Guns can protect

ANDREW Goldsmith and Rick Sarre are correct that murder and violent crime rates have generally fallen over recent decades (The Advertiser, 19/2/15).

But that doesn’t explain why US states that issued the most concealed handgun permits saw bigger falls.

Making it legal for law-abiding people, particularly women, to defend themselves deters crime and is by far the safest course of action.

That conclusion holds after accounting for hundreds of factors.

Moreover, firearm permit holders don’t escalate violence: they are an exceptionally law-abiding group.

So why do Goldsmith and Sarre believe that, unlike Americans, their fellow Australians can’t be trusted with guns?

Goldsmith and Sarre are inconsistent in failing to apply their falling-crime-rate argument to their claims about Australia.

Homicides and suicides were falling at the same rate before and after the Howard buyback. Contrary to their theories, crime and suicide rates did not suddenly drop, and increase as gun ownership increased again.

Our challenge to name a single place anywhere in the world that has banned guns and seen its murder rate decline remains unanswered.

John R. Lott Jr. is the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author of the recently released “At the Brink: Will Obama Push Us Over the Edge?”