Violent crime continued to fall in 2009, even as gun sales reached an all-time high, according to statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This is “proof positive that gun prohibitionists have been consistently and undeniably wrong,” the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said in a statement.

Released Tuesday, the violent crime statistics are part of the FBI’s yearly Uniform Crime Report, which collects crime statistics from localities all across the country and is the most comprehensive report on crime in America.

According to the FBI, the number of violent crimes of all types declined in 2009 by 5.3 percent and property crimes declined 4.6 percent. In fact, the rate of violent crime declined 6.1 percent below 2008 figures.

In total, the FBI estimated that 1.3 million violent crimes were committed in 2009.

“Each of the four violent crime offenses decreased when compared with the 2008 estimates. Murder and non-negligent manslaughter and robbery had the largest decreases: 7.3 percent and 8.0 percent, respectively,” the FBI said in a press release summarizing the report. “In addition, aggravated assault decreased 4.2 percent, and forcible rape declined 2.6 percent.”

In fact, the types of crime most likely to be committed with a firearm, murders and manslaughters, experienced one of the greatest rates of decline in 2009 – 7.3 percent.

While violent crime was going down in 2009, guns sales were experiencing a record year. According to data from the FBI’s National Instant Background Check System (NICS), 2009 was the best year on record for gun sales.

According to the NICS figures, 14 million guns were sold in 2009, the biggest year since the system began recording data in 1998. The NICS figures are considered the most accurate measurement of gun sales because federal law requires that a NICS check be done prior to every firearm sale in America.

In fact, there were nearly 2 million more guns sold in the United States in 2009 than in 2008, the next best year for gun sales, when 12.7 million NICS checks were recorded.

The NCIS data do not capture all gun sales, however, as only federally licensed primary dealers are required to conduct them. Firearms sales between private citizens can still be done freely, without having to let the federal government know about it. This normally occurs at one of the nation’s many public gun shows, meaning that the firearms sales figures provided by NICS are actually lower than the true figures.

This means that gun sales likely exceeded the already record figure of 14 million indicated by the NICS.

Taken together, these two sets of statistics seem to undermine the claims of anti-Second Amendment groups such as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence that push for strict federal and state gun control laws, including an outright ban on so-called assault weapons.

Such groups have gone to great lengths to make a connection between gun ownership and violent crime, often pointing out that gun ownership “increases the risk” of injury of death.

“Keeping a firearm in the home increases the risk of homicide by a factor of 3,” the Brady Campaign’s Web site states.

Given that as gun sales have increased, violent crime has decreased seems to indicate that firearm ownership and the commission of violent crime is only incidentally, not causally, linked.

“What the data tell us is exactly the opposite of what the gun-ban lobby has predicted for several years,” said Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizen’s Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, in a statement. “Their dire predictions that America’s streets would run red have been shown up as a fraudulent sales pitch for public disarmament.”

“No matter how gun prohibitionists try to spin this,” said Gottlieb, “the bottom line is that they have been consistently and demonstrably wrong, and they know it. On the other hand, gun rights organizations have been consistently right when we argued that increased gun ownership would not lead to higher crime rates, and might even have a deterrent effect.”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/75359

quite possibly one of the best posts I've seen on here...

Right on

Not a reliable news source but I will bet you that the way they came to that conclusion is not scientifically sound.

Just go back on your "reliable" huffington post and believe all they tell you.

I guess the FBI is not reliable.

look it up yourself....

Like I said, an armed society is a polite society! How stupid could a person be to try and strong arm someone on a street full of people packing a six gun?

So haw unreliable are police statistics? Are they not supposed to be the ones keeping an eye on things like numbers of crimes ie. crime statistics? I would have to suppose that they lie to us all the time? that is not within their interests to lie to us. Withhold information maybe but outright lie?


Tis to laugh!

So I shall...


What? You can't hear me?

Guns=Peace

Guns do not equal peace or a more peaceful society.

Gun violence on sharp rise in Seattle

By CASEY MCNERTHNEY
SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF
photo
Brad Vest / P-I
Police at the scene of a November 2008 shooting in the 8600 block of Rainier Avenue South that officers said was gang related.

(Editor's Note: This story has been clarified to note statistics are based on preliminary police data provided by the department.)

Related content

·: Map and police database of Seattle assault calls involving guns

The young man was said to be in King County Juvenile Court because he was waiting for a friend. He'd looked over the 144 matters on the Aug. 14 court calendar and had heard that his friend might be released from juvenile detention.

But alleged members of a rival gang noticed him, authorities said, and the hostility escalated to the point where security had to escort out the 21-year-old. He was walking through the parking lot, approaching 12th Avenue, when a four-door sedan, possibly a 2004 Chevy Impala, stopped in front of the parking lot entrance to the Youth Service Center.

A young man got out of the back passenger side and made a derogatory remark before firing five or six shots, wounding the 21-year-old, who police have investigated in connection with a still-unsolved gang-related homicide from 2008.

The latest gang-related shooting outside the Youth Service Center -- a case that has brought no arrests -- was one of the most brazen assaults this year, and added to a troubling trend of increasing gun violence in Seattle.

Between Jan. 1 and June 15, 2008, there were 219 assault calls said to involve guns, according to preliminary police records. During the same period this year, police data show the number has jumped to 346, a 58 percent increase.

Follow this link to see a map of those assault calls said to involve guns, obtained through a public disclosure request by seattlepi.com.

Homicides have decreased in 2009. So far there have been 15 in Seattle, including 10 shooting deaths. That's down from 21 during the same period last year.

But total violent crime reported to Seattle police increased 22 percent during the first seven months of this year, compared to the same period last year.

Aggravated assaults, which involve a weapon or resulted in serious injury, are up 22 percent.

City Councilman Tim Burgess, who detailed the crime stats on his blog, told seattlepi.com that the increase in gun-involved assaults is not limited to gang-related violence. Domestic violence incidents involving guns also show an increase.

Of the 346 assault calls examined through June 15 this year, 271 of them were domestic violence cases, according to preliminary police records.

On the issue of gang violence, Judge Phillip Hubbard, chief judge of the juvenile division, was among a panel of people last week who addressed the King County Council's Law, Justice and Human Services Committee on the issue of better security.

He said rival gang members meet in the Youth Service Center lobby. The facility "is in one gang's territory and anyone who enters the facility has to enter rival territory to come to court or to leave," he told the committee.

Less than a week after the non-fatal shooting that locked down the facility -- and also brought a police response for alleged gang members at Harborview Medical Center -- there was another lockdown at the Youth Service Center. But police were unable to find the teen said to have a gun.

Hubbard explained efforts were made to increase security even prior to the incidents, but told the committee some judges have expressed concerns about coming to work.

"It's completely unacceptable to Superior Court for us to be forcing people with threat of legal process to come to a court when we can't guarantee the safety of those people," Judge Bruce Hilyer told the committee last week. "And that's the situation we're dealing with right now."

King County, which now has two senior deputy prosecutors working full time on gang-related cases, has also seen more 16- and 17-year-olds tried as adults after committing serious violent offenses -- something required by the state legislature.

In 2008 there were 19 teens tried as adults for such crimes. Already this year there have been 36 -- nearly all gun-related crimes.

While current law seems to mandate a 10-day detention for juveniles convicted of illegal gun possession, they have ways to avoid detention, including deferred disposition.

King County prosecutor Dan Satterberg has drafted reforms for the legislature to close the loopholes that allow juveniles to escape detention for gun crimes. He also wants legislative reforms to have juvenile gun possession crimes taken more seriously.

That includes eliminating the ability to set aside firearms sentence enhancements on juvenile crimes and eliminating deferred disposition sentencing in some cases.

"Sending a clear message to youth that juvenile gun crimes are serious may help prevent them from graduating to the adult system," he wrote, "where the penalties for gun crimes are very serious and include very long sentences."

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/410222_violence16.html

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/2009prelimsem/table_4co-id.html

Sure isn't true in most counties here in this gun lovin' state.

Countries Amount
# 1 Colombia: 0.617847 per 1,000 people
# 2 South Africa: 0.496008 per 1,000 people
# 3 Jamaica: 0.324196 per 1,000 people
# 4 Venezuela: 0.316138 per 1,000 people
# 5 Russia: 0.201534 per 1,000 people
# 6 Mexico: 0.130213 per 1,000 people
# 7 Estonia: 0.107277 per 1,000 people
# 8 Latvia: 0.10393 per 1,000 people
# 9 Lithuania: 0.102863 per 1,000 people
# 10 Belarus: 0.0983495 per 1,000 people
# 11 Ukraine: 0.094006 per 1,000 people
# 12 Papua New Guinea: 0.0838593 per 1,000 people
# 13 Kyrgyzstan: 0.0802565 per 1,000 people
# 14 Thailand: 0.0800798 per 1,000 people
# 15 Moldova: 0.0781145 per 1,000 people
# 16 Zimbabwe: 0.0749938 per 1,000 people
# 17 Seychelles: 0.0739025 per 1,000 people
# 18 Zambia: 0.070769 per 1,000 people
# 19 Costa Rica: 0.061006 per 1,000 people
# 20 Poland: 0.0562789 per 1,000 people
# 21 Georgia: 0.0511011 per 1,000 people
# 22 Uruguay: 0.045082 per 1,000 people
# 23 Bulgaria: 0.0445638 per 1,000 people
# 24 United States: 0.042802 per 1,000 people
# 25 Armenia: 0.0425746 per 1,000 people
# 26 India: 0.0344083 per 1,000 people
# 27 Yemen: 0.0336276 per 1,000 people
# 28 Dominica: 0.0289733 per 1,000 people
# 29 Azerbaijan: 0.0285642 per 1,000 people
# 30 Finland: 0.0283362 per 1,000 people
# 31 Slovakia: 0.0263303 per 1,000 people
# 32 Romania: 0.0250784 per 1,000 people
# 33 Portugal: 0.0233769 per 1,000 people
# 34 Malaysia: 0.0230034 per 1,000 people
# 35 Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of: 0.0229829 per 1,000 people
# 36 Mauritius: 0.021121 per 1,000 people
# 37 Hungary: 0.0204857 per 1,000 people
# 38 Korea, South: 0.0196336 per 1,000 people
# 39 Slovenia: 0.0179015 per 1,000 people
# 40 France: 0.0173272 per 1,000 people
# 41 Czech Republic: 0.0169905 per 1,000 people
# 42 Iceland: 0.0168499 per 1,000 people
# 43 Australia: 0.0150324 per 1,000 people
# 44 Canada: 0.0149063 per 1,000 people
# 45 Chile: 0.014705 per 1,000 people
# 46 United Kingdom: 0.0140633 per 1,000 people
# 47 Italy: 0.0128393 per 1,000 people
# 48 Spain: 0.0122456 per 1,000 people
# 49 Germany: 0.0116461 per 1,000 people
# 50 Tunisia: 0.0112159 per 1,000 people
# 51 Netherlands: 0.0111538 per 1,000 people
# 52 New Zealand: 0.0111524 per 1,000 people
# 53 Denmark: 0.0106775 per 1,000 people
# 54 Norway: 0.0106684 per 1,000 people
# 55 Ireland: 0.00946215 per 1,000 people
# 56 Switzerland: 0.00921351 per 1,000 people
# 57 Indonesia: 0.00910842 per 1,000 people
# 58 Greece: 0.0075928 per 1,000 people
# 59 Hong Kong: 0.00550804 per 1,000 people
# 60 Japan: 0.00499933 per 1,000 people
# 61 Saudi Arabia: 0.00397456 per 1,000 people
# 62 Qatar: 0.00115868 per 1,000 people

that doesn't mean guns... that means anything that could be used as a weapon... from a piece of wood to a gun...anything, basically.

WTH is this?

Maybe you should do a little more research, and find out how many gang members legally purchase and carry firearms before this article is made part of the argument.

many correlations can and have been made about gun ownership, I remember in the early 2000's violent crime was also decreasing and the correlation was made with the economy being stronger,,


well now the economy is not stronger and violent crime is down,,,so there is little direct correlation that can be made when relying strictly on statistics from some limited time period,,,,


bottom line is, without a gun, there is no way to shoot and kill

but there are many other types of 'violent crime' which dont involve guns,,,

what a shame...

Without a gun there is also no way for law abiding citizens to protect themselves.

I beg to differ, put 'woman thwarts gunman' or 'man thwarts gunman' in ur favorite search engine,,,

were talking about the "not - stupid" gunmen...