Alan: Yes, some people will successfully defend themselves using firearms.
However, breathtakingly more people will commit suicide (or kill/maim others) when firearms (that will never be used in self-defense) are present in the home.
The truth about guns and self-defense
The NRA says the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Is that right? Here's everything you need to know:
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.
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."
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.
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."
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."
Do armed civilians ever foil mass shootings?
Yes, but not regularly. An FBI study of 160 active-shooter events between 2000 and 2013 found seven incidents in which an armed civilian shot the gunman and ended the rampage. Only one of those involved a typical "good guy with a gun"; professionals — off-duty cops and armed security guards — fired in the six other cases. Still, "good guys" do occasionally stop shooting sprees: Earlier this year, a concealed-carry holder in Philadelphia shot a gunman who suddenly opened fire inside a packed barbershop, killing him before he took anyone else's life. "It could have been a lot worse," said police Capt. Frank Llewellyn. "He saved a lot of people in there." But generally speaking, authorities are uneasy about such civilian interventions.
Yes, but not regularly. An FBI study of 160 active-shooter events between 2000 and 2013 found seven incidents in which an armed civilian shot the gunman and ended the rampage. Only one of those involved a typical "good guy with a gun"; professionals — off-duty cops and armed security guards — fired in the six other cases. Still, "good guys" do occasionally stop shooting sprees: Earlier this year, a concealed-carry holder in Philadelphia shot a gunman who suddenly opened fire inside a packed barbershop, killing him before he took anyone else's life. "It could have been a lot worse," said police Capt. Frank Llewellyn. "He saved a lot of people in there." But generally speaking, authorities are uneasy about such civilian interventions.
Why's that?
Because most civilians don't have the skills to handle an active-shooter situation. In some states, a concealed-carry permit requires no firearms training at all. "The notion that you walk into a gun store and you're ready for game day is ridiculous," says David Chipman, who served on a SWAT team with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. A recent case in Houston highlights the risks of "good guys" opening fire: A man who saw a carjacking in progress shot at the perpetrators, but missed and hit the car owner in the head. Sometimes, Chipman says, the best thing to do is not to play hero, "but instead try to be the best witness you can be."
Because most civilians don't have the skills to handle an active-shooter situation. In some states, a concealed-carry permit requires no firearms training at all. "The notion that you walk into a gun store and you're ready for game day is ridiculous," says David Chipman, who served on a SWAT team with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. A recent case in Houston highlights the risks of "good guys" opening fire: A man who saw a carjacking in progress shot at the perpetrators, but missed and hit the car owner in the head. Sometimes, Chipman says, the best thing to do is not to play hero, "but instead try to be the best witness you can be."
When good guys stand downStudent and Air Force vet John Parker Jr. was legally armed and ready for action when shooter Chris Harper-Mercer went on a rampage and killed nine people at Oregon's Umpqua Community College in early October. But Parker and several other veterans on campus resisted the urge to enter the fray, fearing police would mistake them for additional shooters. "Luckily we made the choice not to get involved," Parker said, "which could have opened us up to being potential targets ourselves." Joe Zamudio, a hero in the 2011 mass shooting in Tucson that seriously wounded former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, helped subdue gunman Jared Loughner — but not before he nearly shot an innocent man. Leaving a drug store as shots rang out, "I clicked the safety off, and I was ready," Zamudio recalled. "I had my hand on my gun [in] my jacket pocket." As he rounded a corner, Zamudio saw a man holding a gun. "And that's who I at first thought was the shooter. I told him to ‘Drop it, drop it!'" In fact, it was another man, who had wrested the gun away from Loughner. Fortunately, Zamudio held his fire. "Honestly, it was a matter of seconds," he said. "I was really lucky."
What Second Amendment Evangelists Fail To Understand About Their Opposition
"Gun Cartoons and Gun Violence Bibliography"
Second Amendment Evangelists Believe A Flood Of Guns Is Protective.
Their Religion Requires It.
http://paxonbothhouses.
"Gun Cartoons and Gun Violence Bibliography"
Second Amendment Evangelists Believe A Flood Of Guns Is Protective.
Their Religion Requires It.
http://paxonbothhouses.
Their Religion Requires It.
http://paxonbothhouses.
Australian Comedian Nails 2nd Amendment Evangelists
Alan: The extent to which guns are used in self-defense is hotly disputed.
Here's how to determine the truth.
Neither I nor members of my immediate family know anyone who has used a gun in self defense.
However, I do have direct knowledge of families in which children killed themselves with firearms and families whose children used firearms to kill other children.
So...
Now, since your own experience probably reflects my own, start asking your family, friends and associates:
1.) Do you know anyone who successfully forfended a crime by using a gun?
2.) Do you know anyone who committed suicide with a firearm?
2.) Do you know anyone who committed suicide with a firearm?
3.) Do you know anyone whose child killed someone else with a firearm?
The Conservative Dream:
Absolute Safety vouchsafed by ubiquitous firearms.
(The impossible quest to make Reality safer than God intended is the core appeal of fascism.)
The Key Question
If ever more guns make America safer,
why are we not already the safest country in the the world?
Please email your answer to:
If you do not have an answer, ask yourself, "Why not?"
What Second Amendment Evangelists Fail To Understand About Their Opposition
It is an incontrovertible fact that if every citizen carries a firearm, some of those citizens will use those firearms to successfully prevent deadly (or damaging) attack by malefactors.
However, setting aside "wishful thinking," it is also incontrovertibly true that if every citizen carries a firearm, there will be far more firearm deaths than there would have been if citizens were required to undergo rigorous training and careful gun registration as prerequisites to owning a firearm.
Although it is grist for another mill, there are two different epistemologies in play: one statistical-and-scientific; the other anecdotal, with any favorable anecdotal outcome deemed sufficient reason to establish "A New Rule" even though anecdotes are almost always "exceptions to rules."
When Second Amendment Evangelists view the cartoon, "What might have happened on 9-11 if this were truly been The Land of The Free," they automatically believe -- as a faith-based obligation -- that every bullet fired "the good guys" will end up in the body of a terrorist, not the bodies of innocent passengers.
Even more to the point: anytime an evildoer "gets the drop" on "a good guy," it is overwhelmingly difficult for a good guy to "turn the tide."
"Wanting it so" (a desire conditioned by too many Super-Hero movies) has nothing to do with the factual Reality of increased carnage when everyone has access to a firearm.
If every airline passenger can "pack," then every terrorist would have a firearm and only a small percentage of citizens.
Would you, for example, take a firearm on board a plane?
Didn't think so...
Would a terrorist take a firearm on board a plane?
Duh.
Would you, for example, take a firearm on board a plane?
Didn't think so...
Would a terrorist take a firearm on board a plane?
Duh.
Those who think ubiquitous firearms solve any of life's problems contribute to the problem - inflame the problem by magnitudes of deadliness
The possibility that well-armed citizens will perform acts of sudden, salvific heroicism once a thug with murderous intent "has already pulled his gun" is vanishingly remote.
Such wishful thinking is the product of arrested development, the vestigial puerility of children playing "cowboys and Indians," "cops and robbers," "white hats and black."
Many more innocent Americans are killed by firearms "in the home" than the piddling number of Americans saved by domestic firearm heroics.
"The Number Of People Who Use Guns In Self Defense Is Negligible"
And when, at rare intervals, such heroics do occur, they frequently result in the death of property thieves who harbor no violent intent.
I know no one who has used a gun in self-defense, but I do know someone who was killed while robbing a grocery store.
It is overwhelmingly likely that neither you -- nor anyone you know -- has successfully "defended themselves" with a firearm.
Americans refuse to heed "the numbers."
Americans Think Foreign Aid Consumes One Third Of GNP.
This % Is Totally Hallucinated
If you ask every friend and associate until the day you die, the chances are virtually nil that you will come across someone (outside the military) who has repelled an aggressor with a firearm.
The belief that Americans use firearms in self-defense is mostly Middle School fantasy conjured by essentially fearful people trapped in arrested development.
I am 68 years old and have friends "on both sides of the aisle."
Yet I have never heard any of them say that a firearm saved their life.
I have never heard any of them say that they know someone who was saved by civilian use of a firearm.
And in those rare instances of "salvation-through-firearm," it remains over-archingly true that isolated anecdotes do not establish "general rules."
Yet I have never heard any of them say that a firearm saved their life.
I have never heard any of them say that they know someone who was saved by civilian use of a firearm.
And in those rare instances of "salvation-through-firearm," it remains over-archingly true that isolated anecdotes do not establish "general rules."
On the other hand, I have heard several friends say that firearms were used by family members to kill themselves and also have a friend whose neighbor's boy accidentally killed a friend by putting a bullet in his head.
Whether by accident... sudden eruption of anger... or by psychological disease... firearms in the home exact a terrifyingly high toll with correspondingly trivial benefit.
The belief that "individual heroes" will "save the day" is essentially self-ish, a subset of rugged individualism and the horrifying fear of living in All-American isolation.,
Yes, an occasional hero will "save the day."
Guns Save Lives
The Number Of People Who Use A Gun In Self-Defense Is Pretty Much Negligible
But choosing to arm an entire society only increases the cumulative carnage.
Gun Tweet In Wake Of Umpqua Slaughter
Opportunities for "gun-toting heroism" are vanishingly rare, and when they do present, they are likely to exacerbate the violence-in-progress.
Consider the following case in point.
Armed Veteran Explains Why He Didn't Confront Oregon Snhooter With His "Good Guy" Gun
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/10/armed-vet-at-umpqua-explains-why-he.html
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/10/armed-vet-at-umpqua-explains-why-he.html
The human psyche prefers "clutching at straws" to admitting that many threatening situations are simply "outside our control."
Furthermore, attempts to "control the uncontrollable" -- either by enhanced "security measures" "taken in advance" or "taken while an aggressive act is unfolding" -- do not contribute to security and routinely become risk factors in themselves.
Too much of anything - even a good thing - is too much.
Too much of anything - even a good thing - is too much.
Consider the flood of handguns in American homes, a deluge whose potential benefit pales alongside the actual number of American suicides and "domestic homicides" that would not have taken place except for the presence of handguns in the home.
The situation is analogous to the conservative desire to disenfranchise 11% of American voters in order to prevent several hundred cases of demonstrable voter fraud - a textbook illustration of "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face."
How Frequent Is Voter Fraud?
How Frequent Is Voter Suppression?
Voter I.D. Laws Could Disenfranchise 11% Of The Electorate
In the absence of firearms, most young people who attempt suicide do not succeed.
Keep in mind that the suicides I am focusing are not "potential threats" like an attack on your neighborhood school.
Rather, they are "done deeds" - dependable statistics year in, year out.
Needless statistics year in, year out.
Rather, they are "done deeds" - dependable statistics year in, year out.
Needless statistics year in, year out.
Lamentably, most Americans believe that "heroic last minute intervention" will prevent criminals from perpetrating carnage -- a highly unlikely outcome -- simultaneously ignoring the actual avalanche of carnage in American homes - carnage that would not take place if ready availability of handguns in the home did not facilitate suicide.
States. In the United States, only motor vehicle crashes and cancer claim more lives among children 5–14 years old than do firearms.
For young Americans, 15-24, suicide (60% by firearm) is the third leading cause of death
Firearm injury and death charts for the U.S. (and the world) are available at the following University of Pennsylvania
Suicide in the Home in Relation to Gun OwnershipArthur L. Kellermann, MD, MPH; Frederick P. Rivara, MD, MPH; et al, The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 327, No. 7, August 13, 1992, pp. 467-472. Key Statistic: The presence of one or more guns in the home increases the risk of suicide in the home nearly five times. http://www.vpc.org/studies/whersuic
"Gun Cartoons and Gun Violence Bibliography"
Americans Are 9 Times More Likely To Be Killed By A Policeman Than A Terrorist
The make-believe heroicism that afflicts Second Amendment Evangelists recalls the bizarre supposition that the violent overthrow of Saddam Hussein (Ronald Reagan's geopolitical ally) would "make the world safe for democracy."
"Bush's Toxic Legacy In Iraq"
George Will Documents Reagan's Collusion With Saddam Hussein's Use Of Chemical Weapons
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/09/george-will-documents-ronald-reagans.html
"If An Abundance Of Guns Makes Us Safe,
Why Isn't The United States The Safest Place In The World?"
I await your reply.
AlanArchibald@Gmail.com
Teen Suicide and Guns - HealthyChildren.org
https://www.healthychildren.org/.../Teen-Suicide-and-G...
Many teens attempt suicide on impulse, and there's no second chance with a gun
Healthy Children
Youth Access to Firearms | Means Matter | Harvard T.H. ...
www.hsph.harvard.edu/.../yo...
In a study by Baxley and Miller, among gun-owning parents who reported that ... While the risk of youth suicide is lowest in families with no firearms at home, ...
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Firearm Access is a Risk Factor for Suicide | Means Matter ...
www.hsph.harvard.edu/.../ris...
Those who died by suicide were twice as likely to have a gun at home than ... A later psychological autopsy study (Brent 1999) compared 140 adolescent suicide
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Teen Suicide and Guns - PBS
www.pbs.org/thesilentepidemic/riskfactors/guns.html
Handguns were used in nearly 70% of teen suicides in 1990, up 20% since 1970
PBS
Study: Many suicidal kids have access to guns at home
www.usatoday.com/story/news/...guns-home/2136931/
May 6, 2013 - Nearly 20% of children and young people at risk for suicide say there's agun in their home, new research shows. And among these youth, 15% ...
USA Today
Guns At Home Pose A Risk For Suicidal Teens : Shots ...
www.npr.org/sections/.../guns-at-home-pose-a-risk-for-suicidal-teens
May 6, 2013 - Guns At Home Pose A Risk For Suicidal Teens. May 6, 20133:30 ...Teenagers who are at risk of suicide often have ready access to firearms. i.
NPR
Teen Homicide, Suicide and Firearm Deaths | Child Trends
www.childtrends.org/?indicators=teen-homicide-suicide-and-firearm...
The teen suicide rate increased from 6 to 11 per 100,000 population between ... [
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