The Trace Thinks Reasons for Crime Decline ‘Murky’ Despite ‘Elevated Gun Availability’

Last year marked a historic low for violent crime, and this year is shaping up to be even lower. This is an unequivocal good thing by any reasonable person’s point of view, with only those who want crime to flourish for political gain being the outliers. We all know it and, frankly, we’re all thrilled to see it.

And, it did it despite literally any gun control law being passed that could account for it.

Despite that, it seems that the “gun violence newsroom” known as The Trace can’t seem to understand what’s happening. 

Since most homicides in the U.S. are committed with guns, gun violence and the nation’s homicide rate are closely related. That means the country’s historic drop in homicides is a good indicator of dropping gun deaths. At The Trace, we’ve been covering the decline in violence since at least 2023, so some of this may not exactly be new to you. But here’s a bit of good news that you may not know: We’re probably living through a second “Great Crime Decline,” and this one seems persistent.

The first “Great Crime Decline” was in the 1990s. The nation’s murder rate declined from a high of 9.8 per 100,000 people in 1991, according to FBI data, to just 5.5 in 2000 — a 44 percent decrease. As crime data analyst Jeff Asher notes, other than the 1990s, a decline in murders like the one we’re living through right now has “never been this large for this long.” The country has now seen three — going on four — years of historically large decreases, bringing us to rates lower than before COVID.

Look at just this year so far: In New York City, homicides through April were at their lowest point in monthly data going back to 1960. Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, Chicago, and other cities have also seen historically low numbers in 2026. Nationally, the data suggests the U.S. may be at or near the lowest homicide rate ever recorded by the FBI.

And yet, the reasons for the reversal are murky. As Asher points out, the drop has happened across many kinds of cities, during a period of reduced police staffing, elevated gun availability, and persistent poverty and inequality. That makes easy explanations — whether partisan or ideological — difficult to square with the evidence.

The problem is that this entire thing, a preface to an interview, is predicated on the idea that “elevated gun availability” is a bad thing. The foreign concept to the writers, and The Trace as a whole, is that guns aren’t the root of violence, but a potential solution to it.

They find it difficult to square with the evidence, as they put it, because they’re so closed-minded to the possibility that good guys with guns might have a positive effect on violent crime.

Especially considering the hysterics that followed Bruen.

Yet, as Second Amendment attorney Kostas Moros noted on X, that whole “despite” thing needs to stop and they should recognize that it’s a cause-and-effect thing.

At some point, they have to stop asserting crime is falling “despite” gun availability, and consider the possibility that it is falling, at least in part, *because* of it.

Specifically, Bruen was basically a giant national PR campaign for the right to carry. Thanks to news… https://t.co/nwG3jv120w

— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) May 13, 2026

He makes a pretty good point, don’t you think?

That’s because he’s right.

People found out that “may issue” was dead, that they could carry a gun if they wished, and people flocked to get permits in states that still required them. Others found out they didn’t even need that and just started carrying.

The criminals found out, also, that suddenly, the meat wasn’t as easy to come by anymore, and decided it wasn’t worth their lives.

Others didn’t, but found out the hard way when their target pulled a firearm. They didn’t necessarily get shot–many would take off running in a moment like that–but the results were the same. They didn’t hurt innocent people.

Sure, there’s probably more going on under the hood here, because crime is too complex to make simple assumptions and trust that they’re accurate. That’s what the anti-gunners have been doing for decades, after all, and we know how that worked out.

The reality, though, is that the post-Bruen hysteria was all about how the country was going to become a more dangerous place, and that simply didn’t happen. The idea that this “elevated availability of guns” should have resulted in literally anything but what we’re seeing is more of this idea that no one at The Trace can think beyond their Everytown overlords’ talking points.

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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