By Rob Morse
Louisiana- (Ammoland.com)- Do guns cause crime? I was at this years NRA annual convention. Attendees were part of a large social experiment. The results are in, and guns do not cause crime! Here is what we learned.
This was the place to find out if guns cause crime. I joined 80 thousand NRA members in one building for three days. Attendees at the NRA annual convention come from every segment of society. Women were well represented, as were families with children. They make a great sample.
I joined about 20 thousand responsibly armed civilians as we stood together in one room for hours on end carrying our personal firearms. Besides the guns we carried, there were thousands of additional firearms on display. We also had access to millions of rounds of ammunition.
This is the most concentrated assembly of armed civilians I can find.
If guns cause crime then more guns should cause more crime. More armed people should cause more crime. More armed civilians carrying for a longer period should cause more crime. We should have seen the effects of going armed. Civilians accumulated approximately 60 thousand armed-man-days of armed carry. That is approximately 160 armed-man-years.
With that sample, we should have seen if guns cause crime.
We didn’t see a thing. Not a single armed individual was violent. I conclude that responsibly armed civilians don’t cause crime. In fact, crime fell in Louisville that weekend. Crime falls whenever the NRA comes to town.
Do guns themselves cause crime? The guns on display were well behaved. Not a single gun jumped up on its own and shot anyone. They didn’t even threaten anyone. 
The results of this experiment are exactly what you expected. If guns cause an epidemic of crime, then NRA members are the cure.
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Rob Morse: Rob writes about gun rights at Ammoland, at Clash Daily and on his SlowFacts blog. He hosts the Self Defense Gun Stories Podcast and co-hosts the Polite Society Podcast. He is an NRA pistol instructor and combat handgun competitor.