Guns Save Lives
If you get your news from the major news networks or newspapers, you are probably under the impression that 99% of a time that a gun is used, it is used to murder somebody in the course of committing some crime, or just because the shooter could no longer adjust to their life and went crazy. However, consider these statistics:
- A study by the Justice Department of violent crime during 2008 found about 436,000 assaults, robberies, sexual assaults, rapes, and murder committed by gun-wielding criminals.
- But studies put the rate of defensive gun use (i.e., resisting or preventing a crime) between 1-2 million times per year by law-abiding citizens. (Often, the gun is used only to scare off attackers or intruders.)
These figures suggest that guns are used 2-4 times more often to thwart a crime than to perpetrate one.
In addition, a 1982 survey of male felons in state prisons across the country found that:
- 34% had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"
- 40% had decided not to commit a crime because they "knew or believed that the victim was carrying a gun"
The Justice Department also has released a study that finds that 83% of Americans will be the victim of an attempted or successful violent crime.
The web site GunsSaveLives.net documents over 800 cases all across the country where crimes were averted or mitigated because of armed citizens. I've listed a few of them here.
