House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is pushing the mantra of an “epidemic of gun violence” even as the overall murder rate falls.
Moreover, the decline comes as more and more Americans own and carry firearms for self-defense.
The NRA-ILA reports, “Since 1991, the murder rate has fallen by 45 percent and the overall violent crime rate has fallen by 48 percent.” The NRA-ILA’s claim squares with a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report that showed murder rates plummeting as gun ownership surged.
On December 4, 2013, Breitbart News reported that CRS found the “firearm-related murder and non-negligent homicide” rate was 6.6 per 100,000 Americans in 1993. Following the exponential growth in the number of guns, that rate fell to 3.6 per 100,000 in 2000.
Moreover:
The rate rose from 2004 to 2005 and got as high as 3.9 in 2006 and 2007, but it then resumed falling in 2008, the year the Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that individual firearm possession is Constitutionally protected–particularly for self-defense. This figure fell to 3.2 per 100,000 by 2011.
Despite such declines, including the decline noted by the NRA-ILA, Pelosi is pushing the leftist mantra of an “epidemic of gun violence.”
Responding to President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the southern border Pelosi said:
Just think of what a president with different values can present to the American people. Want to talk about a national emergency? Let’s talk about today, the one year anniversary of another manifestation of the epidemic of gun violence in America. That’s a national emergency. Why don’t you declare that emergency Mr. President? I wish you would. But a Democratic president can do that. A Democratic President can declare emergencies as well.
Again, murder rates have fallen as gun ownership has increased, but that point is not mentioned by Democrat leaders or their surrogates in the gun control lobby.
To be clear, there are outliers. Murders continue unabated in gun-free zones, as criminals are drawn to places where the law-abiding citizen is not allowed to defend himself. And Democrat-run cities like Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore, and others continue to witness murder and mayhem on a grand scale as city leaders preserve the gun-control-first mentality toward crime.
But the NRA-ILA’s point is that America, as a whole, as witnessed a decline in murder and violent crime even as gun ownership has skyrocketed. The Congressional Research Service made the observation for the years 1993-2011.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
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