newtown to redouble their efforts to pass more limiting legislation, despite compelling evidence that draconian gun laws do not result in a reduction of violent crime.
The City of Chicago has some of the toughest gun laws in America, yet in 2012 there were 512 gun related homicides, an increase of 15% over 2011. The murder rate in Chicago three times the murder rate in the rest of Illinois. Law enforcement also reports that 80% of the murders and shootings in Chicago are gang-related. It would appear that the ‘gun problem’ in Chicago is really more of a ‘gang problem’.