According to data from the U.S. Treasury Department, gun crimes, suicide and gun-related accidents declined at the same time new sales of firearms increased. The data was released through the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

While this revelation tends to debunk long-standing claims by gun control proponents that more guns in circulation leads to more crime, gun rights organizations contend that this bolsters their contention that armed citizens deter criminals.

NSSF Public Relations Director Steve Wagner told Gun Week that approximately 4.7 million new firearms were sold in America last year, including those manufactured domestically and imported. The greatest increase was in retail handgun sales, which were up 3%. Long gun sales were up 1.8%. Ammunition sales were up 3.5%.

You would think that anyone could see that these figures support gun rights advocates claims that arming the populace will deter crime but the anti-gun crowd continues to make attempts at debunking facts with fiction.

Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, remarked, “It’s the guns that have been around a while that could wind up in criminal hands,” he explained, “not the guy who’s going out and buying a new $700 handgun. . . . The guns that cause the worst problems in this country are not selling for very high prices.”

Coming from the National Safety Council is a report that says that in gun accidents involving kids 14 and under, it had dropped by over 50% since 1998.

Find more data from this report here at the Hawaii Reporter.

Tom Remington

Related Posts