FBI’s Latest Report Leaves ‘More Guns, More Crime’ Hypothesis in Tatters

The FBI quietly released its official report on crime in the United States last Friday afternoon, an odd bit of timing considering the incredibly good news the report contains. Fridays are generally when government agencies and private businesses share news that they hope will avoid media attention, but the Crime in the United States report for 2025 is actually reason to celebrate. 

Here are a few of the highlights.

• Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter offenses decreased an estimated 18.1%.
• Rape offenses decreased an estimated 7.6%.
• Aggravated assault figures decreased an estimated 7.2%.
• Robbery offenses decreased an estimated 18.5%.

The 2025 murder rate of 4.1 per 100,000 inhabitants is tied with 1955 and 1956 for the lowest murder rate.

Crime analyst Jeff Asher says the FBI’s methodology changed in 1958, and reported homicide rates before then are somewhat unreliable. According to Asher, “it’s fair to say that the US murder rate in 2025 was roughly the lowest ever recorded and there probably won’t be any ambiguity when the 2026 data is released next year.”

Asher says with the latest data showing murders continuing to fall by about 18 percent across the country, the 2026 homicide rate should be somewhere around 3.5 per 100,000 people, which would be by far the lowest homicide rate in recorded U.S. history. 

Murders aren’t the only violent crimes that are seeing a steep decline. The FBI’s reported violent crime rate of 328 per 100,000 is the lowest since 1968, and the 1.1 million violent crimes reported by the FBI are the fewest since 1978, when there were 100 million fewer residents than we have today. 

According to the FBI, the 2025 robbery rate is the lowest estimated rate (49.4 offenses per 100,000) in 20 years. That’s less than one-third of the rate at its 20-year high (150.1 offenses per 100,000) in 2006.

Non-violent crimes are dramatically declining as well. The 5,245,768 reported property crimes are the fewest since 1966, and the 1,534.8 property crimes per 100,000 residents is the lowest the FBI has ever recorded. 

This is huge news, but it barely made a ripple in the press since the FBI’s release on Friday afternoon. I didn’t even realize the FBI had released its report until earlier today. 

The United States is the safest its been in almost 60 years, and the current data suggests the numbers are still heading in the right direction. The Crime Index shows violent crime is down 5.6 percent since the start of the year, with robberies decreasing 14.5 percent, rapes down 8.4 percent, a 2.6 percent decrease in aggravated assaults, to go along with the continued 18.1 percent decline in murders. 

This should be front page news, but it should also spark some serious questions from mainstream media organizations to gun control groups like Giffords, Brady, and Everytown, whose leaders have been predicting a rise in violent crime ever since the Bruen decision struck down “may issue” carry laws in 2022. 

Take New Jersey, for example. We know that in the past four years more than 200,000 people have obtained a New Jersey carry license. What’s happened to violent crime over that same time period? Well, the Crime Index data shows that between July 2021 and June 2022 (when Bruen was released) the law enforcement agencies included in its coverage had 110 recorded homicides. In the 12-month period ending in May 2026, that number dropped to 5. 

Maryland saw a fourfold increase in carry permits in the year following Bruen, and murder rates have been declining steadily ever since. There were 502 murders reported by police departments in the Crime Index coverage between July 2021 and June 2022. In the most recent 12-month reporting period ending in May 2026, there were 200 reported homicides.

The Crime Index doesn’t include data from every police department across the country, but there are enough agencies to serve as a pretty good proxy for what’s happening at the national, state, and local level. 

What we see is that more guns and more people carrying guns isn’t leading to more murders or other violent crimes. Quite the opposite. That doesn’t necessarily mean that crime is dropping to record lows because there are more people carrying, but that may very well be one factor. At the very least, it means that lawful gun ownership and the number of guns in private hands cannot be correlated to an increase in violence… and the fundamental premise of the gun control movement has once again been proven to be a lie.  

Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.

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