But did murders rise, or did the weapon of choice among murderers simply change? One of my favorite anti-gun-grabbing statistics is the fact that per capita private firearms ownership in Russia is about a tenth that in the U.S. but the per capita murder rate is about eight times that here.
The victim is just as dead, the victim’s friends and family just as bereaved, human society just as diminished, and the murderer’s soul just as wounded when the victim was stabbed or bludgeoned to death as when the victim was shot. “Gun murders” and “gun crime” specious and morally vacuous categories that should be sneered at with the observation I just made (or like ones comparing the like terror when menaced with a handgun or a knife to the throat for crimes merely involving the threat of death) whenever someone uses them.
The “intellectuals” said “homicides” rose, the impartial journalists wrote “murders.” There’s a big difference between the two. Even a justified killing is, legally speaking, a homicide. With more people able to defend themselves, it wouldn’t surprise me that the homicide rate would increase for a time.