If the past 12 months have taught us anything as a nation, it would have to be that gun control has actually failed in its purported mission of preventing criminals from getting guns, and that proponents of restrictive gun laws are both delusional and living in denial when they claim otherwise.
Remember, the gun prohibition lobby is typically silent when a legally armed private citizen intervenes in a crime to stop the criminal.
While the number of homicides decreased in 2023 by more than 11 percent, according to the most recently available data estimates from the FBI, the use of firearms in those killings remains high.
The Christmas Eve triple shooting in Oxford, Mich.—scene of the tragic high school shooting in November 2021 which resulted in several new gun restrictions—confirms what gun rights advocates such as Alan Gottlieb at the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms have been trying to explain for years, if not decades: Criminals do not obey gun control laws, and existing laws restricting adults do not prevent juveniles from getting and/or using guns illegally.
The Detroit Free Press, reporting about the Oxford shooting, which has turned into a homicide, said the incident happened “a short distance from Oxford High School.” The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office has a suspect in custody and a gun has been recovered.
The October slaughter of a family near Fall City, Washington, allegedly by a 15-year-old family member shocked the upscale Lake Alice neighborhood. The teen has been charged with five counts of homicide, and the case will continue into 2025.
Yet Washington state, over the past few years, has seen the adoption of several new gun control laws requiring “expanded” background checks, a 10-day waiting period and proof of firearm safety training, and other restrictions on adult gun buyers.
Back on Jan. 9, USA Today outlined gun control laws which took effect earlier this year in California, Michigan, Minnesota, Washington and other Democrat-controlled states. Have any of those laws prevented homicides in any of those states?
While the USA Today story noted Everytown for Gun Safety’s report on states with the strongest gun laws—California, New York, Illinois, Connecticut, and Hawaii—a triple homicide in Mahomet, Illinois, just before Christmas has left that community rattled. WCIA News is reporting the suspect, identified as John R. Lyons, was shot dead in a gunfight with police in nearby Berwyn, a Cook County suburb.
There is no small irony in the fact that WCIA identified Everytown as a “gun violence prevention advocacy group.”
According to the popular website Heyjackass.com, so far this year, Chicago has seen 606 homicides, of which 536 involved firearms. Another 2,414 people have been wounded by gunfire.
California’s strict gun laws, touted by Everytown in the USA Today report, haven’t stopped homicides in the Golden State. One look at Sacramento’s bloody past few months—just Google “Sacramento homicides”—tells the tale of the state’s capital city, and that’s just one city.
Despite a 14 percent decline in homicide last year, California still seems to rack up more slayings than any other state (1,929 in 2023), even Texas (1,845 in 2023), which is often cited by anti-gunners for its lax gun laws, or Florida (1,066 in 2023), infamously dubbed the “Gunshine State” by anti-gunners. The Sacramento Bee reported earlier this year how “guns are still overwhelmingly the most common weapon used to kill someone,” so it might be interesting to ask Gov. Gavin Newsom and his Everytown cheerleaders how all of those restrictive gun control laws are working.
The high-profile murder of insurance executive Brian Thompson on a downtown New York City sidewalk—on camera—certainly refutes arguments that tough gun control laws adopted in response to the 2022 Supreme Court’s Bruen ruling were necessary to keep the Big Apple streets safe.
In Boston, murders are still occurring, despite the restrictive gun control laws in Massachusetts. Do a search for stories dealing with murder in Boston. Again, one will see reports which, taken as a whole, demonstrate that restrictive Bay State gun laws really haven’t made the place safe.
According to Statista.com, the worst murder rate anywhere in the country is in Washington, D.C., where it is still difficult to legally own a firearm. The chart also shows, for example, Maryland with a higher murder rate (8.3 per 100,000)—and stricter gun laws—than neighboring Virginia (6 per 100,000). It could be argued these are “apples to oranges” comparisons, but wait.
Illinois has a murder rate higher than neighboring Indiana (6.6 to 5.6 per 100,000, respectively), and Montana—the state with the highest percentage of gun ownership in the country (66.3%), according to World Population Review, and a population of 1.13 million—has a far lower murder rate (2.8 per 100,000) than Delaware, which is much smaller but has a similar population at 1.03 million, and a murder rate of 4.5 per 100,000, according to Statista.com. Montana gun laws are far looser than in Delaware, where only 34.4 percent of the population are gun owners, including soon-to-be-former President Joe Biden, who owns at least one shotgun.
None of this will stop gun control proponents from demanding more laws, more regulations and more erosion of gun rights, and they will either ignore or simply argue the data above is anecdotal if not irrelevant, which is why gun owners—especially in Democrat-controlled states—can expect more of the same in 2025.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
Gun control fails because it targets law biding citizens and not criminals who don’t care about laws and it’s that simple . The more appropriate action should be criminal control . No more plea bargains for violent offenders would help cure the problem .
As someone once opined: “If there’s gun in the room, I want to be in control of it!”
While per capita murder rates are an initial indicator, Population make-up is also a major determinator.
Especially if they have a large 13% population.
Look at DC makeup. Who.lives there?
Never any mention of gang bangers and drug dealers fighting over turf, rivals, and drug dealiing.
I grew up adjacent to a majority minority neighborhood. Firearms were readily available. I also worked in a neighborhood pharmacy that was robed twice in my first week there.
Subsequently one night as I was leaving a couple of ‘yoots’ approached me with a S&W Model 29 that they were interested in ‘selling’. I always kept a $20.00 in my pocket just in case I was accosted. I ‘purchased’ it and promptly turned it in. Don’t know what happened to it afterwards…
We fortunately and sometimes unfortunately have a diverse population make-up comprised of some that do not share our combined sense of heritage and social mores. And because of lax/non-existent US border polices by the current administration, the situation has gotten out of control and is dangerously festering as we see in those so-called sanctuary cities/states. One can only hope that the incoming administration is successful in deporting the undesirable events ASAP. The US murder rates would be 50% of its current rate if one could extract the B-on-B murders and even less so if one factored out suicides. The terms… Read more »
Dave – good article (as usual) but IMHO you should have also emphasized the FACT that it is also against the law to shoot someone and also illegal to commit murder. Several other commenters mentioned that criminals don’t obey ANY and yet they are the ONLY common factor in shootings and killings. That the antis constantly ignore that fact speaks volumes about the real goals of disarming free Citizens.
Let’s do some simple logic and math. If a gun is harder to get then less people will have them resulting in less crime with a gun. If everyone had a free safe from the government that they could lock up their guns WHEN THEY ARE GONE, there would be less guns to steal and less illegal guns on the street. One more law will make no more difference than the ones we already have because criminals don’t obey laws. Lets make this clear, the illegal guns are the ones used in killing by people breaking the law and it… Read more »
If you had stopped at the 2nd paragraph, you would have said enough! Thanks for reading and sharing this and other AMMOLAND reports the past year.
Hi Dave, thanks for commenting on my post. The reason for going past the second paragraph is because of all the arguments I have received in the past about everyone getting a safe for free and that my idea is socialist in addition to some name calling and some choice phrases of what I could do with myself in multiple ways. More than one interjected that I am saying they have to have them locked up, EVEN WHEN THEY ARE HOME which I didn’t and never would agree with. Some have stated that their home is locked and that is… Read more »
MM, What are you thinking? “… If a gun is harder to get then less people will have them resulting in less crime with a gun.” What ? Don’t you think that the same criminals would simply use the same gun more often?
That could wind up being the case because as you acknowledged it would be harder to get them so rather than sell them to someone else or toss them like they do, they would keep them which could make it great to tie them to more offenses. I will state it like this. If there are less cars on the freeway there will be less accidents. It’s that simple. The only argument to that is, more guns equals less crime not more deaths which the left wont admit or acknowledge when true stats are shown by their own FBI. The… Read more »
…and if the government buys safes for gun owners, I am certain the government would never keep a list of such gun owners.
They already have a list of all the people with the exception of the ones that break in to our country.
If every home in America had a safe and new homes were required to have a safe but paid for by the government what difference would it make.
In kommiefornia they made a law that any new home being built has to have solar panels but guess who gets to pay for it.
Bill, I think @musicman44mag ‘s idea about gun safes might reduce crimes committed with a gun but I doubt it would reduce the overall crime rate. A better analogy might be requiring all passenger vehicles to have 4 doors in order to reduce the number of 2 door vehicles that get flat tires.
Maybe better stored firearms will result in criminals using other weapons, maybe the cartels will meet the demand for illegally possessed firearms by smuggling in full auto AKs. Criminals gonna do crime.
Yeah, but what happens if the criminals break into your home and steal the safe full of guns?
Several artices have said daylight home invasions and burglary are increasing.
Some criminals will put up in the driveway with a truck to steal all your belongings .
Very few will steal a large safe, especially if you keep half a dozen bags of shot in it. A skilled thief, if expecting a safe, will have tools that can tear open most safes in a matter of minutes. They will ruin the floor (unless concrete) and destroy the safe. The best you can do is bolt it to the floor with its back to a wall. If it is known you are away on vacation, there are tools that will try every possible combination on a mechanical lock. Maybe there are similar tools for electronic locks too. Lock… Read more »
Or like in merry old England, now criminals use knives and machetes!
You boomers mean well but you don’t ever understand where the gun control originates and its purpose. The goal is to disarm whites for their genocide, at the hands of blacks and other criminals who will do the bidding of their masters operating behind the scenes, who are typically jewish. Stop trying to use logic and statistics to defeat evil.
You’re a total Fed, trying to make us all look like the “white Christian nationalists” the boogeymen media tries to make us out to be.
And you’re also hoping a couple of old Fudds talk a little trash, so you can have an excuse to do a pre dawn raid.
Get lost Fed.
Wonder if it’s really Ray Epps at it again .
I’m sure it is, or maybe a colleague getting in some over time.
On another thread, I forget which, he really went on a tirade about blacks. Now it’s blacks and jews he’s after.
Total Fed.