Crime at 30-year low; DOJ has trouble figuring out reason

In a September 13, 2004 Associated Press story on a newly released Justice Department report, the Associated Press reported the nation's crime rate last year held steady at the lowest levels since the government began surveying crime victims in 1973.

According to the study, the 2003 violent crime rate - assault, sexual assault and armed robbery - stood at 22.6 victims for every 1,000 people age 12 and older. That amounts to about one violent crime victim for every 44 U.S. residents.

The Associated Press notes that by comparison, there were 23 violent crime victims per 1,000 people in 2002. In 1993, the violent crime rate was 50 per 1,000 people, or about one in every 20 people.

The story also notes that experts say the fact that crime rates have leveled off confounds earlier studies that attributed it to such things as a more mature, less violent drug trade or police tactics that focus on high-crime areas.

James Lynch, professor at American University's Department of Justice, Law and Society, told the AP the reason that crime is down so broadly is difficult to pinpoint.

Is it really that tough to figure out? Maybe a two year-old (!) report from the NRA-ILA can help:

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.

Gun Ownership At All-Time High/Violent Crime At 22-Year Low

12/11/01

If anti-gun activists and anti-gun politicians share a common trait, it is their unwavering belief that gun ownership, and nothing else, automatically leads to crime. Cultural, economic, environmental, and policing factors--the things that sociologists, criminologists, and law enforcement professionals universally agree determine crime levels--are irrelevant, as far as anti-gunners are concerned.

The flaw in anti-gun thinking is starkly demonstrated by a confluence of two trends. Simply stated, while guns have been going "up," crime has been going "down."

The number of privately owned guns rises several million every year and is now at an all-time high. There are more of every kind of firearm today--big handguns, small handguns, semi-automatic handguns, semi-automatic rifles, and all the other kinds of guns that anti-gun groups and politicians single out in their various smear campaigns. There are more of every other kind of gun too. And there are more gun owners than ever before. First-time gun buyers, including people who used to support "gun control," are contributing to a significant increase in gun purchases following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The number of states that have Right to Carry laws is also at an all-time high--33, up from 10 states only 15 years ago. Today, 54% of the U.S. population, including 64% of handgun owners, live in Right-to-Carry states.

Throughout the 1990s, NRA strongly supported successful initiatives in a variety of states to increase prison sentences for violent offenders and reduce parole, and during the last several years encouraged Project Exile-type programs which throw the book at felons who illegally possess firearms. Several law enforcement related factors are cited by the FBI, in its 2000 annual crime report, as among the numerous factors "known to affect the volume and type of crime."

Though "gun control" is absent from the FBI`s (and most everyone else`s) list of reasons crime has decreased, it is at the top of anti-gun groups` list. In particular, the anti-gunners claim that crime is down because of the Brady Act and the federal "assault weapons" law. Reasons to reject that notion abound.

The "assault weapons" law did not reduce the number of so-called "assault weapons" privately owned. It merely required that, after the law took effect, certain attachments be left off any such firearms subsequently manufactured. The differences between pre-law and post-law versions of affected firearms are of no consequence where the commission of a crime would be concerned. The number of both pre-law and post law rifles is greater today than ever before. Fortunately, this useless law, derived from anti-gun groups` opposition to ownership of firearms for defensive purposes and their need for a hot political "issue" to keep "gun control" on people's minds, expires on Sept. 13, 2004.