Violent Crime Dropped in 2018

The FBI released the 2018 “Crime in the United States” report [last month], which compiles crime data from law enforcement agencies around the country. The news is good, and the positive data proved easy to consume:

“[In 2018] violent crime offenses decreased when compared with estimates from 2017. Robbery offenses fell 12.0 percent, murder and no negligent manslaughter offenses fell 6.2 percent, and the estimated volume of aggravated assault offenses decreased 0.4 percent.”

According to the report, violent crime rates hit a low point in 2014, marking the lowest point since 1970. The violent crime rate in 2018, by comparison, represented the third lowest rate since 1970. The following chart illustrates the data-proven, decreasing trend of violent crime:

Contrary to mainstream media reports, the 2018 data reflected the continuation of a violent crime rate decline that has persisted for nearly 30 years. In other words, even as the number of firearms has exponentially increased and the so-called “assault weapons” ban expired, crime nonetheless declined.

But what about the rifles we hear about from gun control advocates? Did the report address the use of such firearms? Indeed they did. Apparently, rifles of all types were used in only 2% of the homicides for which the FBI received weapons-related data in 2018. This bears repeating: The 2% figure covered all types of rifles, including the hunting rifles that the Charlottesville’s Chief of Police advocated banning in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee... Perhaps someone should remind Chief Brackney that rifles accounted for fewer homicides than knives (11%), hands, fists, and feet (5%), and blunt objects (3%).

Will this objective data mean anything to the anti-gun politicians and activists whose arguments have now been scientifically disproved? Will they continue to conflate homicides and suicides into a false narrative of “gun violence”? The only way to find out is to wield the data-proven truth and hold them accountable for their fiction.

When one actually looks at the data, the alleged gun “epidemic” is nowhere to be found. The “public health crisis” fueling every liberal researchers’ pursuit of federal funding is nonexistent. Despite all of their professed fidelity to science, every “progressive” politician and billionaire puppeteer ignores the scientific data proving the decrease in violent crime. Why is this? Why does their agenda require false fear instead of freedom?

© 2019 National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action. This may be reproduced. This may not be reproduced for commercial purposes.