The FBI Uniform Crime Reporting stats for 2003.
They index each city relative to the national average (represented as 1.0), in categories related to violent and property crimes. A cumulative general safety index (represented as All Violent and All Property) is then calculated.
Murder
San Francisco – 1.17
Lubbock – .88
Amarillo- 1.44
Dallas- 2.40
Wichita Falls- 1.00
In other words, for 2003, San Francisco’s murder rate was 1.17 times the national average. Worse than Lubbock, slightly worse than Wichita Falls, and better than Amarillo or Dallas.
Rape
San Francisco – .77
Lubbock – 1.34
Amarillo- 1.49
Dallas- 1.54
Wichita Falls- 1.29
Thus, in 2003, Dallas and Amarillo had a prevalence of rape approximately twice that of San Francisco. The rate was somewhat higher in Lubbock and Wichita Falls.
Robbery
San Francisco – 1.81
Lubbock – .69
Amarillo- .96
Dallas- 2.96
Wichita Falls- .87
San Francisco’s robbery rates, for 2003, were much, much higher than Lubbock, Amarillo and Wichita falls. It was much, much lower than Dallas.
Agg. Assault –
San Francisco – .85
Lubbock – 2.63
Amarillo- 1.55
Dallas- 1.81
Wichita Falls- 2.18
San Francisco’s rate of aggravated assault, for 2003, was much lower than those of Lubbock, Amarillo, Dallas, or Wichita Falls.
All Violent –
San Francisco – 1.24
Lubbock – 1.94
Amarillo- 1.40
Dallas- 2.29
Wichita Falls- 1.73
All tolled, in 2003, the overall rate of violent crime in San Francisco was lower than that of Amarillo, Lubbock, Dallas and Wichita Falls.
Now I would be extremely reluctant to attribute any of that to the presence or absence of firearms. In fact, IMHO, doing so is a disservice to the cause of gun ownership because it has a tendency to result in an obfuscation of the issue of rights, and instead leads folks down the road of attempting to prove the worthiness of their position (pro or anti) through a battle of statistical one-upmanship.
The anti-gun establishment has, for decades, attempted to legitimate their position by demonstrating causality between private gun ownership and high crime. We have countered that argument by attempting desperately to prove causality between private gun ownership and increased safety. The reality is that there are many factors involved in making a community safe or violent. High rates of private gun ownership don’t make a society safe any more than high rates of sneaker ownership make it athletic. Nor does an absence of firearms result in low levels of violence.
If we want to further the issue of gun rights, the emphasis should be on establishing and demonstrating the relative insignificance of the tools used in the commission of violence on the prevalence thereof. Violent society is violent society, and it has absolutely nothing to do with your guns. Similarly, safe society is safe for reasons well beyond the presence of guns. If violence resulted from the presence of guns, small rural Texas towns would be an absolute bloodbath. If safety resulted from the presence of guns, Oakland and South Central LA would look like a Methodist church service.
Further, the incessant process of trying to establish that gun-friendliness leads to safety only results in a division and alienation of the parties that most need to be unified in this fight.
Sit back and harp on California… the fact is that the NRA claims approximately 300,000 of its highly classified and variably reported 2.5-4 million members in CA and the major players in the firearms industry obtain sufficient revenue from CA sales that they are still motivated to jump through the idiotic hoops that have been established for them to do business here.
You all can go on and on about how your state is more important or offers more, etc.... but the fact is that the poorer you get, the poorer you are. Losing the support of ONE gun-owner is to the detriment of the fight... much less alienating the entire state of California.