The BBC Chimes in on US Crime Drop

[karl]

Reason number 1: "The Obama Effect". Brilliant!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13799616" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[surprise_i'm_armed]

They proffered 10 different possible reasons for crime going down, but they didn't mention CHL increases in most states.

SIA

[AJ80]

The Obama effect = more people buying more guns so less crime?

[Ameer]

I smell another Nobel Prize!

[Skiprr]

Reason number 5: The increased availability of legal abortion after the Supreme Court ruling in 1973 on Roe v Wade.

Reason number 7: A decline in children's exposure to lead in gasoline.

Reason number 9: Video games keeping young people off the streets and therefore away from crime.

Really? I mean, really? If that makes sense to the author of this article, or to the so-called criminology expert quoted, then they've been partaking of the product they claimed in reason number 2.

Of course, firearms aren't mentioned once. Since the drop in crime concerns the period 1991 to 2011, why should they be?

Oh. Wait. That's right. It was in 1987-88 that Marion P. Hammer put the hammer to Florida with the much-publicized road to success of the state's concealed-carry law. Prior to that, a handful of states had quietly paved the way (Georgia, Vermont, New Hampshire, Washington, Indiana, the Dakotas), but it was Florida that got the issue into the media spotlight (including all the now-repetitive "blood in the streets" predictions).

Beginning in 1989, concealed carry laws started passing among the states. It was a decade of great gains: Oregon, Pennsylvania, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, Arizona, Tennessee, Wyoming, Arkansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, Nevada, Utah, Virginia, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Alaska. Not only that, but the number of states converting from may-issue to shall-issue kept pace.

Today, the concealed-carry picture looks like this:


(Image courtesy of handgunlaws.us)

I don't know if anyone has accurate numbers about how many citizens legally carried handguns in the U.S. prior to 1991, but it's easy to prove the increase in legal concealed-carry has been astronomical since 1991. Texas alone can contribute almost a half-million to whatever that number may be.

But, hey; what do I know?

I’m sure the fact that literally millions more citizens are legally carrying handguns now compared to 1990 is a minuscule factor in violent crime reduction compared to other, more vital and relevant factors, factors like abortion, lead content in gasoline, and video games...not to mention “the Obama factor.”

[SQLGeek]

Wow...did this article get sourced from the Onion?

[74novaman]

always loved this Gif....the march of freedom!

Needs to be updated soon once Walker signs Wisconsin's Shall Issue law.