For gun-control advocates, the only potential answer to our violent crime problem is gun control. In fact, to hear them say it, there’s nothing it can’t do. I’ve heard arguments about how it’ll not just solve racism but also economic disparity.

Yeah, those particular folks were more than a little unhinged, to say the least.

But pretty much every fan of gun control will tell you that it’s the answer to crime. If so, then maybe they can explain Savannah, Georgia to me.

With 2021 coming to a close, WJCL 22 News is looking into crime in Savannah over the last year.

WJCL’s Emma Hamilton sat down with Savannah Police Chief Roy Minter to get his take on it and how his department plans to step up safety in 2022.

“We’re actually down 6% in violent crime,” Chief Minter said.

hief Minter says that’s because of the hard work and dedication by the men and women of the Savannah Police Department. Even with the drop in violent crime, Chief Minter says he still has concerns.

“We continue to look at the level of gun violence in our community. We recently looked at our statistics and we are trending down for the number of shootings but violent crime continues to be a concern for us. Especially gun violence,” Chief Minter said.

So violent crime is down in one of Georgia’s largest cities, and I can tell you that they didn’t pass any gun control measures, either.

Georgia hasn’t made the headway on gun rights I’d like to see, but it also hasn’t taken any steps backward, either. In the last year, there have been no new gun control measures passed by the General Assembly here.

Also, the state has preemption, so Savannah hasn’t passed their own.

In other words, Savannah is a living testament to the fact that you can reduce violent crime without interfering with people’s constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. It can be done.

But more than that, I’d argue that if new gun control had been passed, Savannah wouldn’t have had the dip in violent crime they have. After all, something bad guys all over the nation have to consider is that there are more armed good guys than ever before. That may well have had some kind of impact in the city.

Yet if gun control had gotten in the way of those good guys getting their own guns, would we see the same results?

And yes, six percent is hardly a huge turnaround considering how fast violent crime spiked upward, but it’s still an improvement. That’s something we don’t necessarily see in a lot of other cities, even cities with comparable sizes and demographics but a lot more gun control.

Sure, there may well be a number of other factors at play, but the truth is that while anti-Second Amendment types pretend that we must pass gun control in order to address the current issue of violent crime, Savannah stands as a shining example that there are alternatives that may well work even better.