The FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2020 revealed defunding police departments and reducing the number of cops on the beat results in higher crime. The body count is proof positive that years of ever-increasing gun control is an abject failure.
Second Amendment activists aren’t kidding when they suggest it’s time to scrap all gun restrictions and try something else. Gun laws passed on the premise they would “reduce gun violence” have uniformly failed, but none of the proponents have been willing to step forward and admit they were wrong. Instead, they push for more restrictions claiming, “We just didn’t go far enough.”
According to the FBI, last year saw a stunning 29.4 percent increase in murders. It was the highest spike in the number of criminal homicides ever seen. Like it or not, the majority of those killings were committed with handguns, while rifles—the type of firearm anti-gunners want to ban—were once again only used in a fraction. Overall, violent crime was up 5.6 percent. Think back to the violence committed during last summer’s continual riots in places including Seattle, Portland and Minneapolis.
In 2020 there were 17,754 murders, 13,620 of which involved firearms. This included 8,017 homicides with handguns, but a scant 454 committed with rifles of any kind (there is no breakdown as to type or action), and an even smaller number (203) known to have involved shotguns. There were a stunning 4,834 gun-related murders in which the type of firearm used was not identified. A category called “other guns” accounted for 112 murder victims.
Roughly four times as many murders were committed with knives “or other cutting instruments” (1,732) than with rifles. More people were physically beaten to death (657) than were killed with rifles. Actually, the number of people fatally beaten matches the number of people identified as murdered last year with rifles and shotguns.
The data shows rifles aren’t as big a threat to public safety as the gun prohibition lobby wants us to believe.
Somewhat Confusing
This year’s report is one of the least user-friendly reports I’ve ever seen. It takes some looking, but you can pull some useful data.
One table breaking down regional data shows people are more likely to be shot dead (80.4%) than killed by any other means in the South. Guns are also popular murder weapons in the Midwest (79.4%) and in the Northeast (70.3%).
The West saw a smaller percentage of homicides involving firearms (69.4%), but knives and other sharp weapons were used to kill 13.4 percent of murder victims.
One must wade through a maze of spreadsheets to find specific homicide data and the data is admittedly incomplete. As noted by the FBI in its news release, “Of the 18,619 federal, state, county, city, university and college, and tribal agencies eligible to participate in the UCR Program, 15,897 agencies submitted data in 2020.”
Good Guys with Guns
For the second year in a row, armed private citizens killed more felony suspects (343) than police did (298) (FBI Data).
In 2019, legally armed citizens fatally shot 359 criminals while police killed 355, according to the 2019 data published as part of the 2020 report. Over at least the three years prior to 2019, the opposite was true.
The 2020 FBI report revised the numbers originally published for 2019. Last year, 2019 data showed police officers fatally shot 334 bad guys, and listed the same number killed by armed citizens.
This suggests more people are taking responsibility for their own safety, especially since so many departments have lost officers over the past 19 months.
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms was quick to pick up on the number of justifiable homicides by armed citizens.
“If the FBI data published in their crime report for 2020 is accurate,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “it is ample evidence that the individual right to keep and bear arms for personal defense is as important today as it was when the Second Amendment was adopted as a cornerstone of the Bill of Rights.
“The use of deadly force is not something anybody wants,” Gottlieb added, “but neither is being injured or killed by some thug during a violent criminal attack. Self-defense may be the oldest natural right, and every time we hear some politician, public official or gun control extremist call for citizen disarmament, we have to wonder which side they’re on. It certainly can’t be on the side of public safety.”
Offenders Aren't Kids
The majority of murders are committed by people age 18 and older, the crime report details.
Last year—the report says—at least 7,176 killings were committed by people over 18 years of age, while 346 were committed by someone under 18. The age of the offender was unknown in 347 murders.
Murder Not Going Away
The bad news—and the reason why so many good citizens are buying guns, getting carry licenses and permits, and taking training courses—is that regardless how hard we try to prevent it, bad people will keep committing crimes.
As I prepared this report, NBC News reported on the murder of a woman allegedly beaten with a hammer by her husband in Loudon County, Va. This happened despite the protection order she had against him.
Sherriff’s detectives in Chambers County, Texas recently investigated a grisly murder at a shipyard, allegedly committed by a 29-year-old Columbian national, who is believed to have used a machete on the victim.
Another lethal machete attack occurred in Moundsville, Ohio. The victim was a 71-year-old man, allegedly killed while he was in the shower. The suspect apparently then shot himself with a pistol belonging to the victim before police could respond.
A third fatal machete attack took place in Athens, Tenn. This one erupted from an argument that reportedly also saw the killer being struck on the head with a frying pan before he allegedly grabbed the machete and struck the victim in the neck.
There are no background checks on hammers or machetes. If all the allegations are true, these cases underscore the fact that the problem is not guns, but people, and that no amount of gun control will prevent such crimes.