Bad news for all those who push for stricter gun control in the United States because "more guns mean more crime", as the National Shooting Sports Foundation − the U.S. firearms industry trade association − released some data from a report by the independent Pew Research Center concerning gun crime in the United States of America.
Said report, which can be accessed here, is based upon statistic data ranging from 1993 − a peak year for gun crime in the U.S. − to 2011. According to the report, the number of gun-related murders in the U.S. plummeted of a staggering 49% in these 18 years; in the same time, according to the data collected through the WISQARS − the Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, the national public health institute of the United States − the rate of gun murders fell from 6.6 cases every 100.000 people in 1981 to 3.6 cases every 100.000 people in 2010. At the same time, non-lethal gun crime fell from 7.976,3 cases every 100.000 people in 1993 to 2.254,2 cases every 100.000 people in 2011.
Furthermore, data provided by the Pew Research Center shows how the overall non-murder crime fell of an incredible 75% from 1993 to 2011, and how overall violent crime in 2011 was 72% lower than it was in 1993. At the same time, the number of firearms held by private individuals in the United States skyrocketed: if there were 20 million firearms on the U.S. market in 1993, by 2011 they were 120 millions. That should be enough of a blow to all gun control platform, given the fact that most assaults and violent crimes in the United States nowadays take place in these big metropolitan areas − from New York to Boston, from Chicago to Los Angeles − where gun control is stricter due to local laws and regulations.
At the same time, however, 56% of Americans thinks that gun crime is actually rising rather than falling, and this could lead to more support for gun control proposals. According to the Pew Research Institute and the NSSF, this is due to the exaggerately emphatic Media coverage of gun-related criminal events: crime trails only traffic reports and weather forecasts as the most common type of story in U.S. local televisions broadcasts.
