More Guns, Less Crime

At Bearing Arms, Cam Edwards has a piece noting that Everytown's Concealed Carry Claims Debunked By Reality. The dogma, that more guns equals more crime, is very strong with this bunch. In fact, as has been proven time and again, never more positively that with John Lott's study More Guns, Less Crime, the opposite is true. And New Jersey becomes the latest state to prove it after the Bruen decision.

The Bruen decision is the worst thing that's happened to the gun control lobby in years. Yes, it overturned the "may issue" carry laws that were still in place in a handful of anti-gun states, which is bad enough from the perspective of the anti-gun crowd, but it also put to test the fundamental premise of the gun control movement; more guns means more crime.

According to an Everytown post on X, referring to an article in News From The States:

Applications for concealed carry permits in New Jersey skyrocketed by nearly 3000% after the Supreme Court’s reckless Bruen decision made it easier to secure permits by upending the state’s existing strong gun safety laws.

More guns do not make us safer.

As Edwards notes, there really has been a 3,000% increase in applications for concealed carry permits. But rather than seeing a similar spike in gun crimes, the opposite has happened. According to an article by the AP, not a gun friendly organization:

New Jersey recorded the lowest number of shootings in 2023 since record keeping began in 2009, Gov. Phil Murphy said Thursday.

Murphy, a Democrat, and other officials announced the milestone, calling it a “great achievement for public safety.”

“We must also hold in our thoughts the victims of gun violence and their loved ones and must recommit ourselves to the fight to fully eliminate gun violence from our state,” Murphy said.

In 2023, 924 people were shot in the state, down 13% over the previous year and the first time fewer than 1,000 were shot in a year, officials said. Of the more than 900 shot, 191 were killed, officials added, down 8% over the previous year.

There is a common notion that when thieves threaten with a you with a gun, and take something of value from you, that they are just taking "stuff." But in reality, that "stuff" was something you had to work to acquire. If it is worth $100, and you make $10/hour, that represents 10 hours of your life. You cannot be made whole. So that is one thing, and I don't think it should be treated so lightly: 10 hours of your life that you will never get back. But then David Codrea asks a very good question: what if the thief wants to take (the rest) your life? Bad enough they want to steal part of your life, but wanting to steal the rest of it too?

I think the people running Everytown, Moms Demand Action, Brady, and other groups trying to ban guns understand this calculus. They also understand the fact that having guns and training makes us a potential threat to their agenda. But the Second Amendment wasn't just to defend against tyranny.  So, they cannot under any circumstances admit the truth: more guns, less crime.