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Guns Save Lives

Larrry

Well-known member
Guns Save Lives
Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell


We all know that guns can cost lives because the media repeat this message endlessly, as if we could not figure it out for ourselves. But even someone who reads newspapers regularly and watches numerous television newscasts may never learn that guns also save lives-- much less see any hard facts comparing how many lives are lost and how many are saved.

But that trade-off is the real issue, not the Second Amendment or the National Rifle Association, which so many in the media obsess about. If guns cost more lives than they save, we can always repeal the Second Amendment. But if guns save more lives than they cost, we need to know that, instead of spending time demonizing the National Rifle Association.

The defensive use of guns is usually either not discussed at all in the media or else is depicted as if it means bullets flying in all directions, like the gunfight at the OK Corral. But most defensive uses of guns do not involve actually pulling the trigger.

If someone comes at you with a knife and you point a gun at him, he is very unlikely to keep coming, and far more likely to head in the other direction, perhaps in some haste, if he has a brain in his head. Only if he is an idiot are you likely to have to pull the trigger. And if he is an idiot with a knife coming after you, you had better have a trigger to pull.

Surveys of American gun owners have found that 4 to 6 percent reported using a gun in self-defense within the previous five years. That is not a very high percentage but, in a country with 300 million people, that works out to hundreds of thousands of defensive uses of guns per year.

Yet we almost never hear about these hundreds of thousands of defensive uses of guns from the media, which will report the killing of a dozen people endlessly around the clock.

The murder of a dozen innocent people is unquestionably a human tragedy. But that is no excuse for reacting blindly by preventing hundreds of thousands of other people from defending themselves against meeting the same fate.

Although most defensive uses of guns do not involve actually shooting, nevertheless the total number of criminals killed by armed private citizens runs into the thousands per year. A gun can also come in handy if a pit bull or some other dangerous animal is after you or your child.

We need to recognize the painful reality that, regardless of what we do or don't do about gun control laws, there will be innocent people killed by guns. We can then look at hard facts in order to decide how we can minimize the number of needless deaths.
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2013/04/02/creators-oped-n1554735
 

Steve

Well-known member
but even this method doesn't count how many crimes are thwarted just by the fear of a gun owner,

but it does explain why few anti gun folks will put up signs showing they are against guns.. :shock:

Anti-gun journalists refuse to display ‘proudly gun free’ yard signs

Posing as “Citizens Against Senseless Violence,” O’Keefe and company visited the homes of anti-gun journalists employed by The Journal News in New York and the Star-Ledger in New Jersey.

They also swung by Touré’s place and paid a visit to the ol’ Eric Holder homestead. Each household was asked to display a yard sign with the words “This Home is Proudly Gun Free.”

Any guesses how that turned out?

Yep, it’s a-OK for the Journal News to publish the names and addresses of gun permit-holders. But not one of these journalists was willing to announce to criminals that their homes are gun-free zones. In fact, three of the homes had armed guards and armed officers questioned the Veritas gang at two locations.

At the home of Star-Ledger columnist Bob Braun, the Veritas crew was told, “I am on your side on this, but I’m just wondering if that’s not an invitation to somebody with a gun…. it’s an invitation to come barging in.”

Gee, ya think?

another case study in reality.
Australian Gun Ban Facts & Statistics

It has now been over 10 years since gun owners in Australia were forced by new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by their own Government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars.

The statistics for the years following the ban are now in:

Accidental gun deaths are 300% higher than the pre-1997 ban rate

The assault rate has increased 800% since 1991, and increased 200% since the 1997 gun ban.

Robbery and armed robbery have increase 20% from the pre-97 ban rate.

From immediately after the ban was instituted in 1997 through 2002, the robbery and armed robbery rate was up 200% over the pre-ban rates.

In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 171 percent.

Let's examine the overall murder rate and the gun murder rate in Australia. Take note both are virtually unchanged and unaffected by the gun ban. The Australian experience and the other historical facts above prove it. While the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not, and criminals still possess their guns.

fig016.png


weapon_trends.png

Oh look. after we banned guns in 1997, people murdered by guns decreased by 10%. On the other hand, people murdered by knives increased by 10%. Well, at least you weren't shot to death and thank goodness no criminals were hurt in the commission of their murders. Awesome!
There has been a pronounced change in the type of weapons used in homicide since monitoring began. Firearm use has declined by more than half since 1989-90 as a proportion of homicide methods, and there has been an upward trend in the use of knives and sharp instruments, which in 2006-07 accounted for nearly half of all homicide victims.
fig018.png
Reported sexual assaults have increased by 51 percent since 1995, at an average of four percent each year.
http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics.html

but all the liberals will say is.. gun crime went down..

all I say is dead is dead.. does it really matter if they killed you with a gun, knife or baseball bat? other then the liberals only seem to worry about the gun

data shows that if the gun is removed,.. crime goes up.. and murderers just grab something else to kill with..

end result law abiding citizens are less able to defend themselves.. and become a victim more often..
 
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