Guess what?  In spite of popular perception, violent crime rates in the United States continue to drop.  (Important note:  The recent summer of 2015 does not enter into this data.)  Excerpt:

Today the Federal Bureau of Investigation released its annual report on crime in America. In 2014, the FBI says, most crime rates continued to fall:

• The overall violent crime rate declined slightly, dropping 1 percent from the previous year. The rate was 9.6 percent lower than five years before and 22.1 percent lower than 10 years before.
• The rate for murder and non-negligent manslaughter was 1.2 percent lower than one year earlier, 6.1 percent lower than five years earlier, and 20.8 percent lower than 10 years earlier.
• The rates for robbery, burglary, larceny, and car theft all continued to decline as well. Motor vehicle thefts showed the biggest reduction from 10 years ago, with the rate sliding 48.1 percent.  
• The FBI’s talliers recently revised their definition of rape, making cross-year comparisons difficult. But using the older definition, the crime increased slightly from the previous year, with the rate increasing by 1.6 percent. It was still 4.7 percent lower than five years earlier and 17.2 percent lower than 10 years earlier.
• The one other major crime rate that increased from 2013 to 2014 was aggravated assault, which went up 1.2 percent. It was still lower than five years earlier (an 8 percent drop) and 10 years earlier (20.1 percent).

What implications does this have for the law-abiding American gun owner?  Well, since legal gun sales skyrocketed in 2013 and 2014, you can consider this another nail in the coffin of the idea that legal gun ownership is somehow linked to violent crime.  It’s harder to draw a causal link to legal gun owners being in part responsible for the drop – there are too many other factors involved – but having law-abiding gun owners about certainly doesn’t hurt.

All this is of course icing on the Second Amendment cake as far as gun law is concerned, of course; our rights are not dependent on whether or not armed citizens have any impact on crime rates.  But it nicely refutes one argument of the gun-grabbers, and using data from the FBI, no less.  Thanks guys!