EVERYONE TAKES CREDIT FOR LOWER CRIME RATES

According to the FBI, serious crimes reported to police dropped for the seventh straight year in 1998 as both murder and robbery rates reached lows not seen in three decades. The overall violent crime rate -- 566 murders, rapes, robberies and assaults per 100,000 residents -- dropped to its lowest figure since 556 in 1985, just before an epidemic of crack sent it soaring. The FBI report showed that the use of guns to commit murder and robbery is decreasing.

For these positive trends, nearly everyone is taking credit: President Bill Clinton, Attorney General Janet Reno, congressional Republicans, governors and state lawmakers of both parties, local and state law enforcement personnel. All may have had something to do with the trends. Probably most important, aside from the grim business of building prisons and incarcerating repeat violent offenders, are two trends, one demographic and another economic, that are cited by criminologists. These are the aging of the baby-boomer generation and the decline of crack markets.

We can't help but think also that the rapid spread during this decade of right-to-carry laws has helped reduce violent crime as well. A majority of Americans in the more than 30 states that have passed a version of right-to-carry feel safer and have every right so to feel. Passage of these laws equalizes the playing field for the would-be violent criminal, and ends the pre-passage, government-certified guarantee that his victim will be defenseless, replacing it with a welcome doubt in the criminal's mind. This is backed up by solid criminological research.

Any decline in crime statistics is of course a welcome development. Americans will have to be on guard, however, with a large consort of teen-age males coming of age over the next decade. This is the prime age group for committing crimes. We can hope for continued progress, but continued vigilance must be our watchword.