Gun Control Arguments vs Facts

Since I brought up the subject earlier, I'd like to look more at gun control in Australia and the UK.

First the UK, where crime has skyrocketed since the implementation of strict handgun controls.

Then there is Australia, where:

we see a dramatic rise in violent crime in Australia since the gun ban, along with a relatively flat trend in property crime rates, demonstrating the criminals’ understanding of the basic principles of cost/benefit analysis, choosing the quicker method of confronting an unarmed victim. At the same time, the USA saw significant drops in both violent and property crime rates, proving the adage that an armed society is a polite--and safer--society.

And finally, we have evidence here in the USA on a state by state basis. For clarity, "Right To Carry" is shortened to RTC in this article, and they are referring to states that have Right To Carry conceal carry laws where law abiding citizens can apply for and receive a concealed weapons permit so long as their criminal record is clean, whereas non RTC states have other limiting factors (i.e. the local sherif decides if you can carry, or you must prove that you have a need to carry a weapon). The grading system they are referring to is the gun control grading system by the Brady Campaign for more gun control (i.e. states with lower grades have fewer gun controls).

Since 2001, RTC states, where more people carry guns in public, consistently average a “D”. Brady continues to be unhappy with the country’s direction regarding gun control: between 2001 and 2005, RTC states increased from 32 to 38 and Brady downgraded the U.S. average from “C-” to a “D+”. Their response is curious, since the national violent crime rate fell 7.0% during this time frame.

Even worse for Brady, violent crime trends are not spread equally across all states. RTC states (average Brady grade “D”) saw an aggregate 7.8% drop in violent crime, while non-RTC states (average Brady grade “B”) saw a 5.2% decrease. Even when Brady grades synchronize with violent crime trends, it fails to give an accurate picture: Brady dropped the national average grade from “C-” to “D+” in 2005, the same year that the violent crime rate increased 1.3%. This would seem to make sense, as a lower grade is supposed to reflect less safety for citizens. Unfortunately for Brady, most of that increase occurred in non-RTC states, which saw an aggregate increase of 2.8%, while RTC states increased 0.6%. Using Brady’s criteria of grading each state as an equivalent entity, non-RTC states averaged a 5.6% increase in violent crime, while RTC states averaged a 0.6% increase. Since 2001, the violent crime differential between RTC and non-RTC states increased from 26.0% to 27.5%, meaning that RTC states are becoming relatively more law-abiding compared to non-RTC states.3

For full disclosure, I made this post while concealing my 38 special revolver in my coat jacket, and no crimes were committed or prevented.