Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Crime Rates

In response to the comments on this post:

Last year, there were 162 crimes committed from a pool of 56919 permit holders in Minnesota. That's a 0.28461497918094133769040215042429% crime rate. Of those 162 crimes, only 10 involved a gun, that's 0.01756882587536674240148280890388%. Violent crimes made up 40 of the 162, keeping in mind that only 10 of the 162 involved guns, that about a 0.07% crime rate.

Legal gun owners are self-selected to be the most law abiding group in existence. There is no demographic with a smaller crime rate.

That said, most gun control and all gun registration laws in the US have specific exclusions for felons. Requiring a felon to register a gun he can't legally own would be a violation of his right against self-incrimination, so he's not required to do so. That means, for the dense, that gun control is aimed solely at law-abiding gun owners. Criminals are never, ever the target, regardless of the rhetoric.

Gun control is about control, not guns.

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