With the recent tragedy in Newtown, there is little doubt that people are scared: they’re scared that their elected officials will take away their guns in an effort to prevent further tragedies from occurring. This is evidenced by the nationwide skyrocketing of firearms sales, ammo sales, and jam-packed, filled-to-capacity weekend gun shows. And, if one believes the liberal argument that guns kill people, then they would also be ignoring two facts that every commonsense American already knows: people kill people, and guns prevent violence from occurring in the first place.

 

Liberals will spin statistics in whatever way they can to promote their anti-gun agenda however, using nothing more than honest data collected by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report system, a person can begin to realize the true impact guns have on crime. Comparing California, which has the toughest gun control laws in the nation, to Florida, which has what most conservatives would argue to be “sensible” gun control laws, one can begin to understand how firearms prevent crime:

 

California					Florida
Year	Population	Murders (Actual)	Murders (Per Capita/100k)		Year	Population	Murders (Actual)	Murders (Per Capita/100k)
1960	15,717,204	616	3.9		1960	4,951,560	527	10.6
1961	16,397,000	605	3.7		1961	5,222,000	477	9.1
1962	16,970,000	657	3.9		1962	5,459,000	420	7.7
1963	17,590,000	673	3.8		1963	5,652,000	463	8.2
1964	18,084,000	740	4.1		1964	5,705,000	489	8.6
1965	18,602,000	880	4.7		1965	5,805,000	518	8.9
1966	18,918,000	868	4.6		1966	5,941,000	612	10.3
1967	19,153,000	1,039	5.4		1967	5,995,000	630	10.5
1968	19,221,000	1,150	6		1968	6,160,000	731	11.9
1969	19,443,000	1,386	7.1		1969	6,354,000	720	11.3
1970	19,953,134	1,376	6.9		1970	6,789,443	860	12.7
1971	20,223,000	1,642	8.1		1971	7,041,000	933	13.3
1972	20,468,000	1,791	8.8		1972	7,259,000	924	12.7
1973	20,601,000	1,862	9		1973	7,678,000	1,180	15.4
1974	20,907,000	1,985	9.5		1974	8,090,000	1,191	14.7
1975	21,185,000	2,209	10.4		1975	8,357,000	1,130	13.5
1976	21,520,000	2,220	10.3		1976	8,421,000	903	10.7
1977	21,896,000	2,515	11.5		1977	8,452,000	859	10.2
1978	22,294,000	2,611	11.7		1978	8,594,000	949	11
1979	22,696,000	2,952	13		1979	8,860,000	1,084	12.2
1980	23,532,680	3,411	14.5		1980	9,567,112	1,387	14.5
1981	24,159,000	3,143	13		1981	10,166,000	1,522	15
1982	24,724,000	2,779	11.2		1982	10,416,000	1,409	13.5
1983	25,174,000	2,639	10.5		1983	10,680,000	1,199	11.2
1984	25,622,000	2,717	10.6		1984	10,976,000	1,264	11.5
1985	26,365,000	2,770	10.5		1985	11,366,000	1,296	11.4
1986	26,981,000	3,038	11.3		1986	11,675,000	1,371	11.7
1987	27,663,000	2,924	10.6		1987	12,023,000	1,371	11.4
1988	28,168,000	2,936	10.4		1988	12,377,000	1,416	11.4
1989	29,063,000	3,158	10.9		1989	12,671,000	1,405	11.1
1990	29,760,021	3,553	11.9		1990	12,937,926	1,379	10.7
1991	30,380,000	3,859	12.7		1991	13,277,000	1,248	9.4
1992	30,867,000	3,921	12.7		1992	13,488,000	1,208	9
1993	31,211,000	4,096	13.1		1993	13,679,000	1,224	8.9
1994	31,431,000	3,703	11.8		1994	13,953,000	1,165	8.3
1995	31,589,000	3,531	11.2		1995	14,166,000	1,037	7.3
1996	31878000	2916	9.1		1996	14,400,000	1,077	7.5
1997	32268000	2579	8		1997	14,654,000	1,012	6.9
1998	32667000	2171	6.6		1998	14,916,000	967	6.5
1999	33145121	2005	6		1999	15,111,244	859	5.7
2000	33145121	2079	6.1		2000	15,982,378	903	5.6
2001	34600463	2206	6.4		2001	16,373,330	874	5.3
2002	35001986	2395	6.8		2002	16,691,701	911	5.5
2003	35462712	2407	6.7		2003	16,999,181	924	5.4
2004	35842038	2392	6.7		2004	17,385,430	946	5.4
2005	36154147	2503	6.9		2005	17,768,191	883	5
2006	36457549	2485	6.8		2006	18,089,888	1,129	6.2
2007	36553213	2260	6.2		2007	18,251,243	1,201	6.6
2008	36580371	2142	5.9		2008	18,423,878	1,169	6.3
2009	36961664	1972	5.3		2009	18,537,969	1,017	5.5
2010	37,338,198	1,809	4.8		2010	18,838,613	987	5.2
2011	37,691,912	1,792	4.8		2011	19,057,542	984	5.2

 

In order to reveal the truth, one must pay special attention to the following two areas: year 1967 in California, and year 1987 in Florida.

 

In 1967, then-Governor of California Ronald Reagan signed a law outlawing the open carrying of loaded firearms, after a group of Black Panthers staged a protest within the State Capital building carrying handguns. In 1987, Florida passed a “shall issue” law, ensuring that every law-abiding American has the freedom to exercise their 2^nd amendment right to bear arms.

 

Armed with that bit of history, let’s review the chart again. Putting the focus on California prior to 1967, both the actual number of murders and the per-capita murder rate remained fairly low, never going higher than 4.7%. However, after Reagan signed a bill outlawing the open carrying of loaded handguns, both those numbers skyrocketed and, to this day, have never returned to their low, pre-1967 numbers. Now, let’s switch over to Florida, pre-1987. You will notice fairly high numbers in both actual murders, as well as per-capita murders. After passing a “shall issue” law, both those numbers plummeted, and currently remain on a downward spiral.

 

Still not convinced? Here’s the data pertaining to overall violent crime. In this case, I compare California to it’s very conservative neighbor, Arizona, which has virtually no gun control laws on the books:

 

	California	Arizona
	Violence	Violence
Year
1960	239	207.7
1961	232.7	164.5
1962	234.8	173
1963	241.2	194.2
1964	265.6	213
1965	282.2	192.3
1966	305.1	202.2
1967	352.1	238.2
1968	422.9	263.6
1969	462.3	339.2
1970	474.8	370.3
1971	518.6	400.6
1972	540.7	448.9
1973	565.8	479.9
1974	610.6	566.7
1975	655.4	547.8
1976	669.3	455.3
1977	706	494.2
1978	742.9	552.1
1979	811.1	593
1980	893.6	650.9
1981	863	575.8
1982	814.7	517
1983	772.6	494.2
1984	763.4	516.1
1985	765.3	602.5
1986	920.5	658.3
1987	918	612.6
1988	929.8	610.1
1989	977.7	599.6
1990	1,045.20	652.4
1991	1,089.90	670.7
1992	1,119.70	670.8
1993	1,077.80	715
1994	1,013.00	703.1
1995	966	713.5
1996	862.7	631.5
1997	798.3	623.7
1998	703.7	577.9
1999	627.2	551.1
2000	621.6	531.7
2001	615.2	540.3
2002	595.4	554.5
2003	579.6	513.3
2004	527.8	504.4
2005	526.0	512.0
2006	532.5	501.4
2007	522.6	482.7
2008	506.2	481.2
2009	473.3	426.5
2010	439.6	413.6
2011	411.1	405.9

 

Arizona consistently has lower, overall violent crime rates than its liberal neighbor. And did you notice California’s pre and post-1967 numbers: overall violent crime shot through the roof once the open carrying of handguns was outlawed!

 

For all the rhetoric liberals shout about the violence caused by guns, honest data just doesn’t support the argument that the solution is to have stricter gun control laws. In fact, the data supports the exact opposite: strict gun control laws, as evidenced by California pre and post 1967, actually causes more crime than little to no gun control laws, as proven by Florida pre and post 1987, and Arizona.