XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, sac.politics, talk.politics.guns
XPost: talk.politics.misc

Fact: “Victims who have and use guns have both lower losses and lesser
injury rates from violent crime.” 1

Fact: Every year, people in the United States use guns to defend
themselves against criminals an estimated 2,500,000 times – more than
6,500 people a day, or once every 13 seconds. 2 Of these instances, 15.7%
of the people using firearms defensively stated that they “almost
certainly” saved their lives by doing so.

Fact: Even the government’s estimate, which has a major methodology
problem, 3 estimates people defend themselves 235,700 times each year with guns. 4

Fact: Victims with guns “would reduce … the criminals’ incentives to
commit violent crimes and to be armed.” 5

Fact: The number of times per year an American uses a firearm to deter a
home invasion alone is 498,000. 6

Fact: In 83.5% (2,087,500) of these successful gun defenses, the attacker either threatened or used force first, proving that guns are very well
suited for self-defense. 7

Fact: There are approximately 182,000 defensive gun uses in public each
year. 8

Fact: The rate of defensive gun use (DGU) is six times that of criminal
gun use. 9

Fact: Of the 2,500,000 times citizens use guns to defend themselves, 92% merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their
attackers. 10

Fact: In most of the remaining 8% of defensive gun uses, a citizen never wounds his or her attacker (they fire warning shots), and in less than one
in a thousand instances is the attacker killed. 11

Fact: 41% of justifiable homicides using a gun were by private citizens,
the others by law enforcement. 12

Fact: In one local review of firearm homicide, more than 12% were civilian legal defensive homicides. 13

Fact: For every accidental death (802), suicide (16,869) or homicide
(11,348) 14 with a firearm (29,019), 13 lives (390,000) 15 are preserved through defensive use.

Fact: When using guns in self-defense, 91.1% of the time, not a single
shot is fired. 16

Fact: After the implementation of Canada’s 1977 gun controls prohibiting handgun possession for protection, the “breaking and entering” crime rate
rose 25%, surpassing the American rate. 17

Myth: The small number of self-defense killings shows that private gun ownership does nothing
Fact: Most DGUs do not involve firing a gun. The average private gun owner
who uses guns for self defense take non-fatal actions, such as brandishing
the weapon. In other instances, they may fire a warning shot or
intentionally would their attacker. 18

Myth: Armed civilians have no effect an mass shootings
Fact: One tracking database 19 shows that 41.3% of “active shooter events”
were terminated by armed civilians. Outside of “gun free zones” the rate
climbs to 63.5%.

Myth: Only police should have guns
Fact: “Most criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than
they are about running into the police.” 20

Fact: For kids in schools, police end such attacks only 27% of the time.
21

Fact: 11% of police shootings kill an innocent person — about 2% of
shootings by citizens kill an innocent person. 22

Fact: Police have trouble keeping their own guns. Hundreds of firearms
are missing from the FBI and 449 of them have been involved in crimes. 23

Fact: People who saw the helplessness of the L.A. Police Department during
the 1992 King Riots or the looting and violence in New Orleans after
hurricane Katrina know that citizens need guns to defend themselves.

Fact: “In actual shootings, citizens do far better than law enforcement on
hit potential. They hit their targets and they don’t hit other people. I
wish I could say the same for cops. We train more, they do better.” 24

Myth: You are more likely to be injured or killed using a gun for self-
defense
Fact: You are far more likely to survive violent assault if you defend
yourself with a gun. 25

Myth: Guns are not effective in preventing crime against women
Fact: Of the 2,500,000 annual self-defense cases using guns, more than
7.7% (192,500) are by women defending themselves against sexual abuse.

Fact: When a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of rape attacks
were completed, compared to 32% when the woman was unarmed. 26

Fact: The probability of serious injury from an attack is 2.5 times
greater for women offering no resistance than for women resisting with
guns. Men also benefit from using guns, but the benefits are smaller: Men
are 1.4 times more likely to receive a serious injury. 27

Fact: 28.5% of women have one or more guns in the house. 28

Fact: 41.7% of women either own or have convenient access to guns. 29

Fact: In 1966, the city of Orlando responded to a wave of sexual assaults
by offering firearms training classes to women. Rapes dropped by nearly
90% the following year.

Fact: Firearm availability appears to be particularly useful in avoiding
rape. The United Kingdom virtually banned handgun ownership. During the
same period handgun ownership in the United States steadily rose. Yet the
rate of rape decreased in the United States and skyrocketed in the other countries, as shown in the table.

Fact: More Americans believe having a gun in the home makes them safer.
This belief grows every year the survey is taken. 30

Fact: Arthur Kellerman, a researcher whose work is often cited by gun
control groups, said “If you’ve got to resist, your chances of being hurt
are less the more lethal your weapon. If that were my wife, would I want
her to have a .38 Special in her hand? Yeah.” 31

Notes:

Self-defense with guns The consequences; Southwick; Journal of Criminal Justice; 2000 ?
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Kleck and Gertz, Fall 1995 ?
This ongoing victimization survey involved people from the government personally interviewing victims in person. Some criminologists believe
this induces self-reporting biases (e.g., people don’t like to tell the government they own a gun). Thus, this low number from the National Crime Victimization Survey is considered to be an outlier and not reliable. ?
Firearm Violence, 1993-2011, Bureau of Justice Statistics, May 2013 ? Self-defense with guns The consequences; Southwick; Journal of Criminal Justice; 2000 ?
Estimating intruder-related firearm retrievals in U.S. households, 1994.
Robin M. Ikeda, Violence and Victims, Winter 1997 ?
Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with
a Gun, Kleck, Gertz, 1995 ?
2021 National Firearms Survey: Updated Analysis Including Types of
Firearms Owned; English; 2022 ?
Crime statistics: Bureau of Justice Statistics – National Crime
Victimization Survey (2005). DGU statistics: Targeting Guns, Kleck
(average of 15 major surveys where DGUs were reported) ?
Targeting Guns, Gary Kleck, Aldine de Gruyter, 1997, from the National Self-Defense Survey ?
Targeting Guns, Gary Kleck, Aldine de Gruyter, 1997, from the National Self-Defense Survey ?
FBI Expanded Homicide Tables 14 and 15, 2017 ?
Death by Gun: One Year Later, Time Magazine, May 14, 1990 ?
Unintentional Firearm Deaths, 2001, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control ?
Targeting Guns, Gary Kleck, Aldine de Gruyter, 1997 ?
National Crime Victimization Survey, 2000 ?
Residential Burglary: A Comparison of the United States, Canada and
England and Wales, Pat Mayhew, National Institute of Justice., Wash.,
D.C., 1987 ?
Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with
a Gun, The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 86, No.1, 1995 ? Massive errors in FBI’s Active Shooting Reports from 2014-2022 regarding
cases where civilians stop attacks; Crime Prevention Research Center; 2023
?
Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms,
Wright and Rossi, 1986 ?
Implications for the Prevention of School Attacks, United States Secret
Service and United States Department of Education, 2002 ?
Shall issue: the new wave of concealed handgun permit laws, Clayton
Cramer, David Kopel, Independence Institute Issue Paper. October 17, 1994
?
ABC News, July 17, 2001 ?
Sheriff Greg White, Cole County, Missouri, Guns to be allowed on campus?,
KRCG News, July 31, 2009 ?
The Value of Civilian Handgun Possession as a Deterrent to Crime or a
Defense Against Crime, Don B. Kates, 1991 American Journal of Criminal Law
?
Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, Rape Victimization in 26
American Cities, U.S. Department of Justice, 1979 ?
National Crime Victimization Survey, Department of Justice ?
2001 National Gun Policy Survey of the National Opinion Research Center: Research Findings, Smith, T, National Opinion Research Center, University
of Chicago, December 2001. ?
2001 National Gun Policy Survey of the National Opinion Research Center: Research Findings, Smith, T, National Opinion Research Center, University
of Chicago, December 2001. ?
Americans by Slight Margin Say Gun in the Home Makes It Safer, Gallup
Poll, October 20, 2006 ?
Gun Crazy, S.F. Examiner, April 3, 1994 ?

https://www.gunfacts.info/gun-policy-info/guns-and-crime-prevention/

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