Murder Rate Lowest In A Century

Thanks largely to television news (where "if it bleeds, it leads"), many in the United States think that violent crime is going up -- and more murders are being created than ever. The illusion is presented that we live in a very dangerous society, and this illusion is what many use to justify the huge amount of guns in this country -- and the ease with which anyone can get a gun.

The truth is that FBI statistics show that violent crime is dropping in this country, and has been dropping for many years now. And that is especially true of murder (which is a crime that statistics have been kept on for more than a hundred years now). And the murder rate is lower than it has been since around 1900 -- at around 4 murders per 100,000 people (see the chart above from Mother Jones). The red line on the chart shows how the murder rate has risen and fallen since around 1897.

Just as interesting though, is the black line -- which represents the levels of lead in paint and gas (in tons per 1000 people). Note how closely it corresponds to the murder rate.As the rate of lead rises, so does the murder rate -- and as it falls, so does the murder rate. While all violent crime is not caused by lead poisoning, a very good case can be made that lead poisoning definitely causes an increase in violence among those it affects. It's a compelling enough case to get rid of the remaining lead contamination in this country.

But while this significant drop in the murder rate is very good news, the truth is that even a low murder rate is too high. There are other things we could do to make the rate even lower -- and one of those is to control guns in a more reasonable (yet constitutional) way. If we closed the background check loopholes for gun purchases, increased the penalties for gun trafficking, and banned military-style assault weapons, we could drive the murder rate down further by keeping guns out of the hands of those who should not have them.