Imagine that: More guns, less crime in Virginia

As we wrote minutes ago about the extraordinarily well-behaved nature of those who get carry licenses:

It’s not rocket science, or even news to us gun owners.  Skeptics throughout the nation, overcoming years of bigotry instilled in them by the mainstream media and moron entertainers, react with amazement when they discover for themselves that licensed gun carriers really are good guys.

It’s almost as if they’ve discovered that water is wet.

The same simple maxim applies to gun ownership by everyday Americans!

Gun ownership does afford a lot of positive benefits, from entertainment to personal defense, despite what those opposed to self-defense rights claim are the “dangers” of gun ownership.

Frankly, for responsible individuals, the “danger” lies in not owning a firearm – and to the would-be violent criminals who find gun owners aren’t an easy mark to victimize.

Gun-related violent crimes drop as sales soar in Va.

Richmond, Virginia  (Times-Dispatch) – Gun-related violent crime in Virginia has dropped steadily over the past six years as the sale of firearms has soared to a new record, according to an analysis of state crime data with state records of gun sales.

The total number of firearms purchased in Virginia increased 73 percent from 2006 to 2011. When state population increases are factored in, gun purchases per 100,000 Virginians rose 63 percent.

But the total number of gun-related violent crimes fell 24 percent over that period, and when adjusted for population, gun-related offenses dropped more than 27 percent, from 79 crimes per 100,000 in 2006 to 57 crimes in 2011.

The numbers appear to contradict a long-running popular narrative that more guns cause more violent crime, said Virginia Commonwealth University professor Thomas R. Baker, who compared Virginia crime data for those years with gun-dealer sales estimates obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“While there is a wealth of academic literature attempting to demonstrate the relationship between guns and crime, a very simple and intuitive demonstration of the numbers seems to point away from the premise that more guns leads to more crime, at least in Virginia,” said Baker, who specializes in research methods and criminology theory and has an interest in gun issues.