U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- The FBI released crime data for 2020 last week, using an amalgamation of data collected under two different systems.
Nothing about 2020 was predictable and the nation experienced a 5.6%
percent increase in violent crime, including a 29.4% increase in
murders. Let’s explore this data and the theories behind the increase.
The overall murder rate in 2020 was 6.5 per 100,000 population. This
is the highest since the late 1990s when crime in general and murder
specifically began a downward trend. It is not, however, near the peaks
that the nation suffered not that long ago. The 2020 murder rate of 6.5
per 100k is lower than it was at any point during the period 1968
through 1997. From 1971 through 1995, the murder rate twice dipped below
8.0 per 100k population – in 1984 through 1985, when it was more than
7.9 per 100k.
Several factors can and should be, considered relevant to the violent
increase in 2020. Certainly, we as a society lived through
unprecedented – and ever-changing – conditions, including economic
stressors known to be related to violent crime. Changing law enforcement
strategies throughout the country, whether referred to as “de-policing”
or something else, should be considered relevant.
Unsurprisingly, anti-gun radicals have been blaming the increase in
gun sales since well before there was blame to assign. This will
undoubtedly persist, even though avowed anti-gun policy researcher
Doctor Garen Wintemute of UC Davis found no association between
so-called “excess purchases” of firearms and non-domestic violence. The
association between the alleged “excess purchases” and domestic violence
were quite subject to model specification. We covered this research in
a July 2021 alert.
We noted, at that time, that Daniel Webster, the Bloomberg Chair at
the Bloomberg School of Public Health and Director of the Center for Gun
Violence Prevention and Policy, tried to put some positive gun control
spin on the findings.
Click the link to read the whole article:
FBI Crime Stats for 2020