Tag Archives: Firearm

News

Crime rates in Chicago and DC drop after gun control laws are struck down

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From Fox News – what happens to crime rates when gun control laws are repealed? (H/T Reason To Stand)

Excerpt:

Murder and violent crime rates were supposed to soar after the Supreme Court struck down gun control laws in Chicago and Washington, D.C.

Politicians predicted disaster. “More handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence,” Washington’s Mayor Adrian Fenty warned the day the court made its decision.

Chicago’s Mayor Daley predicted that we would “go back to the Old West, you have a gun and I have a gun and we’ll settle it in the streets…”

The New York Times even editorialized this month about the Supreme Court’s “unwise” decision that there is a right for people “to keep guns in the home.”

But Armageddon never happened. Newly released data for Chicago shows that, as in Washington, murder and gun crime rates didn’t rise after the bans were eliminated — they plummeted. They have fallen much more than the national crime rate.

Not surprisingly, the national media have been completely silent about this news.

One can only imagine the coverage if crime rates had risen. In the first six months of this year, there were 14% fewer murders in Chicago compared to the first six months of last year – back when owning handguns was illegal. It was the largest drop in Chicago’s murder rate since the handgun ban went into effect in 1982.

Meanwhile, the other four most populous cities saw a total drop at the same time of only 6 percent.

Similarly, in the year after the 2008 “Heller” decision, the murder rate fell two-and-a-half times faster in Washington than in the rest of the country.

It also fell more than three as fast as in other cities that are close to Washington’s size. And murders in Washington have continued to fall.

If you compare the first six months of this year to the first six months of 2008, the same time immediately preceding the Supreme Court’s late June “Heller” decision, murders have now fallen by thirty-four percent.

Gun crimes also fell more than non-gun crimes.

Robberies with guns fell by 25%, while robberies without guns have fallen by eight percent. Assaults with guns fell by 37%, while assaults without guns fell by 12%.

Just as with right-to-carry laws, when law-abiding citizens have guns some criminals stop carrying theirs.

Read the whole thing, there are more lovely facts in there. If you ever need to debate this, I recommend buying these academic studies published by the University of Chicago Press and by Harvard University Press. The former shows how crime rates dropped in the USA when Americans rescinded gun control laws, and the latter shows how crime rates rose in the UK when the British strengthened their gun control laws. Sometimes is good to have the data handy.

Let’s learn about the issue from the news

ABC News explains in this short 6-minute clip:

And here is a longer 44-minute show from Fox Business: (featuring a debate between economist John Lott and the Brady Campaign spokesman)

There are other debates in the show as well.

Now watch a 3-on-3 debate on gun control

This debate is in 13 parts, featuring the two of the best proponents of legal firearm ownership – John Lott and Gary Kleck. The real sparks fly during the Q&A, so don’t miss that. (If you can’t watch the debate, then you can read this post and this post instead).

Here’s part 1, which contains the introduction.

Here are the remaining speeches:

This is everything you need to know about whether legal ownership of firearms reduce crime.

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News

14-year old boy uses parents’ handgun to deter armed intruder

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From Fox News.

Excerpt:

A 14-year-old Phoenix boy shot an intruder who broke into his home while brandishing a gun as the teenager watched his three younger siblings, police said.

The teen and his brothers and sisters were at home alone at their residence at 55th Avenue and Baseline when a woman rang the doorbell Friday. The teen didn’t open the door because he didn’t recognize her, Police Officer James Holmes said Saturday.

Soon after, the teen heard a bang on the door, rushed his siblings upstairs and got a handgun from his parent’s bedroom. When he got to the top of the stairs, he saw a man breaking through the front door and point a gun at him.

The boy shot the 37-year-old man, who is in critical condition but expected to survive and be booked into jail.

Holmes said the suspect did not get a shot off. He declined to release his name until he is booked into jail.

The woman who rang the home’s doorbell got away.

This is why families own firearms legally, so that they can defend themselves from armed criminals when the police will take too long to arrive.

In a previous post I noted how feminists who denigrate the traditional roles of men like provider, protector, etc. disapprove of men using force or arms to deter or defeat evildoers – not to mention the use of force in a just war. I’m sure that there are more socialists and feminists who will read a story like this and want to seize the firearms and separate the children from their parents and put them into child protective custody. There are people on the left who think that criminals are victims and that families with guns to defend themselves are the real criminals, and they need to be disarmed.

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News

Woman defends herself from intruder using legally-owned firearm

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From WSBTV.

Excerpt:

An intruder who was shot and killed after a confrontation with a Duluth woman in her shower was likely stalking her for days and may have other victims, Gwinnett police said.

The 53-year-old woman, who is also a veteran private school counselor, was alone at the time of the Wednesday morning attack. She lives on East Mount Tabor Circle in Duluth.

The woman was getting out of the shower when she was met by a strange man with a kitchen knife, police said. They said there was a struggle in the bathroom, and she fell in the tub. Police later identified the man as Israel Perez Puentes, a Cuban national who lived in Alpharetta.

“The male was armed with a kitchen knife, a struggle ensued between the two of them. She fell in the bathtub injuring herself,” Gwinnett police spokesman Edwin Ritter said.

The woman tried to fight the man off with a shower a rod, and he forced her into her bedroom, police said. They said she told her attacker she had money in the room. But she grabbed a .22-caliber handgun and shot the man nine times, police said.

[…]Dan Tucker, a friend and neighbor, said he was amazed at how the victim defended herself against the armed intruder.

“She’s smart, she’s witty and obviously well prepared,” Tucker said.

Ritter said the shooting investigation was ongoing but defended the victim, saying the shooting appeared to be justified, and that she acted in self-defense. He said there are no plans to charge her.

Police said Thursday that neighbors had spotted Puentes’ car in the neighborhood several days before the attack but did not report it. Puentes’ estranged wife told Kavanaugh he had been arrested for burglary in Johns Creek in December.

I think it’s a very good idea for women, especially those who live alone, to have a legally owned firearm and to know how to use it.