A fundamental adage of the gun control movement is that more gun laws equals less gun crime. The only problem with that belief is that it’s patently untrue. The website WalletHub recently compared more than 180 cities across the country to determine which cities are the safest for residents and visitors, and it turns out that fully half of the ten safest cities are in states that have very strong Second Amendment protections, including Constitutional or permitless carry.

The website didn’t only look at violent crime rates when determining which cities are the safest, but that was a big part of the criteria along with the number of reported COVID cases, law enforcement per capita, and some 40 other factors in three specific areas of concern; Home and Community Safety, Natural Disaster Risk, and Financial Safety. Once those risk factors were tabulated, the site ranked all 180 cities, and with one notable exception, the vast majority of the safest cities are in states that do a decent job in recognizing our right to keep and bear arms.

1. Columbia, Maryland
2. South Burlington, Vermont
3. Plano, Texas
4. Nashua, New Hampshire
5. Lewiston, Maine
6. Burlington, Vermont
7. Salem, Oregon
8. Virginia Beach, Virginia
9. Raleigh, North Carolina
10. Gilbert, Arizona

Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Arizona are all Constitutional carry states, while the gun laws in Texas, Virginia, and North Carolina are all fairly robust in terms of Second Amendment protections. Columbia, Maryland is the one city in the Top Ten Safest Cities that’s located in a state with restrictive gun control laws, and those laws don’t seem to be doing much to keep residents in Maryland’s largest city safe. Baltimore, Maryland is way down towards the bottom of WalletHub’s list of safest cities, coming in 155th out 182 metropolitan areas.

If gun control alone were enough to reduce violent crime, then cities like San Bernardino (ranked 180th out of 182), Los Angeles, (172), Oakland (165), and Washington, D.C. (160) would be among the safest places in the country instead of coming in towards the bottom of the rankings. In fact, it’s worth noting that California has the “best” gun control laws in the country according to groups like Giffords and Brady, but it’s also home to some of the most dangerous cities in the United States.

California’s ten day waiting periods, bans on so-called assault weapons and high capacity magazines, prohibitions on online and out-of-state sales of ammunition, background checks on in-person ammo sales, microstamping requirements, and the other onerous restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms may make gun control activists happy, but they don’t do much to keep people safe.

Conversely, some of the safest cities in the country don’t have any California-style gun laws in place. That should be enough evidence to put to rest forever the absurd assertion that more gun laws equals less crime, but you and I both know that the gun control movement is going to keep repeating the lie that we can ban our way to safety. It’s going to be up to Second Amendment activists to keep making the case that not only are these gun control laws unconstitutional, but they’re ineffective as well; promising security at the expense of our rights, but instead making us both less safe and less free.