Washington Post: Gun Violence Declining, Except in
Gun-Free Zones
by AWR Hawkins 4 Dec 2015
On December 3, The Washington Post reported
that gun crime has been on the decline for about 20 years, except for
high-profile shootings in gun-free zones; WaPo claims those
shootings are on the increase.
According
to WaPo, “In 1993, there were seven homicides by firearm for
every 100,000 Americans. … By 2013, that figure had fallen by nearly half, to
3.6 [per 100,000].”
Breitbart News previously
pointed to this decline and explained it correlated with a
massive increase in privately owned firearms over the same period of time. For
example, Congressional Research Service
showed that the number of privately owned firearms increased from 192
million in 1994 to 310 million in 2009. And record background checks under
Obama make it easy to see how tens of millions more privately owned guns have
found their way into Americans’ hands since 2009.
So gun ownership increased for 20 years, but “gun homicides”
decreased–except in gun free zones.
WaPo points to a study by Mother
Jones that claims that high-profile shootings began
increasing in gun-free zones in late 2011/early 2012. The examples Mother Jones
provides are the Aurora movie theater, Sandy Hook Elementary, and the D.C. Navy
Yard, all of which were gun-free zones.
Other examples of shootings in gun-free zones that could
have been cited are Arapahoe High School (December 2013), Fort Hood (April
2014), Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (June 2015), Chattanooga
military offices (July 2015), the Lafayette Grand Theatre (July 2015),
and Umpqua Community College (October 1).
Increases in gun ownership correlated with drastic
reductions in firearm-related homicides, but creating zones where law-abiding
citizens are denied the ability to be armed for self-defense have allowed
high-profile attackers to find easy targets.
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