Op-Ed: Guns and the Drop in the Violent Crime Rate

by John Lott

President Obama undoubtedly didn't intend it, but he deserves some credit for the recent report that all violent crime rates dropped in 2009, murder rates by 7.4 percent, robbery rates by 9 percent: His election caused gun sales to skyrocket, and crime rates to plummet.

Gun sales started notably rising in October 2008, and sale really took off immediately after Obama won the presidential race: 450,000 more people bought guns in November 2008 than bought them in November 2007. That's over a 40 percent increase in sales. By comparison, the change from November 2006 to November 2007 was only about 35,000. Over the last decade, the average year-to-year increase in monthly sales was only 21,000.

The higher sales continued well beyond November 2008: about 3.15 million more people bought guns in the 14 months after the election than in the preceding 14 months. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, doesn't tell us how many guns each person bought, just the number of people who bought them. Most likely, though, gun sales rose by more than the number of people who purchased them.

At the same time gun sales were soaring, there was an unusually large drop in murder rates. The 7.4 percent drop in the murder rate was the largest drop in murder rates since the 1999. For those who don't remember, 1999 — when Bill Clinton was president and Columbine occurred — was another time when gun sales soared. With Clinton domestic-policy advisers such as Elena Kagan pushing hard for more gun control, Americans were worried that more gun bans were coming; in response, gun sales soared.

Click here to read the entire op-ed from The National Review.