FBI reports 5.5% decline in violent crime in 2010!!!!! With RECORD gun sales......

Violent crimes in the U.S. dropped 5.5% last year, and property crimes also fell, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Monday.

There were declines in all four categories of violent crime: murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

The FBI said violent crime fell 7.5% in the South, 5.9% in the Midwest, 5.8% in the West and 0.4% in the Northeast.

<snip>

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304520804576341210813295854.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Professors James D. Wright and Peter Rossi of the Social and Demographic Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts conducted a study in 1982 and 1983 paid for by the U.S. Department of Justice. (Professor Rossi was a former President of the American Sociological Association.) The researchers interviewed 1,874 imprisoned felons in ten states.

***snip***

A 1986 review of the professors’ work, Armed and Considered Dangerous, by Raymond G. Kessler of the Department of Criminal Justice of Memphis State University, concluded, “Although Armed and Considered Dangerous is not free of methodological problems, it is the best policy-oriented study of criminals and their guns available. Gun control proposals that seemed relatively straight-forward a few years ago must now be reconsidered.”

Wright and Rossi reported that:
81% of interviewees agreed that a “smart criminal” will try to determine if a potential victim is armed.
74% indicated that burglars avoided occupied dwellings, because of fear of being shot.
57% said that most criminals feared armed citizens more than the police.
40% of the felons said that they had been deterred from committing a particular crime, because they believed that the potential victim was armed.
57% of the felons who had used guns themselves said that they had encountered potential victims who were armed.
34% of the criminal respondents said that they had been scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed citizen.emphasis added

Based on this government-funded research by Wright and Rossi, it would appear that armed citizens do have a deterrent effect on crime.
http://defmech.blogivists.com/2009/01/29/gun-control-research-wright-and-rossi-armed-citizens-deter-criminals/

CONSTITUTION

OF THE

STATE OF FLORIDA

SECTION 8. Right to bear arms.—
(a) The right of the people to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves and of the lawful authority of the state shall not be infringed, except that the manner of bearing arms may be regulated by law.
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?Mode=Constitution&Submenu=3&Tab=statutes&CFID=159851843&CFTOKEN=62440497#A1S08

Supreme Court affirms fundamental right to bear arms
By Robert Barnes and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Second Amendment provides Americans a fundamental right to bear arms that cannot be violated by state and local governments, the Supreme Court ruled Monday in a long-sought victory for gun rights advocates.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/28/AR2010062802134.html