"guns stop crime X million times per year"

Skribs said:

Regarding the statistic in the subject line, that guns are used so many million times in self defense or to prevent crime, what exactly qualifies as "used" in the subject line? just was curious at how that statistic came about.

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Do you have a link or can you provide more info on where you got that stat?

What Jed said. Or buy yourself a copy of More Guns Less Crime by John R. Lott, Jr.
ISBN-13 987-0-226-49366-4
ISBN-10 0-266-49366-0

Fascinating book, and it addresses your question very well.

Gary Kleck

Study of firearms used to prevent crime. University of Miami.

Get a copy of Kleck and read it.

IIRC Kleck in his 1995 study defined "Defense gun use" ( DGU ) as either the shooting of or at a BG or in someway referring or showing a gun to scare off a BG.

Did not include instances where BGs decided to not attempt a crime because they knew or suspected that someone had a gun.

I'm not asking for the whole story, just what constitutes "used in self defense" or "used to stop crime"

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Claimed numbers aside, I'd have to say that the presence of a gun...whether fired or not, or even drawn or not...that prevents a crime from being committed, then it counts.

I'd even go so far as to say that the possibility of a gun being available that causes the would-be criminal to rethink his options would factor into the stats even though those numbers would be difficult to verify.

As Heinlen noted: "An armed society is a polite society."

for an incident to be treated as a genuine DGU: (1) the incident involved defensive action against a human rather than an animal, but not in connection with police, military, or security guard duties; (2) the incident involved actual contact with a person, rather than merely investigating suspicious circumstances, etc.; (3) the defender could state a specific crime which he thought was being committed at the time of the incident; (4) the gun was actually used in some way--at a minimum it had to be used as part of a threat against a person, either by verbally referring to the gun (e.g., "get away--I've got a gun") or by pointing it at an adversary.

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http://www.guncite.com/gcdgklec.html

Tuner said " I'd even go so far as to say that the possibility of a gun being available that causes the would-be criminal to rethink his options would factor into the stats "

I thought of Kenesaw, Ga. and the mandatory gun law they have. Their low crime stats would support what Tuner said.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/04/18/us-usa-crime-shooting-town-idUSN1719257620070418

I know I'm afraid of getting shot, and they never asked me.So, they're off a hair I guess.

The numbers vary greatly. I already have posted the raw numbers for this sort of thing though.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=658360

Skribs said:

Regarding the statistic in the subject line, that guns are used so many million times in self defense or to prevent crime, what exactly qualifies as "used" in the subject line? Does it include:

-People who drew (whether or not they fired) and the bad guy stopped the attack?
-Times when the bad guy knew there would be a gun involved (open carry, sign on the door saying "survivors will be shot again", etc.) and chose a different target
-Times when a bad guy thought there might be a gun involved and decided to do something less reckless

Or of course anything else I'm missing. I just was curious at how that statistic came about.

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Depends on who you ask.

I generally think of a DGU as discussed by John Lott

Best statistics I can find say that if you are attacked, and pull out a firearm, 93% of the time your attacker will flee. So I suppose that most DGUs do not involve firing a weapon. It also means that having a cartridge with adequate stopping power only matters 7% of the time. Even so, I really like my snubby 41 Mag.

This study by the Cato Institute "Tough Targets: When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens" Was published very recently and suggests something like 2 million crimes per year are stopped or prevented by armed citizens.

http://www.cato.org/store/reports/tough-targets-when-criminals-face-armed-resistance-citizens

There was a thread on this report but I cannot find it right now. My search fu is weak today.

I've posted this link several times, but here ya' go..the JustFacts page on guns is AMAZING:

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

Best statistics I can find say that if you are attacked, and pull out a firearm, 93% of the time your attacker will flee. So I suppose that most DGUs do not involve firing a weapon. It also means that having a cartridge with adequate stopping power only matters 7% of the time.

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Of that remaining 7 percent of cases, how many resulted in the attacker actually being shot? In many of them, shots are fired, but no one is hit, and the attacker then flees or surrenders. Then, in many of the yet-remaining cases, shots are fired, the attacker is hit but not disabled, and then chooses to flee or surrender (regardless of the caliber used.)
And, of course, you have those cases in which the attacker is shot, and is immediately disabled or killed. leaving impossible any speculation as to whether or not he would have continued his attack after being fired on had he survived.
So, is it strategically important to carry a gun chambered in an "effective" caliber if carrying a gun at all? I certainly believe so. However, I can find few, if any, cases of defensive uses of firearms by law-abiding citizens against random attackers in which the caliber used can be proven to have made the difference in whether or not the threat was actually stopped.
Sure, many attackers have been killed or otherwise neutralized by "effective" calibers, but there isn't really any way to know if those attackers would have surrendered, fled, been neutralized, or otherwise ceased to be a threat if "lesser" calibers had been used.

Claimed numbers aside, I'd have to say that the presence of a gun...whether fired or not, or even drawn or not...that prevents a crime from being committed, then it counts.

I'd even go so far as to say that the possibility of a gun being available that causes the would-be criminal to rethink his options would factor into the stats even though those numbers would be difficult to verify.

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That fits with the notion of "more guns less crime" but the problem there is that more guns don't reduce crime and don't reduce violent crime, not at the community, state, or regional level. Guns do increase the capability of people with guns to protect themselves, however, and that is that real statistic that matters.

As Heinlen noted: "An armed society is a polite society."

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I would hardly want to base my carry decision on an out of context catch phrase from a fictional book about a utopian society that has never existed, especially when the phrase is extended to be more contextually complete...

An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.

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Who would want to live their life in fear that if they said something that was found to be offensive by another that they might have to back up that statement with a gun? The offended person may take societally-justified actions to terminate the offender's life via a duel? Dueling, which can obviously result in death, is hardly a reasonable manner in which to handle simple transgressions of manners. It is barbaric. Of course if we lived in Heinlen's society right now, you likely would be challenging me to a duel.

In reality, being armed doesn't make society more polite. Think Somalia.

So no, an armed society does not make for a polite society and even if it did, it would mean living in constant fear of being killed as the result of something as simple as misspoken words could trigger the event that ends your life.

Heinlen's work is a work of fiction, sci-fiction of the day, and the parameters of his society and how well it works are equally fictional.

"guns stop crime X million times per year"

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If guns don't cause crime, how can we say they stop crime? Fact is, they don't. Good people stop crimes using the best means available to them.

I would hardly want to base my carry decision on an out of context catch phrase from a fictional book about a utopian society that has never existed,

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Well put. I refrain from commenting on many signatures here that take snippets from history that are presented as justification for gun-ownership. I'm fine with the gun part, I just cringe at how some - in effect - rewrite history to support their desired take on matters. If you research some of the quotes used to support gun-rights, they're either taken out of context or specific words are removed or changed to bend the quote to what's desired. Gun-ownership isn't a religion... well maybe it is, but we shouldn't have to stoop to creating "facts" on which to base it. I'll sit down now.

Just for context, Heinleins' society in the book of the quote was a genetically based close to tyranny. People were discriminated against based on such classifications. Women were seen as inferior. The hero, in fact, was thinking about giving up OC as he thought the honor culture was stupid. He later decided not to.

Wasn't a pleasant place with shoot outs over spilled soup in high end restaurants?

As Frank mentions, Kleck and Lott are controversial - even among progun scholars due to methodological issues. Kleck seems better grounded than Lott, though.

If you quote each, better be sure you know this literature as a well read anti could give you much trouble.

Low end estimates by antis are about 100K a year but methodology to determine this stinks.



Heilein had some strange ideas to be an icon of social values.