Choirboys They Are Not
by Larry Pratt
When I debated a representative from the Brady Campaign recently,
like clockwork, one of the most disreputable pieces of "research"
was presented as fact. Namely, "If you have a gun in your home you
are 22 times more likely to be injured by it than kill an attacker."
There are two important fallacies in this statement. Students of
self-defense have found that as much as 95 percent of the time all
that is necessary to change an attacker's mind is to brandish a gun.
Even if the criminal has one, he is likely to leave when he sees his
victim pointing a gun back at him. Killing an attacker is hardly
the only measure of a successful defensive gun use.
Secondly, two-thirds of the victims of crime who end up getting
killed or assaulted have a criminal background themselves, and
nearly 60 percent of the victims know (or knew) their assailant.
These data published by the San Francisco Firearm Injury Reporting
System for the year 1999 suggest that a lot of crime in this country
involves thug-on-thug violence.
The San Francisco data also report that nearly two-thirds of the
wounded criminals broke the law within two years.
Criminals who were shot suffered multiple gunshot wounds twice as
often as good guy victims. This suggests that the criminals who
were victims were shot over a "business" matter in their criminal
enterprise. In other words, their competitor(s) really wanted them
out of the criminal market. Victims with a criminal history were
injured as a result of a robbery twice as often as those without a
criminal history.
The anti-self-defense lobby wants us to think that guns make good
guys go bad. As we can see from just the San Francisco data, most
crime victims are far from being choirboys. And of course, other
data tell us that their attackers are not in the choir either.
A Philadelphia think tank (Public/Private Ventures) conducted a
survey of individuals who were arrested for murder in that city
during 1996-1999. The survey found that 90 percent of the suspected
murderers had a criminal history.
Don Kates, in an article entitled "Do Guns Cause Crime?" (Center for
History and News Media, July 2, 2002), reports that "Though only 15%
of Americans have criminal records, roughly 90 percent of adult
murderers have adult records, with an average career of six or more
adult crimes, including four major felonies."
If you ever fall afoul of one of these "choirboys," it would be
better for you to have a gun in spite of the chatterers at the Brady
Center. As Gary Kleck reports in his book Point Blank,
non-resisters to violent attack are two and a half times more likely
to be injured than one resisting with a gun.
Don't shoot real choirboys, but watch out for the guy with the rap
sheet.
by Larry Pratt
When I debated a representative from the Brady Campaign recently,
like clockwork, one of the most disreputable pieces of "research"
was presented as fact. Namely, "If you have a gun in your home you
are 22 times more likely to be injured by it than kill an attacker."
There are two important fallacies in this statement. Students of
self-defense have found that as much as 95 percent of the time all
that is necessary to change an attacker's mind is to brandish a gun.
Even if the criminal has one, he is likely to leave when he sees his
victim pointing a gun back at him. Killing an attacker is hardly
the only measure of a successful defensive gun use.
Secondly, two-thirds of the victims of crime who end up getting
killed or assaulted have a criminal background themselves, and
nearly 60 percent of the victims know (or knew) their assailant.
These data published by the San Francisco Firearm Injury Reporting
System for the year 1999 suggest that a lot of crime in this country
involves thug-on-thug violence.
The San Francisco data also report that nearly two-thirds of the
wounded criminals broke the law within two years.
Criminals who were shot suffered multiple gunshot wounds twice as
often as good guy victims. This suggests that the criminals who
were victims were shot over a "business" matter in their criminal
enterprise. In other words, their competitor(s) really wanted them
out of the criminal market. Victims with a criminal history were
injured as a result of a robbery twice as often as those without a
criminal history.
The anti-self-defense lobby wants us to think that guns make good
guys go bad. As we can see from just the San Francisco data, most
crime victims are far from being choirboys. And of course, other
data tell us that their attackers are not in the choir either.
A Philadelphia think tank (Public/Private Ventures) conducted a
survey of individuals who were arrested for murder in that city
during 1996-1999. The survey found that 90 percent of the suspected
murderers had a criminal history.
Don Kates, in an article entitled "Do Guns Cause Crime?" (Center for
History and News Media, July 2, 2002), reports that "Though only 15%
of Americans have criminal records, roughly 90 percent of adult
murderers have adult records, with an average career of six or more
adult crimes, including four major felonies."
If you ever fall afoul of one of these "choirboys," it would be
better for you to have a gun in spite of the chatterers at the Brady
Center. As Gary Kleck reports in his book Point Blank,
non-resisters to violent attack are two and a half times more likely
to be injured than one resisting with a gun.
Don't shoot real choirboys, but watch out for the guy with the rap
sheet.