Reply #143: Unfortunately

[MrBenchley]

thanks to the muscle of the gun lobby, such numbers are hard to come by...for example he CDC has been prohibited from collecting such things since 1998 (one of the earliest examples of GOP faith-based science)...

The best and still the most reliable study is that published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which showed a gun in the home is 44 times more likely to perforate the gun owner, his family, or his friends than it is to shoot a criminal in furtherance of a crime. Similar studies have produced similar numbers.

A character named Gary Kleck published an outrageously preposterous figure for the number of "defensive gun uses" each year; in order for his number to be true, there'd have to be twice as many burglars shot and killed each year than the total number of gun deaths reported. Even Kleck has disavowed the study. The numbers dwindle away to almost nothing if survey participants are asked "were you potentially the victim of a crime last year?" BEFORE they're asked if they used their popguns. And when Johns Hopkins researchers looked at Kleck's study they discovered reports like "I heard a noise in the street and so I fired my gun at whatever it was" were being counted as "defensive gun use."

FBI stats show the number of justifiable homicides each year to be in the 150-200 incident range; and almost all of those are law enforcement personnel protecting themselves against armed criminals.

Worth noting that the only study producing positive results for the gun lobby are the numbers published by racist pseudocientist John Lott, who is synonymous with academic fraud.

"An RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) might stop SOME tanks. It has been put to good use by the "insurgents" over in Iraq against our troops and their tanks. So exactly how many accidental deaths here in America can we attribute to RPGs. How about home invasions or preventions? I believe that the answer is ZERO. Why? Because they are illegal! So should we pass legislation relaxing that problem so that we might better defend ourselves from our own military should the need arise? If we did then what do you suppose the number of accidents will go up to? "
Exactly so. The notion that we should stand around digging our toe in the sand waiting for a crime to be committed or an accident to occur before outlawing such things is absurd almost to the point of psychosis.
.50 caliber weapons such as the ones put out by Barrett (marketed as "toys for big boys", and no, I'm not kidding) can put armor piercing and incendiary rounds through armor plating. Two years ago an enthusiast in Kansas with one of these "toys" set fire to his own home and shot at responding firefighters, paramedics and cops THROUGH their vehicles. Last year, a loony tune in Colorado welded one to a bulldozer, covered the result in plating, and tried to blow up a town's natural gas tank. Barrett itself sold its "toys" to Osama Bin Laden; when the VPC discovered that, the company first tried to deny that it had done so, then claimed the CIA told it to.