Correlation isn't necessarily causation.
That's something that we all need to remember, and that goes for both sides of the debate.
However, as I often point out, causation should cause correlation. If more guns mean more crime, but more and more people keep buying guns while the violent crime rates go down, that kind of undermines the argument.
And sometimes, correlation is because of causation. People wouldn't confuse the situation if correlation never resulted from causation.
Why am I prattling on about this? Well, because Washington state has gone deep down the anti-gun rabbit hole. They've restricted a lot and keep trying to restrict more and more.
And absolutely none of it is working.
The Tacoma, Washington News Tribune is reporting that while crime rates nationally are decreasing, Evergreen State crime has increased, and now Washington is the eighth-most dangerous state in the country, according to a new analysis of data by the California-based Simmrin Law Group.
The report lends credence to stories published by Ammoland News and TheGunMag (formerly GUN WEEK), an online news publication owned by the Second Amendment Foundation, that violent crime has gone up as the state ratcheted down on the rights protected by the Second Amendment and Article 1, Section 24 of the state constitution.
Incredibly, Washington gets an “A-” on the Giffords gun control scorecard, while the Everytown for Gun Safety gun prohibition lobby group brags that Washington is “#9 in the country for gun law strength.” Evidently, both groups need vision examinations.
As Ammoland reported two months ago:
“Since Washington began adopting these increasingly stricter gun laws, the number of homicides statewide since 2014 has doubled (2014-172, 2022-394) and specifically in Seattle, homicides have tripled (2014-23, 2023-73). The message from Second Amendment advocates is clear: What gun control proponents have imposed has accomplished nothing, perhaps even less than nothing, considering the body counts.”
According to the News Tribune, the Simmrin Law Group studied data from the FBI and National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). On their website, Simmrin explained, “We analyzed crime data from the FBI and National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), evaluating ten specific crime categories. By assigning weights to each type of crime, we then applied a safety score out of 100, revealing America’s 10 safest and most dangerous states.”
So one of the first things to note is that how little the Giffords grade for a state correlates to low crime.
See, anti-gunners will cherry-pick a state like Hawaii and point out that it's got a good grade and a low crime rate. They simply ignore any example that runs counter to that narrative.
When we talk about anti-gun studies--something that comes up regularly, I'm afraid--they almost universally tout some kind of gun control intervention as needed and necessary, but we've already seen how horrifically biased they actually are. According to the laws of probability, at least one pro-gun study should have popped up, and yet none have.
This correlation we're talking about here won't, either.
There will be no attempt at studying this or even looking at why gun control is failing so spectacularly in Washington state. That would require the so-called experts to acknowledge that the eighth most dangerous state has an "A-" grade from a gun control group and is the ninth most gun-controlled state in the nation according to another.
Meanwhile, it should be noted that we've never claimed that guns were a magic talisman; something capable of warding off all evil simply because it exists. There are pro-gun states with violent crime problems and I've never pretended otherwise.
Gun control groups, however, have. So have countless studies pushed by biased researchers dedicated to pushing an anti-gun narrative rather than a dispassionate search for the truth.
Washington state may not be so dangerous because of it's gun control. We've tended to argue that violent crime is more complex than that.
But gun control damn sure isn't making the state any safer despite the repeated claims of those who clamor for restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms.
