Study: 68 Percent of U.S. Murders Occur in 5 Percent of Counties

Gun control advocates always point to the murder rate as an argument against the Second Amendment. However, a study by leading gun rights advocate John Lott indicates that the vast majority of murders occur in only a distinct few locations.

In other words, gun control advocates make a false causation argument. Guns are everywhere, yet murder is not:

The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) said in a new report that there is a “geographical concentration” of murders, with 68 percent of killings occurring in just 5 percent of the nation’s counties. The homicides also tend to be concentrated to relatively small pockets of those counties, the report said.

“It is stunning how concentrated murders are in the U.S.,” John Lott, president of the CPRC said to Fox News. “And we show that even within these counties, with all these high rates, murders are very concentrated.”

“These high [rate] counties have very large areas where there are no murders.”

In 2014, the U.S. murder rate was 4.4 per 100,000 people, according to the data of the report. If the deadliest 5 percent of the counties were removed, the U.S. murder rate would be 2.56 per 100,000 people, the report showed.

More than half of last year’s murders occurred in only 2 percent of the nation’s counties.

Looking at the historical data, the CPRC said that murders were even more geographically concentrated in decades past. On average, 73 percent of counties in any given year had zero murders from 1977 to 2000.

Unsurprisingly, these violent areas tend to be in places like Los Angeles and Chicago, areas with the most strict gun control laws in the entire nation.

Will this new information change anyone’s mind regarding blanket restrictions on constitutional rights? Who knows. But if people really want to see an end to homicide in this country, they need to realize that gun control laws could only be said to be increasing the problem.

Disarming the law-abiding population makes it easier for murderers to kill. The majority of the nation is a pretty peaceful place, despite — or because of — the 350 million guns.