Murder Rate Down In St. Louis Since Concealed Carry Became Constitutional

The body count in the Murder Capital of the US, St. Louis, Missouri, is on a pace to be lower than the past two years following the adoption of constitutionally protected concealed carry statewide in 2017. The Murder Rate isn’t up, as many predicted it would be.

Murder Rate Statistics:

According to statistics compiled by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (click HERE to see the report dated May 9, 2017), there have been 54 homicides to date (as of the writing of this article) in St. Louis, as compared to 188 for 2016. Since the report fully covers the first four months of the year, if the trend continues the projected number of homicides for the city will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 160-165.

First, let’s note that the homicide rate includes not just firearm deaths, but also police shootings, “justified” homicide, child abuse, vehicular homicides, beatings and stabbings. The vast majority of the deaths, however, were from shooting. 

Let’s be perfectly clear, correlation does not imply causation… we have no evidence to say that because it is now legal to carry a concealed firearm in St. Louis, the homicide rate has started to drop. What we CAN say is that there has not been a massive upswing in the homicide rate if it is projected out for the entire year (unfortunately, direct month-by-month comparisons require a ton of research and are outside the scope of this article). 

Despite cries by the “gun grabbers” that Missouri would turn into the “old west” with shootouts on every corner should the State Legislature pass constitutional carry, so far that hasn’t happened in the “Murder Capital Of The US”, St. Louis.