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December 29, 2009
Even Good News About Homicide Numbers Gets Twisted by Bloomberg Administration
If gun sales outside New York City are such a problem, as stated in a New York Times article today, why is the city's homicide rate the lowest in 46 years?
NSSF has previously commented on the gratifying crime statistics reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the first half of 2009 that show violent crime having declined in all categories, with homicides down by 10 percent. In New York City, the FBI reports homicides are down 19 percent–an all-time low, lower even than when comprehensive statistics first began being kept by the NYPD in 1963.
You would think this would be a cause for universal satisfaction. After all, the first half of 2009 also saw a record number of law-abiding citizens purchasing firearms, bringing the predictable gloom and doom of "more guns equal more crime" from gun control advocates. Clearly, more guns in the right hands do not result in more crime, as the FBI statistics incontrovertibly demonstrate.
That didn't stop some in New York City Mayor Bloomberg's administration from making a sow's ear out of a silk purse, even misrepresenting other statistics in the process.
According to The Times' article, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelley said that 90 percent of the guns that are confiscated after they are used in crimes come from out of state. The most recent report from the Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (in 2008) of firearms traces shows that New York State itself was in a virtual dead heat as the largest source state for firearms recovered in New York City, with 362 guns traced.
And in the same article, a "police historian" is quoted to say that the murder rate in New York City can drop even further "if the federal government would shut off the flow of illegal guns from other states to New York." Somone should remind the historian that it has been a federal felony for 41 years to illegally acquire a firearm outside the state and transport it across state lines to anywhere its possession is illegal.
Honest debate about the effectiveness (or lack of it) of gun control laws has to start with facts:
- Gun sales are up, violent crime is down.
- The largest source state of traced guns is usually the state in which the city is located.
- It's already a felony to acquire or transport a gun illegally.
Go after the criminals and leave honest citizens and their guns, who cause no untoward harm to anyone, alone.
Categories: Education, Media Inaccuracies
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