More Guns, Less Crime

NRA notes that all the fear mongering from DC and Chicago has not come true:

In 1979, the group now known as the Brady Campaign said “over 50 million handguns flood the houses and streets of our nation. . . . If we continue at this pace, we will have equipped ourselves with more than 100 million handguns by the turn of the century. One hundred million handguns. Will we be safer then?”

Then they note:

Since 1980, the number of handguns has increased 50 percent, and the nation’s murder rate has decreased 52 percent. After Chicago imposed handgun registration in 1968, murders in the city increased.  After D.C. banned handguns in 1976, its murder rate rose 201 percent through 1991, while the U.S. rate increased 12 percent. After Chicago banned handguns in 1982, its murder rate increased 49 percent through 1994, while the U.S. rate decreased one percent. And in the year following the repeal of D.C.’s handgun ban, its murder rate decreased 24 percent. In sum, the number of handguns is at an all-time, and the nation’s murder rate is at a 45-year low.

Sorry guys, you lose, and the nation wins. We get our right preserved and a lower crime rate. There a risk with fear mongering based on flimsy data. You lose credibility when the sky doesn’t fall. That same thing could have been true for NRA too, but anyone who was paying attention knows they were trying to ban guns, and erase the Second Amendment. Even as a teenager, from a non-gun-owning family,  I knew that.