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A Gun Myth

Mike

Well-known member
I’ve noticed an interesting anti gun argument that (incorrectly) assumes gun owners are more likely to be killed by their own gun than to stop a criminal in their home, then assumes that such an (incorrect) statistic applies to each and every gun owner. This is one of the more flawed anti gun arguments I’ve heard, so I thought I would take a moment to discuss the flaws with such reasoning:

The idea that gun owners are more likely to be killed by their own gun than to stop a criminal is flatly untrue
The often quoted by utterly untrue myth that gun ownership is more dangerous than useful was started by one Mr. Kellermann, in his discredited study “Protection or Peril? An Analysis of Firearms-Related Deaths in the Home.” That study was inherently flawed, counting only gun related deaths, which are not a measure of self defense (since many self defense gun uses don’t require a shot being fired), any more than the number of suspect shot dead on the street by the police is a measure of crime prevention. The fact is that 65 lives are protected for every 2 lives lost, making guns a safety enhancing thing. See Dr. Suter’s paper “Guns in the Medical Literature - A Failure of Peer Review.” Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia. Published March 1994. Furthermore, those lives that are lost by unintentional shootings are usually entirely preventable.
 
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