1747

I don’t think the data exists. If firearms are the only things standing between 60-year olds and routine home invasions, then I’m at a loss to explain how my parents and grandparents survive without them.

At the very least, you’re going to need to count up cases like the one you linked, count up the ones where someone was shot accidentally, and see which one is higher.

As it happens (and I didn’t know this when I wrote my previous sentence), someone has done that study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9715182)

Result:

During the study interval (12 months in Memphis, 18 months in Seattle, and Galveston) 626 shootings occurred in or around a residence. This total included 54 unintentional shootings, 118 attempted or completed suicides, and 438 assaults/homicides. Thirteen shootings were legally justifiable or an act of self-defense, including three that involved law enforcement officers acting in the line of duty. For every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides.

Guns kept in homes are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal accidental shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.

1748

I actually kind of enjoyed reading that. Obviously he cherry-picked the bits of firearm law that look silliest when applied to cars, just like this guy picked the bits of automobile law that look the best when applied to firearms. Entertaining nonetheless.

1749

Sure, but that ignores any non-shooting use of a firearm in self-defense, or a non-reported shooting. It’s also heavily skewed towards the urban experience, but I suppose that’s just where we’re going as a country.

Current best estimate of how often a defensive use is just brandishing (which I point out is a crime everywhere) is between 70 and 80%. That’s from researchers antagonistic to Lott’s 98% and Kleck’s followup 95%. The NCVS hit the middle mark of 1,000,000 DGUs between Lott’s aggregate number of 2-2.5 million and the low end of 100,000 by, IIRC, a Brady-sponsored survey. I don’t know if you accept those studies, however.

1750

Yeah, most of it came from the wacky 1994 AWB rules and the insane labyrinth you have to navigate to buy a fully automatic weapon. I will say that Feinstein’s proposal is that all guns be registered that way, though.

1751

Personally I am a bit baffled by what processes in the liberal influencer groups lead to this single-minded focus on dicking around with the same-old same-old like gun component regulations, much less gun registration. There was so little possible for so long they have nothing else in the pipeline? On what planet are these things going to have a noticeable effect?

1752

Planet MyWallet, unfortunately. Meanwhile, from the “you’re not helping” file:

1753

One of the men told the station that he hoped people would approach him and talk to him, instead of calling police.

Gosh, I can’t imagine what went wrong with that plan. People must just be shy.

1754

One of the things that makes non-shooting defensive gun use difficult to assess (at least for me) is the angle of neccesity and but-for causation: it’s difficult to assess if the gun had a causative effect in any reported scenario.

Take the self-reporting, phone survey studies. A respondent reports an incident in which they heard/saw a guy in their backyard. They turn on the porch lights and brandish a gun the guy runs. Was the guy necessary/caustive there to the successful self-defense? I don’t know.

Basically, I think it’s really hard to parse the percentage of brandishing defensive gun uses that actually prevented a crime.

Admittedly, maybe the gun gave the gun owner the confidence to turn on the porch light (which is probably enough to chase of the potential prowler). Tough topic to judge with accuracy.

1755

And what gun safety class teaches you to brandish the gun?

Logically and practically that is not geared towards a successful gun defense, because he who shoots first wins.

So, your options are:

  1. Brandish a gun and get shot for it.
  2. Pull out your gun and start shooting.

I was taught #2 (and waiting until an imminent threat to life was present).

1756

And much like Gunny said to Private Pyle, “If it weren’t for people like you there’d be no goddamned thievery in this world!” Good lights, doors, and locks would go a long long way towards stopping quite a bit of crime. I’ve never said that it’s a clear-cut topic, which is why I like having the freedom of choice when it comes to ownership. I’m a touch libertarian on the issue, I’ll admit, sound of heads exploding in Europe but I’m confident in my abilities, don’t have children, and have a good safe.

1757

Sure, but “the quickest draw is already having a gun in your hand.” I wouldn’t want to second-guess a situation as chaotic as a home break-in or attempted assault.

1758

I am certainly going to second guess that ‘80% of successful gun defenses are brandishes’

Either one of two things is going on here.

  1. Brandishes are wildly over-reported and estimated. Which would mean that gun defenses are also wildly over-reported and estimated.

or . . .

Yeah, really, I’ve got no other explanation I would care to defend. If people are using guns in defense, more bad guys should be getting shot on a daily basis, and that’s just not happening.

(Or at a bare minimum, more shots should be fired and reported, and that is not happening)

1759

I’m reading brandish as anytime some gunowner goes investigating something suspicious and: brings their gun with them, no shots fired, no crime occurs. Tick! Chalk one up to successful defensive use of gun.

Hence, my point above on it being hard to tell if the gun played any role.

If brandish really means prominently wave your gun around, I get your point.

1760

NRA Gun Control Crusade Reflects Firearms Industry Financial Ties

It’s HuffPo, so you can guess its biases before you even click the link; plus they can’t be bothered to get basic firearms terminology correct (like clips vs magazines). Nevertheless, it reinforces what others have said - as well as my own belief - that the NRA is no longer an advocacy group defending the 2nd Amendment rights of American gun owners. Instead, it’s a thinly-veiled lobbying arm of the firearms industry whose primary objectives are to (A) keep gun sales as unregulated as possible and (B) make gun owners as paranoid as possible about “the gov’t is gonna take yur gunz!!1!” - partly so they’ll fight every conceivable gun-control law tooth-n-nail, partly to drive up sales. Nothing is better for the firearms industry’s bottom line than having a Democrat in the White House…except perhaps having a Democrat in the White House after something as horrific as Sandy Hook. :-(

The sooner people realize the NRA defends profit margins not individual rights, the sooner we can have a rational debate about reasonable gun-control laws (knock on wood).

Some quotes:

In the last two decades, however, the deep-pocketed NRA has increasingly relied on the support of another constituency: the $12-billion-a-year gun industry, made up of manufacturers and sellers of firearms, ammunition and related wares. That alliance was sealed in 2005, when Congress, after heavy NRA lobbying, approved a measure that gave gunmakers and gun distributors broad, and unprecedented, immunity from a wave of liability lawsuits related to gun violence in America’s cities.

It was a turning point for both the NRA and the industry, both of which recognized the mutual benefits of a partnership. That same year, the NRA also launched a lucrative new fundraising drive to secure “corporate partners” that’s raked in millions from the gun industry to boost its operations.

According to a 2012 poll conducted by GOP pollster Frank Luntz for Mayors Against Illegal Guns, 74 percent of NRA members support mandatory background checks for all gun purchases, a position that the NRA has stridently opposed. “There’s a big difference between the NRA’s rank and file and the NRA’s Washington lobbyists, who live and breathe for a different purpose,” Mark Glaze, the executive director of the gun control group, said.

Following the passage of the shield law that dismembered those lawsuits, the NRA launched a new fundraising drive targeting firearms companies the organization had just helped in a big way. That effort, dubbed “Ring of Freedom,” paid off handsomely. Since 2005, the NRA drive has pulled in $14.7 million to $38.9 million from dozens of gun industry giants, including Beretta USA, Glock and Sturm, Ruger, according to a 2011 study by the Violence Policy Center, a group that favors gun control.

The Violence Policy Center study cited an NRA promotional brochure about the corporate partnership drive, noting that LaPierre promised that “this program is geared towards your company’s corporate interests.”

1761

http://www.stat.duke.edu/~dalene/chance/chanceweb/103.myth0.pdf

Explains why the self reported gun defenses are so susceptible to misrepresentation much better than I can.

.6% of those surveyed by phone believed they had been in contact with aliens, which translates to 1.2 million Americans.

1762

So, the Constitution gives Americans the right to “keep and bear arms.”

Does that include the right to buy and own ammunition for said arms? Why not go after it from that angle? Way higher taxes on ammo and limited ability to purchase.

Furthermore, does the right to own a gun also give owners the Constitutional right to fire them?

1763

I’m pretty sure any court that upheld the right to bear arms would say that ammo is generally part of the arms.

Obviously, there’s no constitutional right to fire them. We have laws that already say in what circumstances you may discharge a firearm.

1764

Yes, but how does that compare to general threatening confrontations? That’s the sort of data I’d need to see…

1765

While academically hilarious, the Supreme Court isn’t that stupid.

1766

Op-ed piece from Pravda: