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if you really want to protect the homestead, use a knife or a bat.
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Old Lady vs. Young Thug
Give them both knives - who wins?
Give them both baseball bats - who wins?
Give them both guns - who wins?
The gun is the equalizer. It gives the weak a fighting chance against the strong.
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Are you going to answer these questions?
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What's there to answer? I don't know you personally but if you are the average American then you overestimate your abilities with a gun and all your macho posturing is just that.
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Macho posturing? I'm asking about old ladies. Does the old lady have a better chance with a knife or with a gun?
What do you think the average criminal's proficency with a gun is like? Do you think most criminals spend a lot of time at the range?
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Simply put, I don't want idiots running around going vigilante because a bad guy + idiots running around chasing a bad guy with guns is more dangerous than one bad guy.
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Yeah, a bad guy with free reign isn't dangerous at all. And of course, that's exactly what we're talking about, "running around with guns". There are thousands of regular people ("idiots" in your terminology) who legally carry guns with permits in the US every day. How often do they just spontaneously shoot people? Answer: not very often.
But it's easier to spout emotion-charged diatribes than actual facts.
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Most critics cite statistics on deaths and gun types used, or the cost to society for injuries or deaths, but ignore the benefits. HCI, ( and others ) claim defensive guns are more likely to harm the owner than deter a criminal act. They often cite statistics from the US Department Of Justice National Crime Victimization Survey, (NCVS). This study has numerous faults, but chief among them is many crimes are not reported in the NCVS and the survey does not specifically ask about DGUs. Kleck and Gertz conducted an extensive study on defensive usage of guns.
In their study Kleck and Gertz carefully corrected mistakes in previous surveys by ensuring their sample only contained "civilian" DGUs against people and not animals. A fault common to all previous studies is respondents' reluctance to divulge data that could lead to prosecution, particularly in light of surveyors representing themselves as working for government. K & G studies eliminated cases with respondents seeking to "obscure" the data by not revealing all the details such as the type of crime being committed, if the respondent had actually confronted the criminal, fired a weapon, etc. They also eliminated police, military and professional security respondents .
Even after corrective factors eliminated almost 60% of the reported cases, Kleck and Gertz concluded there were in excess of 2.16 million DGUs per year . The K & G study found that only 1.125 percent of adults had used guns defensively an average of 1.472 times each during the five year period surveyed. In a population of almost 300 million, guns saved over 3 million individuals by the most conservative estimation. But the Kleck and Gertz study offers even more data we can use.
BASED UPON 2 MILLION DGUs PER YEAR:
1. Only 24% (480,000) reported firing their guns. This means 76% (1.52 million ) times the gun deterred crime merely by its presence.
2. Wounds occurred in less than 8% of the cases., or less than (300,000)
3. Most DGUs occurred in the home, 37% ( 740,000) vs 27% (540,000) away.
4. Property was lost in only 11% (220,000) cases. Guns successfully prevented theft in 89% of the cases or 1.74 million times.
5. In 84% (1.68 million), cases the perp displayed a weapon or attacked before the DGU. Eleven respondents reported using gun only after being injured by the attacker.
6. Only 18% (360,000) reported criminals armed with guns, but 53% (1.06 million) reported facing multiple assailants in DGU incidents.
7. Assailants had weapons other than guns 48% of the time, ( 960,000) in DGU cases. In 18% ( 360,000) of the cases the assailants were armed with guns.
From the statistics garnered by Kleck and Gertz we can conclude guns succeed in preventing crime. Defensive gun users only used guns as a last resort, often only after they were injured by their assailants.
Contrary to allegations by anti-gun activists of CC gun owners turning "vigilante" and acting like "Rambo", statistics show the opposite. They shoot less, kill fewer, and cause less incidental damage than police. Guns are extremely successful in preventing theft. They succeed almost 90% of the time, most often without being fired, or the thief injured.
Guns are effective against multiple assailants. Individuals reporting DGUs faced armed assailants over half of the time, often multiple assailants. Few of us can honestly say we could take on multiple unarmed assailants, let alone armed ones, and emerge whole. Women, the elderly and the handicapped face even greater risks of physical harm.
Finally, we can conclude guns save society money - over 2 million times a year. These statistics are based upon rigidly screened, reported DGUs. Crime data indicates unreported DGUs may well exceed 50% of reported incidents every year.
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Saying that increasing guns would prevent violence makes a lot of assumptions that there's no evidence for, a hell of a lot more assumptions than saying reducing guns would reduce violence.
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Because you say so?