{"id":28586,"date":"2012-06-20T06:00:34","date_gmt":"2012-06-20T11:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=28586"},"modified":"2012-06-19T15:53:44","modified_gmt":"2012-06-19T20:53:44","slug":"to-give-credit-where-due","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=28586","title":{"rendered":"To Give Credit Where Due"},"content":{"rendered":"

Make no mistake about it – Barack Obama’s been a disastrous president. \u00a0The only parts of his administration that have worked – the hunt for Bin Laden – he inherited primarily from George W. Bush. \u00a0His foreign policy has made the US an epic laughingstock. \u00a0And his domestic policy has nobody laughing. \u00a0His claim last week that the private sector is “doing fine” is emblematic of his Antoinette-y disconnect from real life in this country.<\/p>\n

But he’s had one epic domestic policy success – one great shining success story that has made life better in this country, that has created good private-sector manufacturing and entrepreneurial jobs, and that has required no federal stimulus money whatsoever. \u00a0Far from it, in fact.<\/p>\n

Barack Obama has spurred\u00a0an epic boom in the American firearms industry<\/a>, as Real Americans – genuinely and rightfully fearful that an administration that spent millions and sacrificed a federal agent in an attempt to smear the law-abiding gun owner – stock up on firearms against an unfettered second Obama term.<\/p>\n

The fact that this boom in gun ownership coincides with a sharp drop in violent crime…<\/p>\n

Last week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced that violent crime decreased 4 percent in 2011. The number of murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults all went down, continuing a pattern.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…may just be coincidental – correlation doesn’t equal causation. \u00a0But we know better than that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a one-year anomaly, but a steady decline in the FBI\u2019s violent-crime rates,\u201d said Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the National Rifle Association. \u201cIt would be disingenuous for anyone to not credit increased self-defense laws to account for this decline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Arulanandam pointed out that only a handful of states had concealed-carry programs 25 years ago, when the violent-crime rate peaked. Today, 41 states either allow carrying without a permit or have \u201cshall issue\u201d laws that make it easy for just about any noncriminal to get a permit. Illinois and Washington, D.C., are the only places that refuse to recognize the right to bear arms. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They never do.<\/p>\n

If the gun grabbers were right, we\u2019d be in the middle of a crime wave, considering how many guns are on the streets. \u201cFirearms sales have increased substantially since right after the 2008 election,\u201d said Bill Brassard, spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), which represents the $4 billion firearms and ammunition industry. \u201cThere was a leveling off in 2010, but now we\u2019re seeing a surge again.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And as more Real Americans of all races, genders and orientations strap up – there were 16.5 million checks of the NICS database last year – not only has crime dropped, but the firearms industry has become one private enterprise that is, er, “doing fine”:<\/p>\n

Sturm, Ruger & Co. sold 1 million firearms in the first quarter of 2012 – an amazing 50 percent increase from the first quarter of 2011. The jump was so steep that the company stopped accepting orders from March to May to catch up with demand for its products.<\/p>\n

Last month, Smith & Wesson announced a firearm-order backlog of approximately $439 million by the end of April, up 135 percent from the same quarter in 2011. Sales in that period were up 28 percent from 2011 and 14 percent over its own predictions to investors. NSSF estimates the industry is responsible for approximately 180,000 jobs and has an annual impact on the U.S. economy of $28 billion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So kudos to you, President Obama! \u00a0At least your policies are having one positive benefit.<\/p>\n

And only one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Make no mistake about it – Barack Obama’s been a disastrous president. \u00a0The only parts of his administration that have worked – the hunt for Bin Laden – he inherited primarily from George W. Bush. \u00a0His foreign policy has made the US an epic laughingstock. \u00a0And his domestic policy has nobody laughing. \u00a0His claim last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28586"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28588,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28586\/revisions\/28588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}