FBI Stat: Armed Civilians Bring Down More Criminals Than Cops Do

P. Gardner Goldsmith | October 4, 2021

As MRCTV readers might know, I frequently have reported on the fact that more guns in the hands of peace-loving civilians in a geographic of political zone is strongly correlated to a statistically significant reduction in violent crime. I also have reported on the clear fact that government “bans” and “buy-backs” of firearms do not reduce violent crime. Despite pop media fantasy, violent crime increased in Australia and England after the nations instituted draconian anti-rights statutes, while violent crime decreased in the US over the same period (even as more Americans stocked-up on guns).

Now, new FBI stats add to the wealth of information showing how armed peace-loving people are an effective force against criminal activity.

Dave Workman reports for Ammoland:

According to the FBI’s expanded homicide data for 2020, law enforcement used firearms 298 times in fatal line-of-duty shootings, while private citizens killed 343 suspected felons ‘during the commission of a felony.’

These were categorized as "Justifiable Homicide."

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These stats – if one takes them on face value, accepting the argument that all are justified, as defined by the FBI and various local and state justice systems – make sense, since police cannot be everywhere, and armed civilians far outnumber cops.

As I mentioned last week for MRCTV, there’s validity to the saying, “when seconds count, police are just minutes away.”

And, as Workman writes:

Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, was not surprised by the new data.

‘If the FBI data published in their crime report for 2020 is accurate,’ he said, ‘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.

Indeed. From that period, to today, the practicality of the right to self-defense holds. As Lawrence Reed explained about US arms ownership, for the Foundation for Economic Education in 2019:

  • Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year, or 6,849 every day. Most often, the gun is never fired, and no blood (including the criminal’s) is shed.
  • Every year, 400,000 life-threatening violent crimes are prevented using firearms.
  • 60 percent of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed. Forty percent of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they thought the victim might be armed. 
  • Felons report that they avoid entering houses where people are at home because they fear being shot.
  • Fewer than 1 percent of firearms are used in the commission of a crime.

And, even if the practicality of firearms ownership were ever unproven, or the US Constitution were amended to claim that politicians could infringe on the right to keep and bear arms, the right would stand, preeminent, prime, prior to the existence of any form of the government.

It is tied to the right of existence which no man can assail.

Period.

This new information simply reiterates the salutary effect of firearm ownership.

Don’t expect the Biden Administration or many other politicians to acknowledge it.

 

 

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