Largest Ever Survey of American Gun Owners Defensive Gun Uses

Do you at least agree that law enforcement should be able to disarm people who are targets of restraining orders?

 

~ Only true if the women have a pistola ‐ or shotgun. ✔️

 

I don't think so. "Home defense" means your property (inside and outside).

"Sixty-two percent said they used such rifles for home defense, and 35 percent cited defense outside the home."

Either way, I am not buying it. I have no issues with people owning AR15s ( I own one myself), but I am not buying that 62% of the owners used them against people.

 

Not when the study includes guns brought to the homes by criminals.

The devil is always in the details.

https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/160/10/929/140858?login=false

...Blacks, persons less than 35 years of age or older than age 100 years, and persons who died from external causes of homicide, suicide, and unintentional injury were oversampled in this survey...

...Homicide victims were mostly male, less than 35 years of age, and of racial or ethnic minority status...

...Second, the gun in the home may not have been the gun used in the death. This possibility seems less likely with suicide, but, with homicide, it is certainly plausible that someone brought a gun into the home...

...with homicide, the association may be related to certain neighborhood characteristics or the decedent’s previous involvement in other violent or illegal behaviors...

...A larger proportion of homicide decedents than suicide decedents and those who died of other causes were drinking alcohol within 4 hours of death and used illicit drugs in the past year....

"Non-hispanic other" was nearly double "non-hispanic white".

"Firearm in the home" was 188 out of 490 cases. Yet somehow "firearm" was the method of homicide in 339 out of 490 cases.

"Drank alcohol within 4 hours of death" 117 of 490
"used illicit drugs in the last year" 102 of 490
"expressed a wish to die" 38 of 490
"suicidal ideation" 14 of 490
"symptoms of depression.." 23 of 490

Region of death "south" accounted for almost half of all cases.

What does this tell you?

We have a high rate of violence among minorities, criminals, drug users and alcoholics.

Also, please explain how there were 339 gun murders out of 490 homicides, when only 188 reported having a gun in or around the home?

 

First of all, what page of what study are you looking at.

Are you sure they're not citing WHY they bought them?

 

Generally, yes.

In the case where a restraining order has been granted after both parties have had the opportunity to appear before the judge granting the order and cause for the order has been established via due process, then absolutely.

In the case where a restraining order has been granted before both parties have had the opportunity to appear before the judge granting the order (which commonly happens upon any request for an order with no investigation for cause), I think a temporary seizure would be reasonable provided assurances are in place for a timely court appearance by both parties, and the seized property will be quickly, easily and at no cost returned to its owner if/when no cause for the order is found. This is very often not the case, especially in jurisdictions where the authorities (or just their superiors) would prefer to have more control over citizen gun rights. Given the commonality of people in certain states/municipalities having to submit to additional background checks and/or mental health analysis (sometimes at their own cost), proving legitimate ownership and/or actually having to hire a lawyer just so they can have their seized property returned even after no cause for the initial order is found, its clear that certain authorities are not above abusing restraining orders as a means to frustrate gun ownership within their municipalities. When/where this happens, I do not support being able to seize the guns of people with nothing but the word of someone who clearly has a bias against them without first the seizee having their say on the issue before the judge and some sort of investigation into the cited cause for the order being conducted. To be blunt, we can no longer (...if we ever could) just trust law enforcement or even the courts to act in good faith and respect civil rights, and in the balance between civil rights vs civil security, I always err on the side of rights over security.

 

I quoted from the article. It says 62% used them for home defense. I suppose "using" could mean they bought them in case they one day need them for home defense.

"Sixty-two percent said they used such rifles for home defense, and 35 percent cited defense outside the home."

It does also say this: "The self-reports of gun owners may not be entirely reliable, since they could be exaggerated, mistaken, or dishonest"

Now, THAT I can believe.

 

What page?

"Outside the home" could mean many things, such as people who use them on ranches/farms.

 

When you dig into it you discover there were 490 homicides in the sample.

188 reported having a gun in or near the home.

339 of the 490 homicides were committed with firearms.

How do you conclude that you're more likely to die with a firearm in the home when only 188 of 490 homicides had reported guns in the home?

Answer: they counted guns that weren't reported as being in the home.

 

It's a standard case-control study. A case group (homicide victims) was compared to a control group (living people). It was found that homicide victims were more likely to have lived in homes with guns than people in the control group.

 

Really?

How does one have 339 firearm homicides in a group of 490 where only 188 reported a gun in or around the home?

Show me a study where people have guns, aren't criminals, don't do drugs and didn't drink less than 4 hours before a shooting.

 

There were 209 gun homicides out of a total of 420 homicides.
https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/lit...images/img_medium/nejm199310073291506_t1.jpeg

45.4% of case subects lived in homes where guns were in kept compared to 35.8% in the control group.
https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/lit.../images/img_large/nejm199310073291506_t3.jpeg

 

Oh. Maybe this is a different study than the one I looked at.

I'm glad you posted this though, as the answers are right there in front of your face.

"Drinking caused problems in the household" 25% vs 6%

"illicit drugs" 31% vs 6%

"fights in home" 25% vs 3%

"household member arrested" 53% vs 23%


You have got to be kidding me.

You've compared criminals with guns to non-criminals with guns.

 

Can it? We know that homicide studies classify deaths from guns brought into the home solely for the immediately purpose of murder as "guns in the home", even if the residents were 100% sure that the home was gun free.

 

DGUs (fatal or non-fatal) are not resulting in a lower net violent victimization rate. They aren't stopping enough crimes for that to happen. Stop trying to move the goal posts.

 

And they can defend themselves easier if they have a gun and their attacker does not.

According to CDC data, 46% of adult female homicides victims from 1999 to 2020 were killed by means other than firearms. They aren't defending themselves very well against unarmed attackers intent on murder. It doesn't seem to matter what means a male attacker uses against women.

 

How do you know? How many armed victims are murdered?

 

How are you counting crimes that didn't happen?

 

~ John Lott calls those "magical statistics " ...

 

I'm not. I'm just looking at the net violent victimization rate.

 

If anything people like this said was true, then states like Idaho (with at least 50% firearm ownership in the home) would have above average homicide rates.

They don't.

There is no correlation.

Like I said, find me a study with gun owners who don't have rampant drug, alcohol, and arrests and I'll show you a study they won't want to publish.

 

Of people who use drugs, get into fights, have arrest records and drinking problems.

I imagine people like that do have a lot of shootings.

How many guns are in Idaho homes?

What's the homicide rate?

 

How do you know? There's no telling what would happen if a display or blandishment of a gun scared the criminal off.

I'm not moving anything - you're the one making up questionable connections between DGU and murder rates.

 

That's pure speculation on your part. I know by looking at the victimization rates.

Connection? It's more like lack of a connection since it doesn't appear that DGUs are lowering the murder rate.