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Gun Control & RKBA
Showing Original Post only (View all)The truth about guns and self-defense [View all]
Are guns used often in self-defense?
Not very — although the evidence on this issue is hotly disputed. National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre is often quoted as saying, "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun." LaPierre and gun-rights advocates point to research that supports this argument, chiefly a 1994 study by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist. Based on a telephone survey of about 6,000 people, Kleck concluded that guns are used defensively to stop a range of crimes, from simple assault to burglary to rape, up to 2.5 million times a year. But other academics and statisticians have criticized Kleck's conclusions, saying he relied on firearms owners' self-reporting their defensive gun use — problematic because some respondents might have categorized aggressive, unlawful gun use as self-defense — and then extrapolated that unreliable data to cover the entire nation. Those critics point to other figures that suggest defensive gun use is actually quite rare.
What figures?
Gun skeptics note that in 2012 there were 8,855 criminal gun homicides in the FBI's database, but only 258 fatal shootings that were deemed "justifiable" — which the agency defines as "the killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen." Another study by the nonpartisan Gun Violence Archive, based on FBI and Justice Department data, found that of nearly 52,000 recorded shootings in 2014, there were fewer than 1,600 verified cases where firearms were used for self-defense. Gun advocates counter that not all instances of defensive gun use are reported to the police, and that in most cases shots are never fired, because simply displaying a weapon can deter a criminal. Firearms can "ensure your or your family's personal safety," said Brian Doherty, author of Gun Control on Trial, "even if you don't actually plug some human varmint dead."
Will a gun make you safer?
Most Americans think so. According to recent Gallup polls, 63 percent of adults believe having a gun in the house will make them safer and 56 percent think the country would be safer if more people carried concealed weapons. But numerous studies suggest that owning a gun can actually increase a person's risk of bodily harm and death. Research published this year in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that the 80 million Americans who keep guns in the home were 90 percent more likely to die by homicide than Americans who don't. A paper in the American Journal of Public Health, meanwhile, determined that a person with a gun was 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than someone who was unarmed.
What about home intrusions?
Having a gun close at hand might make you feel better protected against violent burglars, but in fact the annual per capita risk of death during a home invasion is 0.0000002 percent — essentially zero. On the other hand, a 2014 study from the University of California, San Francisco, shows that people with a gun in the house are three times as likely to kill themselves as non-firearm owners. More than 20,000 Americans shoot themselves to death each year, accounting for two-thirds of gun fatalities. "It's not that gun owners are more suicidal," said Catherine Barber, who heads a suicide prevention project at the Harvard School of Public Health. "It's that they're more likely to die in the event that they become suicidal, because they are using a gun."
http://theweek.com/articles/585837/truth-about-guns-selfdefense
Not very — although the evidence on this issue is hotly disputed. National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre is often quoted as saying, "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun." LaPierre and gun-rights advocates point to research that supports this argument, chiefly a 1994 study by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist. Based on a telephone survey of about 6,000 people, Kleck concluded that guns are used defensively to stop a range of crimes, from simple assault to burglary to rape, up to 2.5 million times a year. But other academics and statisticians have criticized Kleck's conclusions, saying he relied on firearms owners' self-reporting their defensive gun use — problematic because some respondents might have categorized aggressive, unlawful gun use as self-defense — and then extrapolated that unreliable data to cover the entire nation. Those critics point to other figures that suggest defensive gun use is actually quite rare.
What figures?
Gun skeptics note that in 2012 there were 8,855 criminal gun homicides in the FBI's database, but only 258 fatal shootings that were deemed "justifiable" — which the agency defines as "the killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen." Another study by the nonpartisan Gun Violence Archive, based on FBI and Justice Department data, found that of nearly 52,000 recorded shootings in 2014, there were fewer than 1,600 verified cases where firearms were used for self-defense. Gun advocates counter that not all instances of defensive gun use are reported to the police, and that in most cases shots are never fired, because simply displaying a weapon can deter a criminal. Firearms can "ensure your or your family's personal safety," said Brian Doherty, author of Gun Control on Trial, "even if you don't actually plug some human varmint dead."
Will a gun make you safer?
Most Americans think so. According to recent Gallup polls, 63 percent of adults believe having a gun in the house will make them safer and 56 percent think the country would be safer if more people carried concealed weapons. But numerous studies suggest that owning a gun can actually increase a person's risk of bodily harm and death. Research published this year in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that the 80 million Americans who keep guns in the home were 90 percent more likely to die by homicide than Americans who don't. A paper in the American Journal of Public Health, meanwhile, determined that a person with a gun was 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than someone who was unarmed.
What about home intrusions?
Having a gun close at hand might make you feel better protected against violent burglars, but in fact the annual per capita risk of death during a home invasion is 0.0000002 percent — essentially zero. On the other hand, a 2014 study from the University of California, San Francisco, shows that people with a gun in the house are three times as likely to kill themselves as non-firearm owners. More than 20,000 Americans shoot themselves to death each year, accounting for two-thirds of gun fatalities. "It's not that gun owners are more suicidal," said Catherine Barber, who heads a suicide prevention project at the Harvard School of Public Health. "It's that they're more likely to die in the event that they become suicidal, because they are using a gun."
http://theweek.com/articles/585837/truth-about-guns-selfdefense
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What percent of "80 million Americans who keep guns in the home" are criminals?
SecularMotion
Nov 2015
#3
Thanks for the update, Eleanors38! I was in the process of looking
Ghost in the Machine
Nov 2015
#17
I guess the ones killed by suicide bombers at the stadium are out of luck as far as she's concerned
DonP
Nov 2015
#23
Let's all be sure to ask them about the discrepancy when the opportunity presents...
friendly_iconoclast
Nov 2015
#27