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

Americans across the country have used legal guns to defend themselves and thwart crimes, but the reports often fly under the radar and most people
are unaware how often guns are used in self-defense cases.

"Having a gun is by far the safest course of action when people are facing
a criminal by themselves," Dr. John Lott, an economist and president of
the Crime Prevention Research Center, told Fox News Digital. He pointed to women in particular, who "behave passively" and are "about 2.4 times more likely to end up being seriously injured than a woman who has a gun to
protect herself."

As crimes skyrocketed in major cities since 2020, instances of women using
guns to protect themselves and stop crimes have repeatedly played out.

HERE ARE 10 TIMES LEGAL GUN OWNERS RECENTLY THWARTED CRIMES IN LIFE- THREATENING SITUATIONS

"Thank God I had my gun, or I’d probably be dead right now," a Chicago
woman with a concealed carry permit said in October after two would-be carjackers approached her outside a bank.

"Thank God I had my gun, or I’d probably be dead right now."

— Chicago crime victim
In New Orleans just last week, a mom and Air Force veteran pulled a gun on
a man who tried to get into her car while she was sitting in gridlocked
traffic with her 2-year-old son. She wasn’t forced to fire the weapon and
the suspect took off.

‘Dramatic undercount’
Lott said that, in a typical year, the media reports about 2,000 defensive
gun use stories, but he added "that is a dramatic undercount, because the
vast majority of successful self-defense cases don’t make the news."

STUDY SHOWS CONCEALED HANDGUN PERMITS SOARED DURING PANDEMIC, RECORD YEAR- OVER-YEAR INCREASE

Lott said there are about 2 million defensive gun uses per year, according
to the average of 18 national surveys.

The Heritage Foundation, which launched a database tracking how often guns
are used in self-defense cases, cites the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which looked at various studies and found "that Americans use
their firearms defensively between 500,000 and 3 million times each year."

"The reality is, I think this number shocks a lot of people," Amy Swearer,
a legal fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital in a phone interview.

Swearer noted that even "two outlier studies" that found fewer instances
of guns being used in self-defense, they still reported guns being used
"tens of thousands times every year."

Lott said that people using guns in self-defense overwhelmingly don’t even
lead to a criminal being killed or wounded.

12 MAJOR DEM CONTROLLED CITIES BREAK HOMICIDE RECORDS FOLLOWING
HISTORICALLY BLOODY 2020

"Ninety-five percent of defensive gun uses involve merely brandishing a
gun, and less than 1% involve the attacker being killed or wounded. But
most news stories only report on cases where attackers are killed and brandishings are ignored. It is understandable that someone getting killed
is more newsworthy than a woman brandishing a gun and the criminal running
away without committing a crime, but from a policy perspective we care
about both cases," he said.

"Most news stories only report on cases where attackers are killed and brandishings are ignored."

— Dr. John Lott, Crime Prevention Research Center
Homicide rates broke records in at least 16 major cities last year, while
parts of California were plagued by smash-and-grab robberies, and cities
such as Philadelphia and Chicago saw staggering spikes in carjackings.

AT LEAST 16 CITIES SEE RECORD HOMICIDES IN 2021

With the spike in crimes came fears from city residents that they needed
to protect themselves.

In Beverly Hills, California, for example, a gun store owner told Fox News Digital earlier this year that sales recently spiked for him as residents
look for a last-ditch effort for protection even though the city has a
long record of supporting liberal policies and gun control.

Concealed permit surge
It’s a trend that has washed across the nation since 2020. The number of concealed handgun permits surged to 21.52 million in 2020, a 48% increase
since 2016 and a 10.5% increase from the same time last year, according to
a study conducted by the Crime Prevention Research Center released in
October.

Lott said that last year, "women made up 28.3% of permit holders in the 14 states that provide data by gender." While permitted concealed carry among Black Americans grew 135.7% faster than their White counterparts.

"The people who benefit the most from owning guns are also the ones who
are the most likely victims of violent crime — poor Blacks who live in
high crime urban areas," according to Lott.

"The people who benefit the most from owning guns are also the ones who
are the most likely victims of violent crime — poor Blacks who live in
high crime urban areas."

— Dr. John Lott, Crime Prevention Research Center
Political activist Maj Toure has made similar comments, saying in 2020
that he believes "more Black people would be alive if they were armed."

"So when I hear 'unarmed Black man,' I'm sad," he told Business Insider
Weekly, "because there should be no such thing."

BLACK LA RESIDENTS LACK ACCESS TO GUNS AS WEALTHY RUSH TO BUY FIREARMS
AMID CRIME WAVE: ACTIVISTS

But activists, researchers and Democratic leaders argue that with more
guns comes more crime.

Researchers from Boston University examined all 50 states between 1981 and
2010 and found a "robust correlation" between gun ownership and gun
homicides.

"This research is the strongest to date to document that states with
higher levels of gun ownership have disproportionately large numbers of
deaths from firearm-related homicides," Boston University professor of community health sciences Michael Siegel said of the research back in
2013.

Meanwhile, gun control groups such as the Educational Fund to Stop Gun
Violence argue that "permissive concealed carry permitting laws are linked
to 8.6% higher firearm homicide rate, and 13-15% higher violent crime
rates compared to 'May Issue' states."

‘Enough is enough’
President Biden met with New York City Mayor Eric Adams earlier this month
and rolled out a plan to stop the flow of guns in the city, bolster law enforcement and increase funding for community policing. A part of the
plan also included the Justice Department issuing directives to every U.S. attorney’s office nationwide to "increase resources dedicated to district- specific violent crime strategies."

BIDEN, AHEAD OF NYC VISIT, ROLLS OUT STRATEGY TO STOP FLOW OF GUNS,
BOLSTER LAW ENFORCEMENT

"Every day in this country, 316 people are shot, 106 are killed. And six
NYPD officers have been victims of gun violence so far, just this year —
the same in the town north of me, Philadelphia; and my much smaller town
of Wilmington, Delaware; and Washington, D.C.," Biden said in New York on
Feb. 3.

"It’s enough. Enough is enough," he continued.

To Lott, what most people miss amid the emphasis on gun crimes is that
"over 92% of violent crime has nothing to do with guns."

"The data shows that while violent crime reported to police rose 5%
between 2019 and 2020, you can’t blame that increase on guns because gun
crimes actually fell by 27%," he said.

"The bottom line is that if you want to reduce gun crime, you do the same things that you do to reduce violent crime generally, and that is make it riskier for criminals to commit crime."

Fox News' Andrew Mark Miller and Brooke Singman contributed to this
report.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/americans-guns-self-defense-thwart-crimes-data

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