We can talk a LOT about “Freedom Technologies” as we did in a recent commentary, but one of the very foundational technologies to support and promote is an old one, constantly updated.

Firearms. Guns. Personal weapons that do NOT require extreme fitness, practice, or training.

Courtesy of Rob Morse, who has done some statistical research and calculations, here is more data to use to persuade family, friends, neighbors, and at least some politicians, bureaucrats and cops, of why the right to keep and bear arms isn’t just constitutionally-protected.  It makes SENSE and SAVES LIVES.

This data comes from the latest available, in 2019. The Fifty States had 39,707 deaths from firearms in 2019. Over 61 percent were suicides. (24,380).

So! Firearms were used in 15,000 homicides (that is, a death where one person kills another). Every one of those is a tragedy: a life cut short. BUT!

Murder is NOT uniformly equal across the nation.. More than half of the murders are concentrated into 2 percent of American counties. In fact, more than half of American counties didn’t have a murder at all. It is VERY worth noting that many of these non-violent counties have high rates of gun ownership.

Violent crime is (really?) against the law! Sadly, criminals commit over a million violent crimes each year. The Fifty States have over 23,000 firearms regulations (and more each DAY). But criminals in gangs (of various types) used a gun to commit murder over 12,000 times a year. Again, that is depressing.

So! Across all Fifty States, we have all of 3,065 homicides (with a gun) that were not gang related. That is a horrible number. BUT that is about the same number of people who died from asthma or obesity. Which is also sad.

Of those 3,065 deaths in 2019, 340 homicides were “justified use of lethal force by a police officer.” (Different issue, of course.) 344 homicides were attributed to civilian gun owners using a gun in legally justified self-defense. (Good news, finally!) Sadktm there were a total of 438 accidental deaths involving a firearm. Of those, 248 (more than half!) resulted in the death of a child under 14 years of age (close to the age of accountability). (It is too bad that we don’t know the age of the person who pulled the trigger in these firearms accidents.)

Now compare some data. There were a total of 173,040 accidental deaths nationally in 2019. So, only about one-in-400 is from a firearm. (Actually, 1 in 395) Overdose deaths from drugs and narcotics are 68 times more common than fatal firearms accidents.

Now, based on many fairly-reliable sources, ordinary citizens use a gun to defend themselves about 2 million times a year. Of that, at least 140,000 were sexual assaults stopped by armed defenders.  The good news, even for evil rapists, is that those defenders seldom have to pull the trigger to stop their assault. And when they do shoot, most of their attackers survive.

In 2019, about 1-in-ten adults have their permits to legally carry a concealed firearm in public. The fraction ranges from zero in Hawaii, to about 50% of adults in some rural counties in Pennsylvania. -Almost one in a hundred will use a firearm in self-defense each year, virtually all without having to pull the trigger. This adds up: we are literally more than a thousand times more likely to use a gun in self-defense than be an innocent victim of a criminal using a gun.  But of course, what makes the news?  We are over 8,000 times more likely to use a firearm in self-defense than for a gun to kill an innocent child.

It is claimed and seems to be true: US firearms owners with their concealed carry permits are as law abiding and non-violent as any group we can find anywhere in the world.

All of this counters the mainstream media and political pushing and chest-beating that we constantly hear. Yes, people die because guns are available; some of those people are innocents. But it is very likely that MORE people would die – and MORE of them would be innocent victims – if the American population were largely disarmed. In large part because the last to be disarmed (if at all) are going to be the very criminal element doing most of the killing.

Clear?  What are the take-home lessons?

1. We need more peaceful and honest folks to carry – both openly and concealed.
2. We need to honor those – even if anonymously – who use their firearms (with or without firing a shot) to defend others and themselves, and prevent crimes of violence,
3. We need to remove gun-free zones from public spaces, and encourage owners and occupants of non-public spaces to encourage open and concealed carry.

 All this paints a pretty clear picture. It tells me we need more honest citizens to get their carry permits. You might disagree, but now we can have that discussion.

And then we come to the dark blot on this American continent: the cities.  Consider in 2019, there were-
462 murders in New York City
348 murders in Chicago
335 murders in Baltimore
262 murders in Saint Louis , and
239 murders in Los Angeles county/

These five cities together had a total of 1,646 murders in 2019. That is more than half of the non-gang homicides in the entire country.

As Rob put it, “I don’t think we have a gun problem after looking at the numbers. We have a failed-city problem…” (And all too often that translates to a “State” problem because the cities are the tail that wags the dog: a topic for another time.)

And the mainstream media would never admit that. To say nothing of hoploclastic and hoplophobic politicians, panicked activists, and brainwashed students.

Rob’s Sources-
“https://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate.html
“https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/violent-crime
“https://bjs.ojp.gov/
“https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D158;jsessionid=7C6AB250D274FE568499C2C4103C?stage=results&action=sort&direction=MEASURE_DESCEND&measure=D158.M1
“https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/unpublished-cdc-study-confirms-2-million-defensive-handgun-uses-annually/
“https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2019/popest-nation.html
“https://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2018/04/legally-armed-people-have-murder-rate.html