The
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released new statistics on
criminal background checks by NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check
System) regarding 2013 gun sales. It
hit a new record high. The total number
of background checks conducted for gun sales last year added up to 21,093,273 …
beating the previous 2012 record of 19,592,303 by 1,500,970. (Texas conducted the most background checks
with 1,633,278; and Kentucky came in second with 1,578,331 background checks
conducted.) These significant numbers
came during a year when Democrats and the White House attempted (multiple times)
to push through new gun control measures.
In
2013, President Obama released a number of ‘executive orders’ on gun control
and wasted no time at the outset of 2014 in doing the same. States that implemented more gun control
measures in 2013 saw a spike in gun sales, especially in relation to
population. Gun sales in Maryland doubled,
going from 136,604 in 2012 to 231,361 in 2013. In 2012, Colorado conducted 414,838 checks; in
2013, there were 514,658. In
Connecticut, 237,496 checks were conducted in 2012 and in 2013, 294,338 went
through the system. So who's buying
these guns? According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation and NBC News, women are the fastest growing
demographic of gun owners in the United States.
Giving
credit where credit is due: President Obama is indeed the best gun salesman in
U.S. history.
Of
no surprise to those of us who have a permit to carry, there was a recent study
to determine the effects of state-level assault weapons bans and concealed
weapons laws on state-level murder rates.
The author of the study is Quinnipiac University economist Mark
Gius. Using data for the period 1980 to
2009 … and controlling for state and year fixed effects … the results suggested
that states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher
gun-related murder rates than other states. It was also found that assault weapons bans
did not significantly affect murder rates at the state-level. These results suggest that restrictive
concealed weapons laws may cause an increase in gun-related murders at the
state-level. The results of this study
are consistent with some prior research in this area, most notably Lott and Mustard (1997). The 2001 study of Koper and Roth showed “the Federal ban had little to no effect on
homicide rates associated with firearms and on gunshot wounds per victim.”
Clearly,
‘we the people’ believe in our constitutional right to ‘keep and bear
arms.’ And the more the government seeks
to limit our freedoms, the more the populace will respond in lawful gun
purchases and applications to carry. I’m
one who did both in 2013 … motivated by the threat of governmental denial of my
2nd amendment right. Apparently, I was
not alone!
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor,
Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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