More Guns, Less Crime

[warpedskydiver 0]

# More Guns, Less Crime (ISBN 0-226-49364-4)
# The Bias Against Guns (ISBN 0-89526-114-6)
# Straight Shooting (ISBN-10: 0936783478)

I wanted to see if he had numbers that showed if a particular type or caliber of firearm was more likely to protect you. Sadly, he did not have these numbers - but did point out that 90% of the time simply brandishing the gun worked, thus caliber wouldn't make much difference.

Then I asked if had the numbers that showed how likely you were to still get hurt even if you used a gun for self defense. These numbers would show when peoples tactics, aim, or choice of fire arm failed. Well I found the numbers, and as you can see its pretty low.

And one thing we can all agree on - any gun is better than none. Put some thought into the gun you use to defend your home. If you want to blow the budget for a SWAT team on arms, go ahead. If you have an Model 12 or 870 with some buckshot or your trusty side arm - odds are you will be OK if the time comes you need it.

So - below is the numbers and the article on the page he referred me too.

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johnrlott.tripod.com/other/NCVS.html

Discussion by Brian Blase

The National Crime Victimization (NCV) Survey from part of the 1990s (extracted from Table 7.1 of Armed by Gary Kleck and Don Kates) shows injury rates (pre-self protection and post- self protection) for crime victims who take a variety of self protective actions. The actions range from attacking the offender with a gun to yelling at offender and turning on lights to taking no self protection measures at all. A recent improvement in the NCV Survey allows analysts to separately identify injuries inflicted after the victim engaged in some form of self-protection. When investigating whether the self-protection measures are effective at reducing the likelihood of injury, it is necessary to compare the post-self protection injury rates for the different strategies with the injury rate when no self protection measure is taken.

Taking the examples of confrontational robbery and assault shows an interesting story. After the self-protection method was employed, the rate of sustaining injury or further injury was lower in every instance than was the rate of sustaining injury when no self-protection measure was employed at all. Note that aggravated assaults are much more common than robbery. Data covering a longer period of time makes an even stronger case for defensive gun use.


Percent Injured after Self Protection Action - Robbery - Assault
Any SP with gun 7.7% 3.6%
Chased, tried to catch O 9.6% 9.0%
Ran/drove away; tried to 4.9% 5.4%
Screamed from pain, fear 22.0% 12.6%
Threatened O without weapon 5.8% 13.6%
No SP measures at all 23.6% 55.2%

Note: SP = self protection, O = offender

[warpedskydiver 0]

I found this and thought it would provide a nice discussion.