June 1, 2021. In 1982, Kennesaw, GA, a town of 5,000 people near Atlanta, passed an ordinance requiring every household to maintain a firearm, together with appropriate ammunition. Exempt from the law were heads of households with a physical or mental disability, paupers, felons, or those who were conscientiously opposed to firearms. The law was a political statement and was not intended to be enforced.
It brought a wave of violent crime, right?
Well, actually, no, it didn’t.
In 1981, the year before the ordinance was adopted, Kennesaw recorded 55 house burglaries. The next year there were 25. In 1985, only 11.
In 2001, Kennesaw’s violent crime rate was about 60% below national and state rates. Property crime rates were significantly below national and state rates.
The town did experience a wave of new people. By 2018, the town had grown from 5,000 to 33,000 people. In the six years prior to 2018, it had had one murder and a violent crime rate below 2%.
The more guns, the less crime.
After I mentioned this generality to a friend, he responded that it doesn’t seem to fit with the rioting and violence we’re witnessing in some U.S. cities today.
Yes it does. If most people are armed, some hidden and some not, perpetrators don’t know who is armed and who isn’t and are less likely to do harm.
If rioters enter stores, pick up items, and endeavor to leave without paying, but armed employees of the stores shoot the thieves on the way out and are considered blameless for doing so, the rioting is unlikely to last long.
For over 50 years, from 1776 to the 1830s, the United States had no police departments. It was only in the 1880s that all major cities had police. Until then, armed citizens did the policing.
When guns are controlled, the bad guys obtain guns anyway. But the laws prevent the good guys from owning guns. Crime therefore proliferates. Such is the case in Great Britain today. It has very strict gun laws and lots of crime.
But when everyone is authorized to carry guns, hidden or not, the good guys outnumber the bad guys, and crime is reduced.
