No doubt that when The Trace posted an article purporting to show that 150 cities were showing “one of the greatest drops in gun violence—ever,” it unintentionally destroyed one of the greatest gun control myths—ever—in the process: that more guns in private hands would result in more carnage and death.
Authored by Trace reporter and editor Olga Pierce, this remarkable report acknowledges, “The downward trend cuts across red and blue cities and states in every region of the country.”
But this downward trend comes at a time when more Americans own more guns than probably any other time in recent history. Twenty-nine states have adopted “Constitutional Carry” laws which do away with a licensing requirement, and that may increase to 30 states in mid-November when North Carolina lawmakers hold a veto override vote on Senate Bill 50, that state’s permitless carry bill, according to a report at TheGunMag.com. That vote is now scheduled Nov. 17.
More than 21 million citizens are licensed to carry and many states have reciprocity agreements, enabling armed residents from one state carry in other states on their own state’s license/permit.
None of this is lost on Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the grassroots Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, who noted Monday in a statement to the press, “For a couple of generations, we have seen one gun control myth after another used as excuses to restrict our Second Amendment rights. Yet here we are, at a time when those rights are being gradually restored, when states have adopted Constitutional Carry laws, more people own guns and more people are legally carrying them for personal protection, and The Trace acknowledges violent crime involving guns is declining. Looks like we’ve been right all along, and the anti-gun media essentially just admitted it.”
The Trace is the online pro-gun-control news publication backed by anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg, founder of Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Everytown for Gun Safety. The Trace article says it is an “analysis by The Trace’s Gun Violence Data Hub.”
As written by Pierce, “The downward trend includes red and blue cities, in both red and blue states, in all of the country’s regions. It includes cities where shootings are traditionally sky-high, like Baltimore, and much safer cities, like Austin, Texas.”
Later, Pierce writes, “While it is worth noting that cities in the Deep South, for example, tend to have much higher rates of per-capita gun violence than cities in the blue states on the coasts, many of them have seen violence spike and then sharply decline in recent years, just like cities everywhere else.”
But “rates” of gun violence don’t always translate to actual body counts. After all, Chicago—which is a blue bastion of Democrat control—is one of the bloodiest social slaughterhouses in the country. Already this year, as of this writing, the Windy City has chalked up 316 gun-related slayings out of 375 total homicides, according to the popular Heyjackass.com website. The city has logged another 1,368 people shot and wounded, so “per-capita” statistics don’t always tell a straight story.
What is straight, however, is the fact that the gun prohibition lobby has preached against expanded carry rights for decades, while tens of millions of honest citizens have obtained licenses and permits, and legislatures have moved to restore Second Amendment rights by eliminating government permission slips to do so legally.
Predictions of blood flowing in the streets have not been accurate, leading many to question what else the gun prohibitionists have been saying might also be wrong. The Trace article has opened a can of worms, if not Pandora’s Box.
The Crime Prevention Research Center’s most recent update on concealed carry in the United States came out last December, but put the number at that time to 21.46 million. That represented a drop of about 1.8 percent from the previous year, and CPRC attributes that to the expansion of “Constitutional Carry” laws.
While anti-gunners may try to credit literally every other factor in the “gun violence” decline, Gottlieb suggested The Trace report could unintentionally be pointing to the proverbial “elephant in the room” while trying to avoid it.
Gottlieb makes a good argument that an increase in the number of legally-armed citizens has “definitely contributed to this decline in so-called ‘gun violence,’ and may, indeed, be the key factor.” After all, what criminal hoping to be a recidivist will deliberately try to victimize someone who just might shoot back?
He also suggests this report in The Trace also shows there is no need for more gun control laws, and that some existing laws could be rolled back.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed so far to take a couple of Second Amendment cases, and Pam Bondi’s Justice Department is going after the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for egregious foot dragging in its carry permit process.
The Second Amendment community is just waiting to see what happens next.
Urban Crime Spike “the Most Overlooked U.S. Crime Story in Recent Years”
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
