Reply #43: Firearm-related non-violent crime isn't up

[Euromutt]

Since the early 1990s, nonfatal firearm-related violent crime "has plummeted" (those are the words of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, not mine), both in absolute numbers (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/firearmnonfatal... ) and in rates per 100,000 population (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/firearmnonfatal... ). In addition, the percentage of nonfatal violent crime involving firearms has been below 10% since 1997 (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/percentfirearm.... ).

According to a BJS report, Weapon Use and Violent Crime (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/wuvc01.pdf ), based on NCVS data from 1993-2001, 10% of nonfatal violent crime involved a firearm, with handguns outnumbering long guns by 8 to 1 (see table at top right of page 2). Since the number of both incidents and victims of nonfatal firearm-related violent crime dropped by more than 50% during that same period (from 1,054,820 incidents and 1,248,250 victims in 1993 to 467,880 incidents and 524,030 victims in 2001 http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/tables/firearmn... ), that reduction cannot be explained by a drop in use of long guns alone, let alone by a drop in use of long guns compensating for an increase in use of handguns. In other words, nonfatal handgun crime must have gone down.