> One study found that when a gun is present in the home, that gun is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than to kill an intruder.
There's a world of difference between OP's own circumstances and a statistical household average.
If s/he lives outside of an urban area and his family has no history of mental illness, the number drops dramatically. And s/he would know his/her own circumstances.
One is an anecdote, the other is factual data. As someone else said, guns might be okay for someone's personal circumstances but on average they are far more likely to hurt you than help.
Someone thinks they know their own circumstances until they become a number contributing to that average. Also I'm curious about your distinction between urban gun access and rural access and how that affects the stats here.
> As someone else said, guns might be okay for someone's personal circumstances but on average they are far more likely to hurt you than help.
The comment I was responding to did not say this.
> Also I'm curious about your distinction between urban gun access and rural access and how that affects the stats here.
It's no secret that the gun deaths and shootings are far more likely in urban areas than rural ones. I think both sides of the debate acknowledge that.
I'm not a number contributing to an average, especially when it comes to a defensive use of a gun, because I didn't pull the trigger and no police report was made. I kept myself from becoming a statistic because I know my own circumstances. My body, my choice.
By the way, just s/gun/abortion/g and see if your arguments sound familiar.
yes, and the typical American family has 2.2 children.
first off, you didn't even cite the statistic correctly from the article:
> One study found that when a gun is present in the home, that gun is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than to kill an intruder.
it's talking about the gun being used (perhaps intentionally) to kill by anyone in the house, not just the owner.
the relevant statistic for someone seriously considering a gun for home defense would be in the cases where the weapon is properly stored, the owner trains regularly with it, and any plans for use of the gun during an intrusion are discussed with and understood by the family. it's a bit harder to find this data though...
There are multiple issues with quoting the statistic out of context:
* Even the article cites it as only a single study
* The wording of the statement implicitly includes suicide, which while non-negligible, are often conflated by gun control advocates without context. 60% of all adult gun deaths are by suicide
* You don't have to kill an intruder for the gun to be used successfully for self defense. You don't even have to pull the trigger. The context of comparing deaths as if they are equivalently valid ends is misleading
* A gun's purpose is not solely to kill intruders. Many people carry weapons concealed, which also provides value to them that is not strictly tied to killing intruders
And I'm probably missing several other misleading context, but the paper itself that's linked is behind a paywall.
No, guns do not make you violent. Being predisposed to violence and/or killing someone might make you decide to buy a gun, though.
What you quoted is that NPR-affiliate news blog's incorrect summary of a 1986 study of gunshot deaths in King County, WA from 1978-83. The paper abstract says:
"For every case of self-protection homicide involving a firearm, there were 1.3 accidental deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides, and 37 suicides."
Sample size was 50 homicides, 9 self-protection homicides, and only 2 of those by a resident against an intruder.
If you state it like that and consider that most thwarted home invasions do not end in death for the intruder, the narrative of the site you linked starts to fall apart. Studies like that tend to fall apart further when you look at exactly who was shooting who under what circumstances. How many "non-intruders" were really drugged out "family" members? Is it not okay to defend yourself if you know your attacker? "Family members" could be relatives living elsewhere and known to be dangerous, but who stop by uninvited. When studies cite "children", that can include older teen gang bangers (and gang bangers can be younger, too). The rhetorical tricks are legion.
Trying to impute homicidal impulses to people because they own a gun is simply ridiculous. You wonder why gun rights advocates get pissed off whenever any anti-gun stats or articles are tossed around? It's because they're almost always exaggerated, designed to mislead, and mis-attribute whether gun ownership or possession was the proximate cause of violence.
That the author of that WBUR blog post is still peddling an "assault weapon bad!" narrative indicates that they are not to be trusted. What those people really want is to ban all semi-autos with detachable magazines. If you could enforce it and not grandfather old guns, that might reduce mass shootings (or the number of deaths per). I can agree with that 100%. I only disagree that you could pass that law and that it could be enforced (without suspending the rest of the bill of rights). It would affect not just guns used in the Las Vegas mass shooting, but every single ordinary (non-revolver) semi-auto handgun owned commonly for self defense. They too use detachable mags of arbitrary size.
Any people using the emotional phrase "assault weapon", rather than talking honestly about banning functional characteristics like guns that accept detachable, potentially large magazines (you can't regulate magazines very well, you can 3d print ones that are good enough to be used for one mass shooting), are either not aware enough of the policy landscape to be offering an opinion, or they're intentionally writing misleading propaganda.
