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[NPR] How Often Do People Use Guns in Self-Defense?

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by crossover, Apr 15, 2018.

  1. crossover

    crossover Contributing Member

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    https://www.npr.org/2018/04/13/602143823/how-often-do-people-use-guns-in-self-defense

    How Often Do People Use Guns In Self-Defense?
    April 13, 20183:51 PM ET
    SAMANTHA RAPHELSON

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    A student participates in a civilian active shooter response course for concealed weapons permit holders on March 24 in Longmont, Colo.

    Rick T. Wilking/Getty Images
    The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

    It's a common refrain touted by gun rights advocates, who argue that using guns in self-defense can help save lives. But what is the actual number of defensive gun uses?

    According to the Pew Research Center, 48 percent of gun owners say they own a gun mainly for protection. But for years, experts have been divided over how often people actually use guns in self-defense. The numbers range from the millions to hundreds of thousands, depending on whom you ask.

    [​IMG]
    NATIONAL SECURITY
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    The latest data show that people use guns for self-defense only rarely. According to a Harvard University analysis of figures from the National Crime Victimization Survey, people defended themselves with a gun in nearly 0.9 percent of crimes from 2007 to 2011.

    David Hemenway, who led the Harvard research, argues that the risks of owning a gun outweigh the benefits of having one in the rare case where you might need to defend yourself.

    "The average person ... has basically no chance in their lifetime ever to use a gun in self-defense," he tells Here & Now's Robin Young. "But ... every day, they have a chance to use the gun inappropriately. They have a chance, they get angry. They get scared."

    But the research spread by the gun lobby paints a drastically different picture of self-defense gun uses. One of the most commonly cited estimates of defensive gun uses, published in 1995 by criminologists Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, concluded there are between 2.2 and 2.5 million defensive gun uses annually.

    Philip Cook wrote in the book Envisioning Criminology.

    Kleck says there is no record of these gunshot victims because most instances of self-defense gun use are not reported.

    [​IMG]
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    "If you tell the police, I just wielded a gun pointing a deadly weapon at another human being and claimed it was in self-defense, the police are going to investigate that," he tells Young, "and they may well in the short run arrest you and treat you as a criminal until and unless you are cleared."

    On the flipside, Kleck says, criminals who were wounded after a gun was used in self-defense also have no incentive to go to the emergency room because medical professionals have an obligation to report it to the police. But Hemenway points out that if people don't go to the hospital to treat the original gunshot wound, they will inevitably end up there "with sepsis or other major problems."

    He also notes that part of the reason experts are so divided on the number is the difficulty in obtaining reliable survey data on the issue.

    "The researchers who look at [Kleck's study] say this is just bad science," Hemenway says. "It's a well-known problem in epidemiology that if something's a rare event, and you just try to ask how many people have done this, you will get incredible overestimates."

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    In fact, Cook told The Washington Post that the percentage of people who told Kleck they used a gun in self-defense is similar to the percentage of Americans who said they were abducted by aliens. The Post notes that "a more reasonable estimate" of self-defense gun uses equals about 100,000 annually, according to the NCVS data.

    Another problem is that there is no consensus on the definition of defensive gun use. Some incidents could involve illegal carrying or possession, or they could amount to aggravated assault, the Rand Corp. writes:

    Perceptions about the incident and an individual's role are important because much of the literature relies on self-reports: The respondent must have perceived there to have been a crime (or, in some surveys, a suspected or averted crime) and must consider himself or herself a victim rather than a mutual combatant. Even such stringent definitions, however, may not be sufficient to determine whether the event was lawful, legitimate, or desirable from a social perspective.

    Even if someone wanted to use a gun in self-defense, they probably wouldn't be very successful, says Mike Weisser, firearms instructor and author of the blog "Mike The Gun Guy." He says many people who carry a gun aren't properly trained to use it in this way, and there is no performance validation standard for police officers.

    "If we don't even have a minimum standard, not for training, but for performance validation for our law enforcement," he says, "how in God's name is anybody going to say, 'Well, just because you have a gun in your pocket, you know how to use it in self-defense?' You don't."
     
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  2. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"

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    LOL. That's higher than I expected. :D

    Of the roughly 100,000 cases, how many of those are our most conservative posters' own crime-riddled, dystopian communities? 63,000?
     
  3. StupidMoniker

    StupidMoniker I lost a bet
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    The article doesn't seem to include defensive uses of a gun that don't result in the other party having a gunshot wound. If a mugger pulls out a knife, you pull out a gun, and the mugger decides discretion is the better part of valor, I would say that is the defensive use of a firearm. It probably doesn't result in a police report (unless you got a really good look at the mugger or his vehicle), certainly doesn't result in a hospital record, but it should be counted. One would imagine those uses are far more common than actually shooting a criminal that is attacking you.
     
  4. conquistador#11

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    it also doesn't represent when you rollin' with your eses, through the mall, only for some other eses wearing a different shade of pale blue step up talkin' ish. Then, you show them your gun and it totally diffuses the problem. lives saved.

    [​IMG]
     
  5. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"

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    I think it's a fair point, and I agree that it might be more common than an actual defensive use leading to gun wound, but still: I've never known of a single case of somebody minding their own business, then showing their piece to a mugger, and then the mugger running away. A good mugger doesn't give you a chance to show him your gun, for one. But maybe I'm getting bogged down in technicalities here.

    I hope reasonable people can agree (but I'm not betting on that): There is a vast gulf between the "reasons" nearly half of gun owners own their guns (on the order of 100M Americans owning for self defense) and the actual risk of needing a gun for self defense (a thankfully tiny, tiny fraction of that number).

    I just wish Americans could quit being so afraid, of the world and of one another. Not helping anything.
     
  6. SamFisher

    SamFisher Contributing Member

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    I'm sure this happens practically all the time - I find your conjecture very compelling.

    once there's a confirmatory anecdote - I think all copies of this book will be burned.
     
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  7. Commodore

    Commodore Contributing Member

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    the threat of use is a use
     
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  8. Sweet Lou 4 2

    Sweet Lou 4 2 Contributing Member
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    I would bet that the number of situations where you have a chance to pull out your gun (and take the safety off if necessary) isn't often. If you are getting mugged and you had a gun, would you pull it out and shoot the guy knowing that he could fire first or return fire and hit you? Is that worth your wallet? I have been mugged at gunpoint and the man only took my cash and left the wallet behind. I have also seen an A/C repair guy pull a gun out on my father because he was angry over an argument. If my dad had a gun, should he have pulled it out and fired at him?

    There is this fantasy that people think guns make us more safe. Yet we have a gun murder rate more akin to a third world country. Nothing I write will mean anything to you, because you will ignore it and the liberals here will like this post. But for once I wish you could just see the insanity of your position.
     
  9. CometsWin

    CometsWin Breaker Breaker One Nine

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    This happens about as often as a lightning strike, we should just ignore it.
     
  10. Commodore

    Commodore Contributing Member

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    the threat of a response can prevent the action from being initiated

    basic deterrence theory

    it's like saying we don't ever use nukes, so why have them? Nukes are used every day as a deterrent.
     
    #10 Commodore, Apr 15, 2018
    Last edited: Apr 15, 2018
  11. StupidMoniker

    StupidMoniker I lost a bet
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    I only personally know one person who was mugged, and he didn't describe it to me in sufficient detail for me to know if he could have defended himself with a gun, but he didn't have one. There are many first hand accounts of people scaring off bad guys with a gun, but it is not an easy thing to collect data about, as there is not a record made of most instances. Ultimately, the best data we have available is self reporting which may or may not be accurate.
    I certainly agree that people are too afraid. People are afraid of violent crime, of terrorism, of rape, of gun owners, etc. The chances that you will be a victim of any of these are very low, but a lot of effort is made to try to convince people that it is very high. Look at the current school shooting thing. There is all of this fear and pressure to "do something", but the chances of a kid dying in a school shooting are infinitesimal. The country spends tremendous amounts of money, time, and freedom fighting things that are very unlikely to happen. I don't own a gun, because I don't think I will ever need one, and I think it would be a waste of money; but in the unlikely event that I was ever faced with violent crime, I would rather have one than not.
    I would say it probably happens somewhere between one hundred thousand and two million times per year, as those are the low and high end estimates that I usually see published. Even at the high end, that is less than one occurrence per hundred people per year (hardly all the time). Do you think that defensive gun usage results in police reports and or hospital records 100% of the time? If not, what is your disagreement?
    Probably a bit more common than being struck by lightning (about 300 Americans struck by lightning per year, according to the National Weather Service), but not common at all. See above.
     
    #11 StupidMoniker, Apr 15, 2018
    Last edited: Apr 15, 2018
  12. durvasa

    durvasa Contributing Member

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    I see the comparison, but only for gun owners who broadcast the fact that they have a gun and are not afraid to use it.
     
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  13. bobrek

    bobrek Politics belong in the D & D

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    [Anecdotal Post]I know a lot of people who have guns. Not one of them has ever used a gun in self defense or needed to.[/Anecdotal Post]

    Good Day!
     
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  14. Buck Turgidson

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    You're confusing 2 different studies mentioned in the article. The new Harvard study is based off of the NCVS, and is unrelated to hospital visits or police reports, it is stricly combing through the responses given in a nationwide semi-annual survey. The study from 25 years ago (Kleck-Gertz) is the one that's been heavily questioned and criticized because of its reliance on those 2 things.

    There's some basic background and some good links to follow here, if you're interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_gun_use
     
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  15. crossover

    crossover Contributing Member

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    Except nukes aren't being used in violent crime and suicides, killing Americans on a daily basis.
     
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  16. Space Ghost

    Space Ghost Contributing Member

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    Pulling a gun while getting robbed is not self defense. Its a foolish move that overwhelmingly escalates the issue.

    What this research doesnt take in account is the gun ownership prevents many crimes from ever occurring.
     
  17. Amiga

    Amiga I get vaunted sacred revelations from social media
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    Guns are great tool for criminal. Gun isn’t much of any use for defense.

    Deterrence? Not having gun would be a great deterrence to initiate a crime.
     
  18. durvasa

    durvasa Contributing Member

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    Is there any data that supports this often repeated claim? In particular, data that gives a sense of the extent to which it prevents crime?

    Edit:

    I do see a few relevant studies referenced here (from link earlier in thread):

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_gun_use
     
    #18 durvasa, Apr 16, 2018
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2018
  19. Commodore

    Commodore Contributing Member

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    not using your head if you can't see how even a small chance of gun ownership is a deterrent to a would-be B&E

    even non-gun owners receive the benefit of deterrence in areas where gun ownership is common/legal
     
  20. DonnyMost

    DonnyMost not wrong
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    It would be nice to have some meaningful statistics around guns from the CDC. Too bad the gun lobby won't allow that.
     

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