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Eliminating DC’s Handgun Ban Had No Effect on Homicides, Report Says

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Eliminating the District of Columbia’s comprehensive handgun ban had almost no effect on homicides committed with or without such firearms in the nation’s capital, according to an analysis by The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.

Nearly 80 percent of all D.C. homicide victims from 2000 through 2007 were killed with a gun, city and federal data compiled by The Washington Post and analyzed by The Daily Caller News Foundation found. That figure dropped to 74 percent after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that Washington’s handgun ban was unconstitutional in 2008.

…The post-Heller decrease in both the annual number of gun-related homicides and all homicides extended an overall trend that began in 2002 and continued through 2012.

The post-Heller decrease was observed despite a 2013 incident in which one man killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard. Attacker Aaron Alexis launched his attack with a shotgun.

“I expect murders to fall,” Crime Prevention Research Center President John Lott told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “How they fall is a different question. The people who generally obeyed the ban were law-abiding citizens and not the criminals.” (Read more from “Eliminating DC’s Handgun Ban Had No Effect on Homicides, Report Says” please click HERE)

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Major US Cities See Homicide Rates Surge Dramatically, Mayor Blames “Absurdly Weak Gun Laws”

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After years of declining violent crime, several major American cities experienced a dramatic surge in homicides during the first half of this year.

Milwaukee, which last year had one of its lowest annual homicide totals in city history, recorded 84 murders so far this year, more than double the 41 it tallied at the same point last year.

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said the mounting homicide toll in his city of 600,000 is driven by Wisconsin’s “absurdly weak” gun laws – carrying a concealed weapon without a state-issued concealed carry is a misdemeanor in the Badger State – as well a subculture within the city that affirms the use of deadly violence to achieve status and growing distrust of police in some parts of the city . . .

The number of murders in 2015 jumped by 33% or more in Baltimore, New Orleans and St. Louis. Meanwhile, in Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, the homicide toll climbed 19% and the number of shooting incidents increased by 21% during the first half of the year.

In all the cities, the increased violence is disproportionately impacting poor and predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhoods. In parts of Milwaukee, the sound of gunfire is so commonplace that about 80% of gunshots detected by ShotSpotter sensors aren’t even called into police by residents, Flynn said. (Read more from “Several Big US Cities See Homicide Rates Surge” HERE)

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FBI: More People Killed with Hammers, Clubs Each Year Than Rifles

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According to the FBI annual crime statistics, the number of murders committed annually with hammers and clubs far outnumbers the number of murders committed with a rifle.

This is an interesting fact, particularly amid the Democrats’ feverish push to ban many different rifles, ostensibly to keep us safe of course.

However, it appears the zeal of Sens. like Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) is misdirected. For in looking at the FBI numbers from 2005 to 2011, the number of murders by hammers and clubs consistently exceeds the number of murders committed with a rifle.

Think about it: In 2005, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 445, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 605. In 2006, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 438, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 618.

And so the list goes, with the actual numbers changing somewhat from year to year, yet the fact that more people are killed with blunt objects each year remains constant.

Read more from this story HERE.