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Any gun defense statistics?
With all of the gun talk going on lately, one of the things commonly brought up is the need to have guns to protect ourselves from criminals. Are there any reliable statistics from unbiased sources that positively back up the success of regular people fending off attackers with guns?
I found this web site but the wording of the article makes me suspect bias in favor of gun ownership:
http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/stats.html
This web site goes the opposite way:
I know of only two examples regarding people I know. One turned out badly and the other turned out well although a firearm was not involved.
My elderly great aunt was killed by a shot gun blast in the face; her husband apparently thought she was a prowler. She was still alive and confirmed to the police that it was an accident. He was not charged with murder.
My father was a Teamster, worked on a truck dock. One of his coworkers had two guys try to break in his car while it was moving! He killed one of the guys with a baseball bat or some other type of club. He knocked the other one on the ground and reportedly said "you'd better stay down or you're going in the river." The police arrived soon afterwards. There was a constant risk of people trying to break in trucks to steal freight so many of the truckers and dock workers kept either guns or clubs handy.
My grandfather worked on a passenger train and was required to carry a gun. I don't know of any incident
4 Answers
- Anonymous8 years agoFavorite Answer
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/ascii/hvfsdaf...
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/self_defense...
NY Post not considered liberal. St *** are a good and simple compilation from FBI stats.
- 8 years ago
While there isa strong measure of advocacy on both sides of the gun utility argument,Kleck is a well-respected researcher ( see peer review on your link) John Lott is a sociologist who has done considerable research on the subject and supports the utility of privately held guns for self defense. Both use statistics from in depth research and their critics are not able to effectively refute them.
The major anit-gun "studies" are limited in geographic scope and strongly biased against private gun ownership. A researcher Bellisiles (sic) several years ago was caught out publishing fraudulent material and had his academic credits for the work revoked.
The NRA has a feature in its monthly magazine called "The Armed Citizen".( * see below.) It usually has about a dozen stories of citizens using guns for self protection or protection of oathers. The source newspapers are credited so you can check them out insteald of simply accepting the NRA script.
- SombodyLv 68 years ago
That's the thing. Most statistics lean one way or the other. The states have them but no state is neutral on the subject. It's all media propaganda and the media tells you one thing but in person you mat get compleatly different information. Anymore cops aren't even neutral about it and they tend to lean with the state the work in.
- Anonymous8 years ago
Given the fact that countries where people can't "defend" themselves with guns have less crime than the US, it's safe to say that this type of thing doesn't happen very often.
