Must be that “blood in the street” we heard so much about
The doom and gloom cries from the anti-gun folks that the expiration of the politically incorrect looking err assault weapons ban would lead to unmitigated violence and blood in the streets don’t seem to have materialized:
The number of murders dropped by nearly 6 percent in the first half of 2004, an indication that a four-year climb may be ending, the FBI reported Monday.
Granted, 6% is not a huge decrease but it sure as Hell isn’t an increase. Additionally:
The preliminary figures show a 1.9 percent decline in the property crimes of burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft during the first six months of 2004. In addition, the FBI said arson was down by 6.8 percent from January to June.
Update: My bad. Reader markm points out that I can’t read and that the figures were for the first half of 2004 which is before the ban expired. I misread it as preliminaries for the last half.
December 13th, 2004 at 12:52 pm
Those figures are for the 1st half of 2004 – BEFORE the ban expired. It’s going to be at least six more months before we see after-the-ban figures. (Unless some gun bigot in government can’t wait to add in the Wisconsin hunter massacre.)
December 13th, 2004 at 1:24 pm
I wonder how many press releases from HCI and the Brady Boneheads will link the WI massacre with the Assault Weapon ban, even though the two were completely unrelated (the weapon used wasn’t banned)…
December 13th, 2004 at 1:29 pm
They already have but they use it to point out that a stronger ban is needed.
December 13th, 2004 at 10:44 pm
Unfortunately, statistics in the hands of politicians aren’t to be trusted regardless of who is putting them forward. Let’s not forget the wonderful Clinton ban’s statistics on assault weapon use by criminals. It’s all well and good to have statistics in our favor, but how were those statistics made in the first place?