So many guns, so few homicides

I was going to blog about this yesterday, but I was too busy celebrating Independence Day (in Utah, all the parades and fireworks took place either Saturday or Monday) and climbing Mt. Ogden with my son in preparation for our Great Mount St. Helens expedition.

Pay special attention to the figures. Not only were there no homicides in the month of June, overall homicide numbers are down for the year. Couple the low numbers with a growing population and in 2004 Utah will have the lowest homicide rate in close to half a century.

While there may be many factors for the decline, nowhere is it mentioned this possible explanation: There are now over 60,000 concealed weapon permittees in the Beehive state, roughly 3% of the adult population. True, correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation. But I think we can finally put to rest the myth that widespread gun ownership automatically results in death and mayhem.