The FBI released its annual “Crime in the United States report” with crime statistics on September 28th with data covering calendar year 2019. The data shows that crime continued an established downward trend through 2019. The FBI has not yet released any data on crime for the current year.
From the FBI’s summary: “The 2019 statistics show the estimated rate of violent crime was 366.7 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants, and the estimated rate of property crime was 2,109.9 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants. The violent crime rate fell 1.0 percent when compared with the 2018 rate; the property crime rate declined 4.5 percent.” The Department of Justice press release highlights some of the initiatives undertaken that helped reduce violent crime for the third consecutive year. Property crime has declined for 17 consecutive years.
The FBI began using a new definition of rape in 2013 but does continue to report both data using legacy and revised definitions at the national level, but not the state level. For long-term national trends, using the legacy definition allows the clearest historical comparisons. The violent crime rate last year was down nearly 52% from the 1991 peak, and the murder rate had dropped more than 51% from the 1980 peak. The chart below shows the long downward trend in violent crime since the early 1990s. Last year was the second-lowest violent crime rate we as a nation have seen since that early-90s peak.
There were 187 fewer homicides involving a firearm in 2019 than in the previous year, a decrease of 1.8%. The number of firearm-involved homicides also decreased from 2017 to 2018. Rifles were used in connection with 364 homicides last year, which represents 2.6% of all homicides for which the FBI has supplemental data. More than four times that number of murders involved a knife or other cutting instrument (1,476 such murders), and there were more murders using blunt objects (397) or personal weapons like hands, fists, or feet (600) than involved a rifle of any type. Somebody please share this report with Joe Biden.
The number of aggravated assaults increased slightly from 2018 to 2019, as did the number involving a firearm. The number of robberies that involved a firearm decreased by 7.9% over that time period, outpacing the overall decrease in robberies and the decline in robberies involving other weapon types. Strong-arm robberies were the most common.
So what can be credited for the continued decrease in crime? According to the Department of Justice, “the Department charged the largest number of violent crime defendants since the Department began tracking this category more than 25 years ago. The Department has also increased federal firearm prosecutions by 43 percent in the last three years.”
As any reasonable person would expect, focusing on the bad guys works. Efforts to punish law-abiding gun owners for the actions of criminals or to curtail the rights of all Americans won’t. They know it, and they want to do it anyway. Anti-gun organizations hide their true intentions when they think they can fleece honest Americans.
November 3rd is the best chance to stop them.
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