An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. Robert A. Heinlein

Indeed.

The New York Times front-page editorial asserts a “gun epidemic,” which is an odd phrase, unless you think guns themselves — not deaths or shootings — are an evil. If the editors meant to refer to a gun-death epidemic or a mass-shooting epidemic, here’s a relevant bit of information: Per-capita murders in the U.S. are at their lowest level since FBI records began, and they are trending downwards. The Times editors write “motives do not matter to the dead.” I would add that “weapons of choice do not matter to the dead.” So, here’s a chart of all murders in the U.S, taken from FBI data. //bearingarms.com/wp-content/themes/Bearing-Arms-2016/images/ba_placeholder.png //bearingarms.com/wp-content/themes/Bearing-Arms-2016/images/ba_placeholder.png //bearingarms.com/wp-content/themes/Bearing-Arms-2016/images/ba_placeholder.png //bearingarms.com/wp-content/themes/Bearing-Arms-2016/images/ba_placeholder.png //bearingarms.com/wp-content/themes/Bearing-Arms-2016/images/ba_placeholder.png //bearingarms.com/wp-content/themes/Bearing-Arms-2016/images/ba_placeholder.png //bearingarms.com/wp-content/themes/Bearing-Arms-2016/images/ba_placeholder.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 542px) 100vw, 542px" />

This dramatic drop in per-capita murders to the lowest point ever recorded since the FBI began tabulating this data 55 years ago is a wonderful thing, especially as it continues to drop as more Americans own more guns that ever.

While the anti-gun left clings to the delusion that there fewer gun owners than ever based on junk polling data, we know in the real world that Americans have purchased more than 100 million firearms during Obama’s Presidency, that there are more concealed carriers than ever, and there more women, minorities, and youth involved in shooting than ever.