By Jim Irvine

The FBI has released its preliminary annual uniform crime report for 2005. It has generated more than the normal interest as it contains the first increase in violent crime in 5 years, and everyone wants to know why.

It’s important to note that these are preliminary numbers. They are not a complete set of data, and are not broken down sufficiently to do a thorough statistical analysis. It will be years before we know if the 2005 numbers are an anomaly, or a real change in crime trends. Still, so-called experts are giving reasons as preposterous as the NRA having renewed strength for the observed increase. It’s easy to come up with more plausible explanations for the observed data.

Violent crime (murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) increased 2.5 percent in 2005. The only category to see a drop was rape, with a 1.9% reduction. The vast majority of rapes victims are female. The fastest growing segments of gun owners are female. Criminals really do prefer unarmed victims.

Crime increased in all regions of the country. The region with the largest increase (5.7 percent) was the Midwest, comprised of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Four of these states (Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wisconsin) prohibited their citizens from carrying firearms for self-defense during all of 2005. No other geographic region contains any states that completely forbid their citizens from carrying concealed weapons.