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damnedifIknow

(3,183 posts)
Wed Jun 17, 2015, 11:41 PM Jun 2015

Using Guns In Self-Defense Is Rare, Study Finds

American gun owners are far more likely to injure themselves or someone else with their firearm than to stop a criminal, according to a new study from a group calling for tighter gun control.

The study, released Wednesday by the Violence Policy Center, found there were 258 justifiable homicides involving civilians using firearms in 2012, compared with 8,342 murders by gun. Even if a criminal isn't shot down, the study found that civilians rarely use guns to protect themselves. "Intended victims of property crimes engaged in self-protective behavior with a firearm" only 0.1 percent of the times they were targeted by a crook.

The report, titled "Firearm Justifiable Homicides and Non-Fatal Self-Defense Gun Use" relied on FBI and Bureau of Justice data. The Violence Policy Center said the report disproves the premise of arguments by the National Rifle Association that more guns in the hands of regular people will reduce crime.

“The NRA has staked its entire agenda on the claim that guns are necessary for self-defense, but this gun industry propaganda has no basis in fact,” the group's executive director, Josh Sugarmann, said in a statement. “Guns are far more likely to be used in a homicide than in a justifiable homicide by a private citizen. In fact, a gun is far more likely to be stolen than used in self-defense.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/17/guns-self-defense-study_n_7608350.html

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Using Guns In Self-Defense Is Rare, Study Finds (Original Post) damnedifIknow Jun 2015 OP
Don't expect common sense to make a difference.... daleanime Jun 2015 #1
People want guns to bully/kill people not to protect themselves. Everyone knows that. nt valerief Jun 2015 #2
I hear that kimbutgar Jun 2015 #3
The comments on the article are a real treat Stryst Jun 2015 #4
well no SHIT Skittles Jun 2015 #5
+1 BrotherIvan Jun 2015 #6
Seems Legit Sparhawk60 Jun 2015 #7
CDC report seemed to suggest otherwise... Marengo Jun 2015 #8
Not surprising, but good that some real statistics and data are coming out. Sancho Jun 2015 #9

Stryst

(714 posts)
4. The comments on the article are a real treat
Thu Jun 18, 2015, 12:52 AM
Jun 2015

Especially the ones where the pro-NRA folk are coming in and claiming 500,000 self defense uses a year.

 

Marengo

(3,477 posts)
8. CDC report seemed to suggest otherwise...
Thu Jun 18, 2015, 06:41 AM
Jun 2015
“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year … in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008,” says the report. The three million figure is probably high, “based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys.” But a much lower estimate of 108,000 also seems fishy, “because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.” Furthermore, “Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was 'used' by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”


http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2013/06/handguns_suicides_mass_shootings_deaths_and_self_defense_findings_from_a.html
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