Criminals in one New Mexico town are finding out the hard way that violent crime is a good way for them to end up injured or dead, as citizens take up their arms in lawful self-defense.

Eleven months ago, police say a homeowner awoke to a strange noise, grabbed his gun and went to his kitchen, where he found a man crouching, clutching a knife. The homeowner opened fire, killing the suspected burglar. Detectives said the homeowner’s actions were justifiable and didn’t arrest him.

Throughout 2015, similar scenarios played out over and over again across the city as civilians shot would-be burglars. Six of the eight justifiable homicides occurred during attempted burglaries or robberies – more than in the previous four years combined.

In one case, a suspected burglar was breaking through a screen door when he was shot, and, in another, at least two men allegedly forced their way into a house and shot a resident before one of the intruders was killed.

And, in June, a high-profile case caught national press when two ex-CNN staffers were involved in a gunfight at a hotel on Albuquerque’s West Side.

Police say Chuck de Caro shot and killed a man who had forced his way into de Caro’s room and attempted to rob him and his wife, Lynne Russell, at gunpoint. De Caro was shot three times and suffered serious injuries.

While FBI data shows us that the per-capita murder rate has dropped to an all-time record low, violent crime is rising in some cities, and that has allowed a largely anti-gun media to fabricate the narrative that violent crime is actually on the rise in order to call for more gun control.

This approach has backfired on the media and gun control-supporting politicians, who have now encouraged more people, across a wide demographic range to become gun owners. There are now more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens than ever before. It is hardly a surprise that as more good people have firearms and good firearms training, that armed bad guys who are often under the influence of drugs and who have no firearms training are over-matched and defeated when they target a gun owner.

An armed society is indeed becoming a polite society, if for no other reason that criminals are finding that violent crime is a good way to earn a toe tag in the county morgue.

Guns in the hands of good people save lives, and there are far more good people than bad in our great republic.