What Biden-Loving Media Miss: Violent Crime in America Down Four Years in a Row

October 21st, 2011 10:58 AM

While media outlets such as CBS News celebrate Vice President Joe Biden's claim that rape and murder will increase if the President's jobs bill isn't passed, they've all ignored a crucial point.

According to a report released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation last month, despite the recession with its associated state and city budget cuts, violent crime in America has declined four years in a row:

According to the figures released today by the FBI, the estimated number of violent crimes in 2010 declined for the fourth consecutive year. Property crimes also decreased, marking this the eighth straight year that the collective estimates for these offenses declined.

The 2010 statistics show that the estimated volumes of violent and property crimes declined 6.0 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively, when compared with the 2009 estimates. The violent crime rate for the year was 403.6 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants (a 6.5 percent decrease from the 2009 rate), and the property crime rate was 2,941.9 offenses per 100,000 persons (a 3.3 percent decrease from the 2009 figure).

On Friday's "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, co-host Mika Brzezinski and New York magazine's John Heilemann also applauded Biden's comments. Ed Schultz did so as well on his program Thursday evening. Unfortunately, none of these shows provided the actual statistics concerning this matter.

Shouldn't it be incumbent on any so-called news outlet addressing Biden's remarks to actually delve into the crime numbers, or would that be too much like real journalism?

Something else that could be mentioned if the media truly wanted to do their job was that as crime rates have declined, gun ownership has increased.

As conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh pointed out on his program Thursday, the National Rifle Association sees an inconvenient nexus here the press want to ignore:

Violent crime decreased six percent between 2009 and 2010, including a four percent decrease in murder and a ten percent decrease in robbery. Since 1991, when violent crime peaked, it has decreased 47 percent to a 36-year low. Murder has fallen 51 percent to a 46-year low. At the same time, the number of guns that Americans own has risen by about 90 million. Predictions by gun control supporters, that increasing the number of guns, particularly handguns and so-called "assault weapons," would cause crime to increase, have been proven profoundly lacking in clairvoyance.

Much as supplying the actual crime statistics in reports concerning Biden's comments, it would have been nice to see the gun ownership numbers as well.

But that wouldn't fit the agenda, would it?