The FBI has issued a press release on its semi-annual Uniform Crime Report. [Full text via Ammoland.com after the jump.] The FBI’s UCR doesn’t say anything about increased gun sales; that’s not the Fibbies thing. Click here to sample gun owning/buying stats for the same period. Suffice it to say: gun ownership is increasing while crime is declining. Important to note: correlation does not equal causation. We can’t say that crime is decreasing because of rising gun ownership. But we can say crime isn’t increasing because of increased gun ownership. Spin that one, Moms Campaign to Demand Everytown for Gun Violence Safety . . .
Statistics released today in the FBI’s Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report reveal overall declines in both the number of violent crimes and the number of property crimes reported for the first six months of 2014 when compared with figures for the first six months of 2013. The report is based on information from 11,009 law enforcement agencies that submitted three to six months of comparable data to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for the first six months of 2013 and 2014.
Violent Crime
- All the offenses in the violent crime category—murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape (revised definition), aggravated assault, and robbery—showed decreases when data from the first six months of 2014 were compared with data from the first six months of 2013. The number of murders declined 6.0 percent, the number of rapes (revised definition) declined 10.1 percent, aggravated assaults decreased 1.6 percent, and robbery offenses decreased 10.3 percent.
- Violent crime decreased in all city groupings. The largest decrease, 6.7 percent, was noted in cities with fewer than 10,000 in population.
- Violent crime decreased 7.6 percent in non-metropolitan counties and 4.4 percent in metropolitan counties.
- Violent crime declined in each of the nation’s four regions. The largest decrease, 7.6 percent, was noted in the Midwest, followed by 6.6 percent in the Northeast, 3.0 percent in the South, and 2.7 percent in the West.
Property Crime
- All three offenses in the property crime category—burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft—showed decreases in the number of offenses for January to June 2014 when compared with data for the same months of 2013. Burglary offenses dropped 14.0 percent. There was a 5.7 percent decrease in the number of motor vehicle thefts, and a 5.6 percent decrease in larceny-theft offenses.
- Each of the city population groups had decreases in the overall number of property crimes. Law enforcement agencies in cities with populations under 10,000 inhabitants reported the largest decrease, 8.9 percent.
- Property crime decreased 11.8 percent in non-metropolitan counties and 9.0 percent in metropolitan counties.
- All four of the nation’s regions showed declines in the number of property crime: 12.5 percent in the Midwest, 7.6 percent in the Northeast, 5.9 percent in the South, and 5.8 percent in the West.
Arson
In the UCR Program, arson offenses are collected separately from other property crimes. The number of arson offenses decreased 6.5 percent in the first six months of 2014 when compared with figures for the first six months of 2013. All four regions reported decreases in the number of arsons—11.3 percent in the Midwest, 9.4 percent in the Northeast, 8.4 percent in the South, and 0.4 percent in the West.
Arson offenses decreased 13.0 percent in cities with populations of 500,000 to 999,999, the largest decrease within the city groupings. Arson offenses declined 9.9 percent in metropolitan counties but increased 0.4 percent in non-metropolitan counties.
“We can’t say that crime is decreasing because of rising gun ownership. But we can say crime isn’t increasing because of increased gun ownership.”
WE can’t say that, but I will guarantee the Bloomberg Mommies, the leftist media, and other hoplophobes will ignore the FBI statistics and SCREAM that “guns sales are causing crime!!!!”
Hey, they never let the facts interfere with their narrative.
but obviously crime could be falling FASTER if not for all the evil guns out there! (sarc…)
i have a few friends from my home state…and also my father in law who are anti gun…every 6 months when the FBI releases the stats that say we are as safe as ever i am sure to post them.
Don’t forget the, “Gun ownership is actually decreasing, it’s just less and less people buying more and more guns. So this actually proves that less people having firearms reduces homicides”
The “decreasing NUMBER of gun owners meme is also provably BS. The “rate” has, according to the numbers promulgated by the left, slightly decreased. However, over the same relevant time period, the population has hugely increased. Net effect: there are between three and six MILLION more gun owners, despite fewer gun owners “per thousand” — again assuming the left’s numbers.
Thus more guns AND more gun owners are committing much, much less crime both per capita AND in gross numbers. There were MANY fewer homicides committed in 2014 than in 1993!
Wait.
What happened to “blood in the streets”?
Since the streets are somewhat safer, maybe the moms will “feel” safer and shut up.
One can hope and dream right?
Gun control is not about crime. It has never been about crime.
It is about CONTROL. Control of people who refuse to subscribe to the agenda of the professional busybodies, that everything you do from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep, from cradle to grave, is the business of politicians.
“Spin that one, Moms Campaign to Demand Everytown for Gun Violence Safety . . .”
They WILL spin it by turning the dialog to accidents and suicides, and the old stand-by, “If you own a gun, you’ll just shoot yourself or a loved one” bit.
Their term “gun violence” is not about “crime.” It’s about any time a gun is used. It is, by their definition, “violence.” Even shooting at the range gets attention, if the noise offends the sensibilities of someone without enough “gun sense” to not move into a house near a firing range if such noises bother them.
Spin is what they do.
“Spin” – that’s defined as “lying”, right?
Precisely.
Hmm and crime decreased significantly faster in rural areas, small towns, and “non-metropolitan” counties than in large cities and metropolitan counties. Any coincidence that it’s the large cities that have the strictest gun control laws and the lowest per-capita firearms ownership? Sales going up, up, up and crime going down, down, down, but neither to as big of a degree in large cities as elsewhere.
ban cities! for the childrenz
Correlation does not imply causation, however non-correlation does imply non-causation. To put it more simply, A can’t be the cause of B if A and B are totally unrelated.
Even if “more guns, less crime” claim is too strong, at the very least there ample evidence to accept the idea that the level of gun ownership and the level of crime are independent of each other. Therefore guns do not cause crime.
You underestimate the ability of gun grabbers to, let us call it, “rationalize”. See my comment below.
“Therefore guns do not cause crime.” Absolutely.
From my perspective, which may not be important to the whole scheme of things, and from my experience, which is admittedly a microcosm–“Guns have saved lives and health of loved ones and neighbors.”
“But we can say crime isn’t increasing because of increased gun ownership.”
In the immortal words of Gilbert Gottfried, “You fool!!!”. Gun grabbers have this totally covered. They claim that violent crime is decreasing because of other factors and would actually be substantially LOWER if we could somehow eliminate firearms. But because of firearms, violent crime is substantially higher. ipso facto firearms have increased the violent crime rate.
Yes, this is the same type of thinking whereby Big Government proponents claim deficit reduction when they revise their budget to require slightly less borrowing than they would have otherwise required.
Great analogy!
Ya dont say…Think the antis will read this or no? I bet it goes with the other things they ignore such as: logic, statistics and facts.
Isn’t it odd? We “uneducated bumpkins” sit here and apply critical analysis looking for statistical significance. We make use of formal logic in our arguments, understand and make an effort to avoid both informal fallacy and presumptive errors.
On the other hand, the elite intelligentsia consistently ignore facts for feelings and histrionics trumps reason.
An armed society is a polite society.
Well yeah RF. A chicken in every pot could easily be ” aGUN in every HOME”…
People will absolutely say that this is good but could be better. I would hope most people would say this. The question is how to get to better. And here pro- and anti-gun sides disagree fundamentally. And no statistics will settle the fundamental disagreement. Even if more guns did cause more crime, the natural and civil RTKBA still remains, no?
Someone needs to do a little article on how those stats are computed.
As I understand it, Chicago is not included, because they dont compile them properly. Coincidence I am sure.
Couple big cities weren’t included in CA last year, because they were late with their number.. Coincidence I am sure, like the BLS numbers on unemployment blipping in good direction in Nov 2012, later revised the otherway because California was *cough* late due to technical difficulties…
I believe there are ways to cook the books at the local level, to misreport certain felonies and violent crimes downward…and LA was busted last year for that…. and Stanford U, which is running the data crunching on the effects of the early out and prisons full releases, are reporting “disturbing trends” on the ground…
I’m sure those numbers won’t be released until …. Dec 2016? You heard it here first.
Any LEOs or stats geeks care to opine?
But whatever you do- dont point at the 2/3rds of the actual gun violence, after suicide,
that is urban gang violence, and the 90% of that is in the 17-25 age group, and…
no, lets not speak the truth, for that would be…insulting, highly insulting, as AG Holder would say.
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