This morning, after the President laid out his
initial plans to deal with gun violence, paranoid extrordinaire Alex Jones went on the tirade that he was expected to go on after Obama made his announcement.
One of the things Jones said was that because gun ownership went up, violent crime has gone down. In fact, he said that the media does not want you to know that because more people have a gun. more people would want to hurt you.
It is true that violent crime rates overall have dropped for the fifth year in a row, down
3.8% in 2012 from the previous year.
But something bugged me about that.
For instance, here in Los Angeles, otherwise known as TreeHuggerVille, where you would think (and maybe Mr. Jones would
hope) the the streets would be flowing in crimson, violent crime has gone
DOWN 8.3%.
In fact, 20 years ago, there were 1,092 murders reported. Last year only 298.
And remember, this is Crip and Blood country.
Not to mention one of the cities that has done extensive gun buy backs. You know, the buy backs Jones, Glenn Beck, and Fox News said would not work.
Again murders in 1992:
1,092. Murders in 2012:
298. Go figure.
Oh, and Alex's claim that more people own guns in this country? That's malarkey too.
Behold:
As you can see, in 1960, half of the homes in this country had some firearm in the home. In 1970, 40% of homes had a piston or shotgun. in 2012, less than 20%.
But something still bothered me. So I went deeper.
Most of Alex Jones afilliates (and I would assume listeners) are not in urban areas like Los Angeles, New York, or Chicago (as a matter of fact, the station that Jones lists as his NYC affiliate barely gets into NY, and is mostly pay-to-play, meaning you have to buy time to get on)
If you DO look at
Jones' updated affiliate list, you will note that most are either in small to medium markets, or if in a major, on a station that does not do well in the ratings.
So if most of his ardent followers are in rural areas, how's crime doing for them?
Well, let check gun ownership first. They did an
exit poll in 2008 of voters as they came out of the polls. And they asked about guns. 60% of voters in RURAL areas owned a gun, as opposed to 30% in urban areas.
Now, lets talk crime stats.
Now one would conclude that Alex Jones' strength is in what some would call "red states." The 2008 Uniform Crime Reports show that Red States have higher violent crime stats than Blue States. In fact...
Eight of the top 11 states with the highest property crime rates voted for McCain: Arizona (#1), South Carolina (#2), Alabama (#4), Tennessee (#6), Georgia (#7), Texas (#8), Arkansas (#10), and Louisiana (#11).
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/smartpolitics/2009/09/red_states_have_higher_crime_r.php
So if one could add 2+2. as Jones listeners often do, one could surmise that if I had a gun, and I lived in a state where people love their guns, I would stand a better chance of someone one killing me......with.....a.....gun......
Or maybe Alex Jones is just scaring you to death.
Or maybe you should just join us TreeHuggers. We're safer. I guess...
