If the previous 12 months have taught us something as a nation, it must be that gun management has truly failed in its purported mission of stopping criminals from getting weapons, and that proponents of restrictive gun legal guidelines are each delusional and dwelling in denial once they declare in any other case.
Keep in mind, the gun prohibition foyer is usually silent when a legally armed non-public citizen intervenes in against the law to cease the legal.
Whereas the variety of homicides decreased in 2023 by greater than 11 %, in line with essentially the most lately obtainable knowledge estimates from the FBI, the usage of firearms in these killings stays excessive.
The Christmas Eve triple taking pictures in Oxford, Mich.—scene of the tragic highschool taking pictures in November 2021 which resulted in a number of new gun restrictions—confirms what gun rights advocates corresponding to Alan Gottlieb on the Residents Committee for the Proper to Preserve and Bear Arms have been making an attempt to clarify for years, if not a long time: Criminals don’t obey gun management legal guidelines, and current legal guidelines proscribing adults don’t forestall juveniles from getting and/or utilizing weapons illegally.
The Detroit Free Press, reporting concerning the Oxford taking pictures, which has became a murder, mentioned the incident occurred “a brief distance from Oxford Excessive College.” The Oakland County Sheriff’s Workplace has a suspect in custody and a gun has been recovered.
The October slaughter of a household close to Fall Metropolis, Washington, allegedly by a 15-year-old member of the family shocked the upscale Lake Alice neighborhood. The teenager has been charged with 5 counts of murder, and the case will proceed into 2025.
But Washington state, over the previous few years, has seen the adoption of a number of new gun management legal guidelines requiring “expanded” background checks, a 10-day ready interval and proof of firearm security coaching, and different restrictions on grownup gun consumers.
Again on Jan. 9, USA At this time outlined gun management legal guidelines which took impact earlier this 12 months in California, Michigan, Minnesota, Washington and different Democrat-controlled states. Have any of these legal guidelines prevented homicides in any of these states?
Whereas the USA At this time story famous Everytown for Gun Security’s report on states with the strongest gun legal guidelines—California, New York, Illinois, Connecticut, and Hawaii—a triple murder in Mahomet, Illinois, simply earlier than Christmas has left that neighborhood rattled. WCIA Information is reporting the suspect, recognized as John R. Lyons, was shot useless in a gunfight with police in close by Berwyn, a Prepare dinner County suburb.
There isn’t a small irony in the truth that WCIA recognized Everytown as a “gun violence prevention advocacy group.”
Based on the favored web site Heyjackass.com, thus far this 12 months, Chicago has seen 606 homicides, of which 536 concerned firearms. One other 2,414 individuals have been wounded by gunfire.
California’s strict gun legal guidelines, touted by Everytown within the USA At this time report, haven’t stopped homicides within the Golden State. One have a look at Sacramento’s bloody previous few months—simply Google “Sacramento homicides”—tells the story of the state’s capital metropolis, and that’s only one metropolis.
Regardless of a 14 % decline in murder final 12 months, California nonetheless appears to rack up extra slayings than every other state (1,929 in 2023), even Texas (1,845 in 2023), which is usually cited by anti-gunners for its lax gun legal guidelines, or Florida (1,066 in 2023), infamously dubbed the “Gunshine State” by anti-gunners. The Sacramento Bee reported earlier this 12 months how “weapons are nonetheless overwhelmingly the commonest weapon used to kill somebody,” so it may be fascinating to ask Gov. Gavin Newsom and his Everytown cheerleaders how all of these restrictive gun management legal guidelines are working.
The high-profile homicide of insurance coverage govt Brian Thompson on a downtown New York Metropolis sidewalk—on digital camera—actually refutes arguments that robust gun management legal guidelines adopted in response to the 2022 Supreme Court docket’s Bruen ruling had been essential to preserve the Large Apple streets protected.
In Boston, murders are nonetheless occurring, regardless of the restrictive gun management legal guidelines in Massachusetts. Do a seek for tales coping with homicide in Boston. Once more, one will see experiences which, taken as a complete, exhibit that restrictive Bay State gun legal guidelines actually haven’t made the place protected.
Based on Statista.com, the worst homicide fee wherever within the nation is in Washington, D.C., the place it’s nonetheless troublesome to legally personal a firearm. The chart additionally reveals, for instance, Maryland with the next homicide fee (8.3 per 100,000)—and stricter gun legal guidelines—than neighboring Virginia (6 per 100,000). It might be argued these are “apples to oranges” comparisons, however wait.
Illinois has a homicide fee greater than neighboring Indiana (6.6 to five.6 per 100,000, respectively), and Montana—the state with the best share of gun possession within the nation (66.3%), in line with World Inhabitants Overview, and a inhabitants of 1.13 million—has a far decrease homicide fee (2.8 per 100,000) than Delaware, which is far smaller however has the same inhabitants at 1.03 million, and a homicide fee of 4.5 per 100,000, in line with Statista.com. Montana gun legal guidelines are far looser than in Delaware, the place solely 34.4 % of the inhabitants are gun house owners, together with soon-to-be-former President Joe Biden, who owns a minimum of one shotgun.
None of this can cease gun management proponents from demanding extra legal guidelines, extra rules and extra erosion of gun rights, and they’ll both ignore or just argue the info above is anecdotal if not irrelevant, which is why gun house owners—particularly in Democrat-controlled states—can anticipate extra of the identical in 2025.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, writer of a number of books on the Proper to Preserve & Bear Arms, and previously an NRA-certified firearms teacher.
