Clayton Cramer on Defensive gun use
How often do such incidents happen? While the results from studies vary, the numbers are large. The National Crime Victimization Survey, for various procedural reasons, is at the low end, showing 108,000 such cases a year (although this was some years back, when crime rates were higher than now). The widely reported Kleck/Gertz study, which has its own set of problems, showed a range of 830,000 to 2.45 million defensive gun uses per year. Other studies have fallen solidly in the middle, with hundreds of thousands of defensive gun uses per year.
I used to be anti-gun, I thought that guns generally did more harm than good in America, so banning them was a good idea. Then I started to see numbers like this. The 30,000 people who die from gunshots every year (17,000 are suicides which given that the United States doesn’t have an abnormally high suicide rate just a high “Suicide by gun” rate, this number seems very lacking in relevance. I suspect that in the absence of guns these people would find other methods, and given that there are over 30,000 suicides per year it seems that about half of the people who end their own life manage without a firearm) seems to pale to the numbers of lives SAVED every year…and that’s not even factoring in more trivial issues like the enjoyment of shooting, hunting, and collecting, or the more complex social issue that nations that commit genocide on their own people always have a blanket prohibition of civilian firearms.
The antis have no response to this, and avoid it at all costs. Its the Elephant in the room. Guns do more good than harm, and gun control does more harm than good.
Those on the side against freedom want to do harm, and there is NO way in this day and age that they don’t know this.
That is evil!
h/t Sebastian
Agreed. Evil is the best word to describe them.
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Watch out for attempts to ban cars and garages if the gun suicide rate falls too much. We’ll also have to demonstrate a need for rope if we try to buy it.
Next they’ll advocate for a 3 day waiting period for Drano, just to be sure.
I don’t expect anyone to seriously propose regulating sale of rope, or Drano. These things are not scary. Guns are scary – and that’s why people want to ban them. You shouldn’t be allowed to own something I find scary, is the sentiment. (Like WB, I too used to be anti-gun.)
You ever read the warning labels on drain cleaner? There’s usually all manner of death described and a skull and crossbones to make the point clear. Arr, me hearties.
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