Ignorance is No Excuse for a Law

(h/t Tam for the title of this post)


At first I didn't want to make this post. I have railed many times against using atrocities to further agendas and feel like by answering those that would, I give credence to their tactics.

However, there has been much talk of the "rise" in violent crime in this country as well as the tools and means of committing those crimes, so I thought it was a good idea to go back to the facts.

Table 7 - Violent Crime Offense Analysis
(I have edited this table from its original to remove sub-classifications of offense. The break-down of the data was not relevant, as I am focusing on total offenses.)

Contrary to what we are being told, ALL forms of violent crime in this country are on the decline, not the rise.

Table 7
Offense Analysis
United States, 2009–2013
Classification	2009	2010	2011	20121	2013
Murder	15,399	14,722	14,661	14,856	14,196
Rape (revised definition)2					108,612
Rape (legacy definition)3	89,241	85,593	84,175	85,141	79,770
Robbery:	408,742	369,089	354,746	355,051	345,031
Burglary:	2,203,313	2,168,459	2,185,140	2,109,932	1,928,465
Larceny-theft (except motor vehicle theft):	6,338,095	6,204,601	6,151,095	6,168,874	6,004,453
Motor vehicle theft	795,652	739,565	716,508	723,186	699,594

Table 8 - Expanded Homicide Data

No real surprise here. Firearms are the most used weapon during the commission of a homicide. However, it is worth noting that, similar to overall violent crime, the use of firearms to commit homicide is on the decline.

Expanded Homicide Data Table 8
Murder Victims
by Weapon, 2009–2013
Weapons	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
Total	13,752	13,164	12,795	12,888	12,253
Total firearms:	9,199	8,874	8,653	8,897	8,454
Handguns	6,501	6,115	6,251	6,404	5,782
Rifles	351	367	332	298	285
Shotguns	423	366	362	310	308
Other guns	96	93	97	116	123
Firearms, type not stated	1,828	1,933	1,611	1,769	1,956
Knives or cutting instruments	1,836	1,732	1,716	1,604	1,490
Blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.)	623	549	502	522	428
Personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.)1	817	769	751	707	687
Poison	7	11	5	13	11
Explosives	2	4	6	8	2
Fire	98	78	76	87	94
Narcotics	52	45	33	38	53
Drowning	8	10	15	14	4
Strangulation	122	122	88	90	85
Asphyxiation	84	98	92	106	95
Other weapons or weapons not stated	904	872	858	802	850

So, since firearms are the most used weapon in homicide, stricter gun laws must be the answer, right?

From BradyCampaign.org, the states with the strictest gun laws are (From most strict, to most loose):

1.     CALIFORNIA
2.     CONNECTICUT
3.     NEW JERSEY
4.     MARYLAND
5.     NEW YORK
6.     MASSACHUSETTS
7.     HAWAII
8.     ILLINOIS
9.     RHODE ISLAND
10.     DELAWARE

The states with the loosest gun laws are (from most loose to most strict):

1.     ARIZONA
2.     ALASKA
3.     WYOMING
4.     SOUTH DAKOTA
5.     VERMONT
6.     MISSISSIPPI
7.     KANSAS
8.     KENTUCKY
9.     MONTANA
10.     UTAH

Now, let's take a look at Homicide data by state:

Table 20 - Murder by State, Types of Weapons, 2013
(I have edited the following tables to show only the states that I am focusing on and to add simple calculations on the data. The link above is to the original table for verification.)


Most Strict 10

Total homicides: 3906, Total with Firearm as the weapon: 2704, Percentage of homicide with weapon: 69.23%

Table 20
Murder
by State, Types of Weapons, 2013
State	Total murders1	Total firearms	Handguns	Rifles	Shotguns	Firearms (type unknown)	Knives or cutting instruments	Other weapons	Hands, fists, feet, etc.2
California	1,745	1,224	805	29	48	342	238	191	92
Connecticut	86	60	34	0	0	26	12	5	9
Delaware	39	33	22	1	0	10	4	2	0
Hawaii	9	6	1	2	2	1	2	1	0
Illinois3	433	364	352	3	2	7	41	19	9
Maryland	379	268	263	0	4	1	57	29	25
Massachusetts	135	78	35	2	0	41	25	25	7
New Jersey	401	291	229	0	2	60	53	37	20
New York	648	362	290	4	19	49	136	113	37
Rhode Island	31	18	3	0	1	14	5	6	2
Totals	3906	2704	69.23%

Least Strict 10

Total homicides: 857, Total with Firearm as the weapon: 552, Percentage of homicide with weapon: 64.41%

Table 20
Murder
by State, Types of Weapons, 2013
State	Total murders1	Total firearms	Handguns	Rifles	Shotguns	Firearms (type unknown)	Knives or cutting instruments	Other weapons	Hands, fists, feet, etc.2
Alaska	34	12	5	3	1	3	5	13	4
Arizona	304	184	133	11	11	29	56	55	9
Kansas	112	78	39	9	5	25	8	16	10
Kentucky	165	111	82	10	6	13	23	22	9
Mississippi	142	110	80	3	8	19	9	14	9
Montana	15	9	5	0	1	3	3	2	1
South Dakota	12	3	0	0	1	2	1	4	4
Utah	49	31	25	2	1	3	6	7	5
Vermont	9	5	1	2	1	1	0	1	3
Wyoming	15	9	6	3	0	0	2	4	0
	857	552	64.41%

Now the first thing I noticed was the fact that the overall number of homicides in the less strict states is much, much lower that the number of homicides in the more strict states.

AHA!! Less strict gun laws = Less murder!!!

Umm...no. That's not the way this works. The states with the most strict gun laws also happen to be the most dense in population. More people = more criminals = more murder. No big surprise there.

The surprise, for me, was the percentage of murders that were committed with firearms. The states with the more strict gun laws was ~5%  higher for murders committed with firearms than the states with the less strict gun laws. The conclusion I draw from that is that gun laws have either no bearing or a negative bearing on the amount of murders committed with firearms.

Again, the "narrative" is that violent gun crime is on the rise in this country and the only thing that will fix it is stricter gun laws. The numbers do NOT support this. If anything, they show the exact opposite. Crime is down, and "stricter gun laws", as defined by the most anti-gun group in our country, appear to have no effect on the percentage of murders committed with guns.