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Data from a US mortality follow-back survey were analyzed to determine whether having a firearm in the home increases the risk of a violent death in the home and whether risk varies by storage practice, type of gun, or number of guns in the home. Those persons with guns in the home were at greater risk than those without guns in the home of dying from a homicide in the home (adjusted odds ratio = 1.9, 95% confidence interval: 1.1, 3.4). They were also at greater risk of dying from a firearm homicide, but risk varied by age and whether the person was living with others at the time of death. The risk of dying from a suicide in the home was greater for males in homes with guns than for males without guns in the home (adjusted odds ratio = 10.4, 95% confidence interval: 5.8, 18.9). Persons with guns in the home were also more likely to have died from suicide committed with a firearm than from one committed by using a different method (adjusted odds ratio = 31.1, 95% confidence interval: 19.5, 49.6). Results show that regardless of storage practice, type of gun, or number of firearms in the home, having a gun in the home was associated with an increased risk of firearm homicide and firearm suicide in the home.
* Guns are used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year—or about 6,850 times a day.(1) This means that each year, firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.(2)
* Even anti-gun Clinton researchers concede that guns are used 1.5 million times annually for self-defense. According to the Clinton Justice Department, there are as many as 1.5 million cases of self-defense with a firearm every year. The National Institute of Justice published this figure in 1997 as part of "Guns in America"—a study which was authored by noted anti-gun criminologists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig.(3)
* Concealed carry laws have reduced murder and crime rates in the states that have enacted them. According to a comprehensive study which reviewed crime statistics in every county in the United States from 1977 to 1992, states which passed concealed carry laws reduced their rate of murder by 8.5%, rape by 5%, aggravated assault by 7% and robbery by 3%.(4)
* Anti-gun journal pronounces the failure of the Brady law. One of the nation’s leading anti-gun medical publications, the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that the Brady registration law has failed to reduce murder rates. In August 2000, JAMA reported that states implementing waiting periods and background checks did "not [experience] reductions in homicide rates or overall suicide rates."(5)
* Twice as many children are killed playing football in school than are murdered by guns. That’s right. Despite what media coverage might seem to indicate, there are more deaths related to high school football than guns. In a recent three year period, twice as many football players died from hits to the head, heat stroke, etc. (45), as compared with students who were murdered by firearms (22) during that same time period.(6)
* More guns, less crime. In the decade of the 1990s, the number of guns in this country increased by roughly 40 million—even while the murder rate decreased by almost 40% percent.7 Accidental gun deaths in the home decreased by almost 40 percent as well.(8)
* CDC admits there is no evidence that gun control reduces crime. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has long been criticized for propagating questionable studies which gun control organizations have used in defense of their cause. But after analyzing 51 studies in 2003, the CDC concluded that the "evidence was insufficient to determine the effectiveness of any of these [firearms] laws."(9)
* Gun shows are NOT a primary source of illegal guns for criminals. According to two government studies, the National Institute of Justice reported in 1997 that "less than two percent [of criminals] reported obtaining [firearms] from a gun show."(10) And the Bureau of Justice Statistics revealed in 2001 that less than one percent of firearm offenders acquired their weapons at gun shows.(11)
* Several polls show that Americans are very pro-gun. Several scientific polls indicate that the right to keep and bear arms is still revered—and gun control disdained—by a majority of Americans today. To mention just a few recent polls:
* In 2002, an ABC News poll found that almost three-fourths of the American public believe that the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of "individuals" to own guns.(12)
* Zogby pollsters found that by a more than 3 to 1 margin, Americans support punishing "criminals who use a gun in the commission of a crime" over legislation to "ban handguns."(13)
* A Research 2000 poll found that 85% of Americans would find it appropriate for a principal or teacher to use "a gun at school to defend the lives of students" to stop a school massacre.(14)
* A study claiming "guns are three times more likely to kill you than help you" is a total fraud. Even using the low figures from the Clinton Justice Department, firearms are used almost 50 times more often to save life than to take life.(15) More importantly, however, the figure claiming one is three times more likely to be killed by one’s own gun is a total lie:
* Researcher Don Kates reveals that all available data now indicates that the "home gun homicide victims [in the flawed study] were killed using guns not kept in the victim's home."(16)
* In other words, the victims were NOT murdered with their own guns! They were killed "by intruders who brought their own guns to the victim's household."(17)
* Gun-free England not such a utopia after all. According to the BBC News, handgun crime in the United Kingdom rose by 40% in the two years after it passed its draconian gun ban in 1997.(18) And according to a United Nations study, British citizens are more likely to become a victim of crime than are people in the United States. The 2000 report shows that the crime rate in England is higher than the crime rates of 16 other industrialized nations, including the United States.(19) 2. Self-defense
A. Guns save more lives than they take; prevent more injuries than they inflict
* Guns are used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year—or about 6,850 times a day.(20) This means that each year, firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.(21)
* Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.(22)
* As many as 200,000 women use a gun every year to defend themselves against sexual abuse.(23)
* Even anti-gun Clinton researchers concede that guns are used 1.5 million times annually for self-defense. According to the Clinton Justice Department, there are as many as 1.5 million cases of self-defense with a firearm every year. The National Institute of Justice published this figure in 1997 as part of "Guns in America"—a study which was authored by noted anti-gun criminologists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig.(24)
* Armed citizens kill more crooks than do the police. Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606)(25). And readers of Newsweek learned that "only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The ‘error rate’ for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high."(26)
* Handguns are the weapon of choice for self-defense. Citizens use handguns to protect themselves over 1.9 million times a year.(27) Many of these self-defense handguns could be labeled as "Saturday Night Specials." B. Concealed carry laws help reduce crime
* Nationwide: one-half million self-defense uses. Every year, as many as one-half million citizens defend themselves with a firearm away from home.(28)
* Concealed carry laws are dropping crime rates across the country. A comprehensive national study determined in 1996 that violent crime fell after states made it legal to carry concealed firearms. The results of the study showed:
* States which passed concealed carry laws reduced their rate of murder by 8.5%, rape by 5%, aggravated assault by 7% and robbery by 3%;(29) and
* If those states not having concealed carry laws had adopted such laws in 1992, then approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000 aggravated assaults and over 11,000 robberies would have been avoided yearly.(30)
* Vermont: one of the safest five states in the country. In Vermont, citizens can carry a firearm without getting permission . . . without paying a fee . . . or without going through any kind of government-imposed waiting period. And yet for ten years in a row, Vermont has remained one of the top-five, safest states in the union—having three times received the "Safest State Award."(31)
* Florida: concealed carry helps slash the murder rate in the state. In the fifteen years following the passage of Florida's concealed carry law in 1987, over 800,000 permits to carry firearms were issued to people in the state.(32) FBI reports show that the homicide rate in Florida, which in 1987 was much higher than the national average, fell 52% during that 15-year period—thus putting the Florida rate below the national average.(33)
* Do firearms carry laws result in chaos? No. Consider the case of Florida. A citizen in the Sunshine State is far more likely to be attacked by an alligator than to be assaulted by a concealed carry holder.
* During the first fifteen years that the Florida law was in effect, alligator attacks outpaced the number of crimes committed by carry holders by a 229 to 155 margin.(34)
* And even the 155 "crimes" committed by concealed carry permit holders are somewhat misleading as most of these infractions resulted from Floridians who accidentally carried their firearms into restricted areas, such as an airport.(35)
* Concealed Carry v. Waiting Period Laws. In 1976, both Georgia and Wisconsin tried two different approaches to fighting crime. Georgia enacted legislation making it easier for citizens to carry guns for self-defense, while Wisconsin passed a law requiring a 48 hour waiting period before the purchase of a handgun. What resulted during the ensuing years? Georgia's law served as a deterrent to criminals and helped drop its homicide rate by 21 percent. Wisconsin's murder rate, however, rose 33 percent during the same period.(36) C. Criminals avoid armed citizens
* Kennesaw, GA. In 1982, this suburb of Atlanta passed a law requiring heads of households to keep at least one firearm in the house. The residential burglary rate subsequently dropped 89% in Kennesaw, compared to the modest 10.4% drop in Georgia as a whole.(37)
* Ten years later (1991), the residential burglary rate in Kennesaw was still 72% lower than it had been in 1981, before the law was passed.(38)
* Nationwide. Statistical comparisons with other countries show that burglars in the United States are far less apt to enter an occupied home than their foreign counterparts who live in countries where fewer civilians own firearms. Consider the following rates showing how often a homeowner is present when a burglar strikes:
* Homeowner occupancy rate in the gun control countries of Great Britain, Canada and Netherlands: 45% (average of the three countries); and,
* Homeowner occupancy rate in the United States: 12.7%.(39) Rapes averted when women carry or use firearms for protection
* Orlando, FL. In 1966-67, the media highly publicized a safety course which taught Orlando women how to use guns. The result: Orlando’s rape rate dropped 88% in 1967, whereas the rape rate remained constant in the rest of Florida and the nation.(40)
* Nationwide. In 1979, the Carter Justice Department found that of more than 32,000 attempted rapes, 32% were actually committed. But when a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of the attempted rapes were actually successful.(41) Justice Department study:
* 3/5 of felons polled agreed that "a criminal is not going to mess around with a victim he knows is armed with a gun."(42)
* 74% of felons polled agreed that "one reason burglars avoid houses when people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime."(43)
* 57% of felons polled agreed that "criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police."(44) D. Police cannot protect—and are not required to protect—every individual
* The courts have consistently ruled that the police do not have an obligation to protect individuals, only the public in general. For example, in Warren v. D.C. the court stated "courts have without exception concluded that when a municipality or other governmental entity undertakes to furnish police services, it assumes a duty only to the public at large and not to individual members of the community."(45)
* Former Florida Attorney General Jim Smith told Florida legislators that police responded to only about 200,000 of 700,000 calls for help to Dade County authorities. Smith was asked why so many citizens in Dade County were buying guns and he said, "They damn well better, they've got to protect themselves."(46)
* The Department of Justice found that in 1989, there were 168,881 crimes of violence which were not responded to by police within 1 hour.(47)
* The numbers clearly show that the police cannot protect every individual. In 1996, there were about 150,000 police officers on duty at any one time to protect a population of more than 260 million Americans—or more than 1,700 citizens per officer.(48)
3. Failure of Gun Control
A. Poor track record
* Washington, D.C. has, perhaps, the most restrictive gun control laws in the country, and yet it is frequently the Murder Capital of the nation. In the 25 years following the DC gun ban, its murder rate INCREASED 51 percent, even while the national rate DECREASED 36 percent.(49)
* Objection: Critics claim criminals merely get their guns in Virginia where the laws are more relaxed. This, they argue, is why the D.C. gun ban is not working.
* Answer: Perhaps criminals do get their guns in Virginia, but this overlooks one point: If the availability of guns in Virginia is the root of D.C.’s problems, why does Virginia not have the same murder and crime rate as the District? Virginia is awash in guns and yet the murder rate is much, much lower. This holds true even for Virginia’s urban areas, as seen by the following comparison on the 25-year anniversary of the DC gun ban (in 2001):
First, thank you, DCforever for posting once again the long-known and well documented truth about the effect of ownership of personal firearms.
That highlighted statement in the second referenced post is not even remotely believable...and wouldn't be believable at 10% of those numbers. It's good for a laugh, though, at the lengths to which the gun lobby will go to lure the ignorant to their neanderthal agenda.
Folks, this is not a liberal/conservative issue. DCforever and I wholeheartedly agree on the subject of guns and the disease with which they infect the homes, the streets, and yes, the minds of America. That despite DCforever being about as liberal as there is as and my being about as conservative as there is on most major issues. Thus we strongly disagree on almost everything else and yet see eye-to-eye on guns. So does everyone else who is uninfected.
The majority of those who still cling to the archaic notion of a population individually armed with deadly weapons were infected at a very young age. Just like the woman in this case, as has been reported, they "grew up" with guns. And yes, I said infected and I meant infected....because it is a disease. And it has been passed from one generation to the next, just like child/spousal abuse and religious extremism has, for centuries.
Going forward, civilized men and women from one end of the political spectrum to the other who are fortunate enough to grow to adulthood free of daily exposure to "gun rights" fanaticism will see the gun culture for the madness that it is.
Gun folks today see a gun-soaked, blood soaked culture as normal for exactly the same reason radical muslims see stoning an "adulterous" woman to death as normal. Sadly, we will move forward only at a snail's pace. But move forward and away from this savagery we will.
This accident was due to the stupidity of a gun nut. Funny, I've been alive for 48 years and never in that time have I been in a situation where a gun was needed. If you think you need a loaded gun on you at all times in all places, then you're a paranoid nut And carrying a loaded gun all the time around a 2 year old? That's just stupid.
We finally agree on something....
In my case, 65 years and I have never, not once, needed or wanted a gun.
it doesn't matter if he remembers himself or is told about it. if he does remember it will be even harder for him. if he is told about it, he will still be traumatized
I don't know if he will actually be traumatized. Depends upon how the others around him handle it, I suppose. Will his siblings or other relatives blame him for their mother's death? THAT could be traumatizing. It will certainly make him unique and give him a lifelong story to tell. Not many people can claim to have shot their own mother as a toddler!
In my case, 65 years and I have never, not once, needed or wanted a gun.
56, same here. I told someone once (on another message board) that I had never fired a gun, and he didn't believe me. He said it was not possible for someone to live in the United States and have never fired a gun. I thought that was one of the weirdest things anyone ever said. My mother is 86. I doubt she has ever touched a firearm in her life.
Since that conversation, I DID fire a shotgun when visiting my sister in the Poconos one winter. My BIL had everyone watch an NRA gun-safety video, then we (another sister, my daughter, two nieces) all went out into the woods and he showed us how to use the shotguns and we fired at clay pigeons.
The statistics all say that the guns that your small petite daughters carry on them or keep in their homes are more likely to be used against them than against an attacker. That's not me saying that. That is statistical data from a large sampling. Argue with the people who collate the data. Makes sense though. I mean, I'm hanged as to how a small petite woman is going to pull a gun from her purse while some six foot four piece of recidivist sex predator has his arm clamped around her neck. Seems to me the smart petite woman does not go into dodgy situations un-escorted. She locks her doors and windows and performs other kinds of preventive maintenance. She would be better served learning close quarters defensive martial arts than firearms proficiency. Guns are offensive armament. If you have a chance to use one defensively your attacker is incompetent! And many are. So that's the gamble you want your daughters to take with their propriety? That their attacker will be so inept that despite having had the drop on them initially, he will allow them to twist free from his grip, get their gun into firing position and nail him with a well placed center of mass kill shot? Ok... whatever works for you. Sadly, it likely will. Odds are your daughters will never have to fire a shot in anger. They may never even have to deal with the pain and grief of a firearms related accident in their home. But others will. Lots of others. Like 100,000 others every year. Just numbers right. Easy to write off. They were stupid. You aren't. Your kids aren't. So screw the rest of them. They weren't worthy. This whole thread is a negation of that young mother because she makes gun owners look bad. The only ones standing up for her are those of us who don't think that any of us need guns in our purses in the first place.
H
For every story you can post where a gun was taken from its owner and used against them, I will post three that the gun was successfully used in self defense. It doesn't happen nearly as often as your biased resource suggests.
First, thank you, DCforever for posting once again the long-known and well documented truth about the effect of ownership of personal firearms.
That highlighted statement in the second referenced post is not even remotely believable...and wouldn't be believable at 10% of those numbers. It's good for a laugh, though, at the lengths to which the gun lobby will go to lure the ignorant to their neanderthal agenda.
Folks, this is not a liberal/conservative issue. DCforever and I wholeheartedly agree on the subject of guns and the disease with which they infect the homes, the streets, and yes, the minds of America. That despite DCforever being about as liberal as there is as and my being about as conservative as there is on most major issues. Thus we strongly disagree on almost everything else and yet see eye-to-eye on guns. So does everyone else who is uninfected.
The majority of those who still cling to the archaic notion of a population individually armed with deadly weapons were infected at a very young age. Just like the woman in this case, as has been reported, they "grew up" with guns. And yes, I said infected and I meant infected....because it is a disease. And it has been passed from one generation to the next, just like child/spousal abuse and religious extremism has, for centuries.
Going forward, civilized men and women from one end of the political spectrum to the other who are fortunate enough to grow to adulthood free of daily exposure to "gun rights" fanaticism will see the gun culture for the madness that it is.
Gun folks today see a gun-soaked, blood soaked culture as normal for exactly the same reason radical muslims see stoning an "adulterous" woman to death as normal. Sadly, we will move forward only at a snail's pace. But move forward and away from this savagery we will.
I grew up with guns in the house. As a ten year old I used to play with my father's loaded 45 when the adults were not home. In the military I was required to maintain qualification on the 45 because we had nuclear weapons on the ship. I never had trouble staying qualified. I used to hunt. As an adult i realize there is really no sport in deer hunting, that in 65 years I've never, even in the military, been in the situation where a gun would have been useful, and I observe a lot of people who own guns and lack the training to properly use them. Periodically I'll be with someone who shoots and we will end up on a range and shoot. It's reasonable entertainment, but that doesn't make me want to keep a gun in my home.
I've live for 35 years in Washington DC and I can tell you that if you ever find yourself in a situation in DC where having a gun makes a difference to your safety, you've already made about five critical errors. Focus on not making those errors and you don't need to consider being armed.
I've live for 35 years in Washington DC and I can tell you that if you ever find yourself in a situation in DC where having a gun makes a difference to your safety, you've already made about five critical errors. Focus on not making those errors and you don't need to consider being armed.
You are making way too much sense in this thread. Rock on.
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And carrying a loaded gun all the time around a 2 year old? That's just stupid.
