......In New Hampshire, approximately one in every three households contains at least one firearm, and typically two or more. Openly carrying a handgun is perfectly legal, and a license to carry concealed is easily obtained. Yet our homicide rate is just 1.1 per 100,000 residents, and our overall violent crime rate is 169.5 per 100,000. That's lower than in England, where there are 1.4 homicides and approximately 800 (!) violent crimes per 100,000 people - and a complete handgun ban passed in 1997 failed to stop a madman from killing 12 people in 2010 with a handgun.
New Hampshire is not unique in having high gun-ownership and low crime. Forty-two percent of Vermonters own guns, and their homicide rate is just 1.3 per 100,000. Vermont law respects the right not just of residents but of any U.S. citizen to carry a firearm openly or concealed in the state - no license required. Forty percent of Mainers own guns, but their homicide rate is lower than Scotland's.
This trend is consistent nationwide. The states where legal gun ownership is high (Wyoming is highest, at 60 percent) have crime and violence levels comparable to those found in the western European countries that serve as "models" of gun control for groups like the Portsmouth Democratic Committee. John Lott's extensive research found, among other things, that in county-by-county comparisons in the U.S. the highest rates of violent crime are actually found where gun laws are the most restrictive.
The most startling example of this is Chicago, which had more than 500 homicides in 2012. Nearby Aurora, the state's second-largest city, had zero. Unlike Chicagoans, Aurora's citizens are not subject to a ban on handguns.....
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