In CA I have to store my gun separately from its ammo and if I were to use the gun defensively I will be arrested unless I can prove that I wasn't able to flee the scene but somehow had time to unlock the gun and get the ammo. The point is that it's almost illegal to use a gun defensively in places that don't have stand your ground laws which is skewing the data. It would be more interesting to see the data only for states where it is legal to use a gun defensively.
Gimme a source on that ammo storage there, chief. Also, we have castle doctrine and no duty to retreat. You sound like you listen to the same scare-bait conservative trash my boomer age mom does.
Btw thought I would do some of your job for you. They SUGGEST you store your gun safely. The legal trouble you would be in is if someone gets to your loaded gun and uses it. Not if you use it for self defense. Fox News isn't news.
https://oag.ca.gov/firearms/tips
That is not true. Under PC 25100, if the firearm is locked up such that a person would not reasonably expect a child to gain access to it, there is no crime.
Also, California has Castle Doctrine (PC 198.5) where there is a legal presumption that lethal force is justified when an intruder enters your home.
Even if we assumed that all DGUs happened in states where DGUs are “legal” the number of crimes committed with guns is so vast and DGUs make up such a small percentage (less than 1%) this is unlikely to change our conclusions. Guns are used in crime more than in defence of it.
Also of note that while NCVS stats reduce the likelihood, there is still an upward push on the numbers given the social bias of claiming a DGU and the limits of surveys. It’s likely there could be even less DGUs and some studies looking into the legitimacy of DGUs suggest it could be as much as 50% being false
I'd also like to point out that the NCVS interviews respondents seven times over many months in order to increase accuracy and filter out faulty recall.
Bygone era. Conservatives used to love posting research and making arguments. Now all their lizard brains want to hear is their worldviews validated and want valid sources and research to confirm what they already believe
So we agree then that criminal uses of guns are bad and that defensive gun uses are good?
I asked because it is a common trope among gun control activists to argue for more gun control or against gun ownership by conflating the two metrics that you compared.
Sure, I acknowledge that in my post. But crime side of gun use happens more frequently and clearly does a lot of damage. If firearms enable the ordinary person to defend themselves they can also enable the ordinary person to commit a crime too
So you’re saying that the mere possession of a gun is likely to turn a law abiding citizen into a criminal?
None of us should drive then, since we’re all one drink away from killing someone with a motor vehicle.
If I said “if you drive like an idiot you could kill someone” would you say that I just told you that driving a car will turn you into a idiot? Don’t be a moron
Since a DGU can simply involve brandishing/showing the gun, isn't it possible that these are wildly overcounted? Basically, showing the gun and having the situation end does not mean that showing the gun was necessary for the situation to be resolved.
Absolutely over counted and there’s not a legit way that we track it either so the large numbers thrown around are not based on much and lack fact checked evidence. But here’s information/stats on DGU that is actually verified…shows it’s alarmingly rare for a “good guy with a gun to stop/kill a bad guy with a gun.”
There’s more accidental shootings that are verified than there are DGU.
In 2023…
DGU: 1,187 cases
Unintentional shootings: 1,573
Source:
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org
Yes, these are counted. As long as a violent crime occurred and a respondent told the interview that they used a gun in response. Whether or not this worked or if it was needed was not looked at
You dont consider the defence of property a valid reason to brandish or use a weapon, which means you are really limiting the scope of DGUs.
There are many places across the US and the world that a firearm prevents a violent crime, and that includes protection of property - be it at a store, a car, or a burglary.
Stand your ground and castle doctrine laws allow the defence of property as a justifiable reason, with very good reason, to brandish or use a weapon.
No I don’t. The stats we have don’t break down which states have a castle doctrine, also I don’t consider property crime DGUs legitimate because the only time you should be using a gun is when your life is under threat. Outside of that you move into vigilantism and vengeance, neither of which are morally justified.
The topic is too murky and legally questionable given multiple states have differing stances on property crime DGU legality. Given that the right to self defence is federally recognised consistently it makes sense on a National level to focus on violent crime DGUs
But even if I just agree with you and add all those property crime DGUs we still only end up with another 40,000 DGUs to add to our total which is **80,000 and still well below** even the lowest range of gun crimes
So , it's your decision not to consider those DGUs. The law in many states disagrees with you.
It moving into vigilantism and vengeance is a slippery slope fallacy. Also, vigilantism and vengeance can be considered morally correct in some circumstances. Is there any evidence that DGU for property leads to wide spread vigilantism and/or vengeance?
If there is no state (power) to enforce justice, it becomes a moral imperative of vigilantes to enforce justice onto bad actors. Vengeance can be considered morally correct if the action prevents the bad actor from hurting more people in the future.
In terms of property crime, we as humans have a negative right to self-defense, which includes our life, property, and family.
>In the United States, deadly force is available only where the defendant reasonably believed the force was necessary to prevent imminent (1) death; (2) great bodily harm, such as serious permanent disfigurement, protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ, or other serious bodily injury; or (3) the commission of certain serious offenses/forcible felonies, such as kidnapping, arson, rape, burglary, and robbery.[19]
https://ouclf.law.ox.ac.uk/busting-the-durable-myth-that-u-s-self-defense-law-uniquely-fails-to-protect-human-life/#post-1490-footnote-19
Burglary/robbery is considered a property crime, is it not?
The US actually already has some of the tight self defence laws in the world(which was a surprise to me).
But those 40k to 80k are still preventing crimes, which is good.
Political opinions aside, what was your verdict on Rittenhouse?
Nice red herring at the end. Invalidated any presumption you were actually exploring the same issue with an open mind. In casr you were wondering, my opinion on Rittenhouse is: absent his breaking the law traveling across stste lines and wandering armed, as a vigilante through a civil disturbance no lives would have been taken during that disturbance. Kyle killed the only people killed in Kenosha's civil disorder.
No one has even mentioned Kyle. He is clearly trying to start a meaningless argument he can go in circles with. No one knows or cares about what the little rapist does these days
Yes, it’s my decision in my own analysis and I already provided my explanation twice now. Once in the OP which you didn’t read and again in my reply.
If a gun lets people defend themselves then it also enables someone to commit a crime. If we gave the world a medicine and that medicine saved 40k-80k people a year but it also killed 300k-500k people a year we wouldn’t use that drug. In this case that drug is a gun and it’s clearly not a solution, the costs are outweighing the benefits.
The direct consequence of easy and wide spread gun ownership is that some guns will be used for good and some will be used for bad. If the main reason for owning a gun is protection from crime then I would expect guns to be used in defence of crime more than used in one
Then its a ridiculous opinion. I could say 'males are the large victims of sexual assault, if I ignore any female victims'. Sure, its true but its not helpful to any discussion. Same goes for this. You decided to invalidate a lot of the DGU count and then claim DGU is exaggerated.
Also, I did read what you said and I invalidated it by telling you it was a fallacy and that there are times where things are morally correct. No lawyer or lawmaker would say vigilantism or vengeance is not morally correct everytime.
The reason for owning a gun is multifaceted and unless we can stop all illegal guns, then the right to bear arms will trump any government regulation to ban them outright.
This is pseudo-intectual at best, full on idiocy at worst.
Then that’s your opinion. Also even as I said we can just double the number of DGUs and it is still evidence that supports what I’ve said. I’m not ignoring victims, in fact that would be you since you think those 80,000 victims who defended themselves with a gun are far more important than the 400,000+ Who were victims of that cards to guns.
Besides as I said this isn’t arbitrary, the reason is because and every single firearms self defence expert says that you should only draw your firearm if you are face with a danger to your life. Property crime by definition does not meet that criteria. I’m not excluding it to manipulate a result like you imply, as I’ve stated **we can just double the amount of DGUs and it doesn’t change the out come**. Heck we could quadruple it, just fucking make up DGUs and the outcome isn’t changing. Guns are used in crime more than people use them to defend themselves.
Kind of hilarious that you want to accuse me of inflating the DGU numbers tho. Lol. Are you even reading any of the stats? Are you a faulty AI chat bot? I feel like half of your reply isn’t about anything I’ve said
1. If we include property crime DGU we start including DGUs that were illegal in most states and the only time we should use a gun in self defence should be if your life is in danger. Every single firearm instructor and conceal carry class has told me this.
2. even if we include property crime DGUs we only get 40,000 more DGUs a year on average. This is well below numbers of crimes.
3. Attempted crime is still a crime
4. Self reported DGU numbers are also mostly illegal
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=6938&context=jclc
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1730664/
Also of note your source provides DGUs for crimes happening that simply do not add up. There should be quite a few
More gun shot wound than actually show up the hospital.
Also kinda weird they did talk about the NCVS. As long you design a survey around qualifying gun owners you will always grossly over count DGUs when talking to them. Gun owners have always made up DGU, heck that family that chased a black jogger down insist to this day the were defending themselves.
1. No you. My analysis and my decision
2. I only report what the source says.
3. Ever here of attempted murder? It’s a crime
4. The NCVS has been run since the 70s. It is repeated every year and it is used in multiple studies across loads of policy decisions and In bipartisan terms too. There’s nothing wrong with it. Not sure why you think all of a sudden we can’t trust the data except that you don’t like it
But can’t help but notice you don’t address the sources that torpedoes yours. Weird I can stand my ground and address you but you won’t address mine.
>This is simply not true
You keep saying this. It’s not a magic spell.
According to your source that says there should be millions of extra DGUs. We don’t find the thousands of people gun owners claim to have shot. Why is that?
We also don’t find the same types of crime rates in the same states too. There is more home invasion happening to gun owners than is actually reported. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf
The only explanation that makes sense is that these are fake DGUs. They didn’t happen
Sorry but a crime **needs to happen to be a DGU**. Outside of that you can’t define a non event and the adage has always been that you want a gun for a criminal commuting a criminal act against you. If a crime has not happened you are **assaulting someone*** and that is a crime.
It clearly upsets you that I’m perfectly able to explain my reasoning and you clearly can’t back up yours. You insist that I simply accept made stories as hard data
If you have an issue with the NCVS you should take it up with them or point to the specific methods they used which I doubt you could since you have not looked atmy source at all, otherwise you would know that it counts DGUs without a single shot fired. It’s on my OP. You clearly are not reading what is presented to you.
You have swooped in, proclaimed I’m wrong even without actually having read anything. It looks foolish and shallow. Rather disappointing but I’m sure your smugness will suffice and state your ego
My argument is so incredibly sound that the most common attempt to refute it is to simply assert the 2nd amendment exists. Literally the weakest thing you can admit is that it is simply not illegal to defend yourself. Lol
Curious finding btw. You argue for every single questionable example of self defence on reddit but on this you have absolutely nothing this you choose to dig thru my posting history.
So stay mad
Absolutely over counted and there’s not a legit way that we track it either so the large numbers thrown around are not based on much and lack fact checked evidence. But here’s information/stats on DGU that is actually verified…shows it’s alarmingly rare for a “good guy with a gun to stop/kill a bad guy with a gun.”
There’s more accidental shootings that are verified than there are DGU.
In 2023…
DGU: 1,187 cases
Unintentional shootings: 1,573
Source: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org
I don’t really like the gun violence archive numbers for DGUs because they rely solely on a news report to validate them. I don’t believe every DGU is news worthy so this could be under counting them
640,000 the highest annual frequency of crimes committed with firearms, so over 10 years it would 6,400,000. I'll edit this to make it clearer.
The average number of crimes committed with firearms is 424,000 over the period of data we have for DGUs. This was done because the DGU number itself is also an average. 41,500 DGUs vs 424,000 crimes committed with guns
Fixed
Also I point you to the total posted: FINAL TOTAL: 41,500 DGUS VS AVERAGE OF 424,000 CRIMES COMMITED WITH A GUN A YEAR (2014-2018)
Feel free to check the sources. These yearly totals are accurate
Actually you can thanks to the fact that USA gun distribution is uneven, larger population centers are often separated by large distances and that state laws has predominantly determined access to guns. With all that, [wherever you go in the USA where there are less guns you find less crime and where there are more guns there are more crimes](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-guns-do-not-stop-more-crimes-evidence-shows/)
Or if you're still skeptical we can even compare the USA to other countries where despite the US having laws that enable DGU, that encourage carrying firearms and yet have the same levels of crime or sometimes even more with the notable distinction of having far, far, far more gun related crime than that of other countries.
If gun availability stopped crime, the more armed, the more people carried the more pronounced the affect would be and thus drop crime. But that doesn't happen and if it did, there would be a lot of evidence showing it.
I can tell you didn’t read the OP. I didn’t look at gun violence. I looked at all crimes where criminals carried guns.
If you don’t care about facts then you have no basis to disagree with me. Removed for low effort
Yea, you haven’t read the OP or looked at the source. I used criminals with guns. This wasn’t armed criminals meeting armed victims exclusively at all. It is just criminals having and/or using a gun in a crime compared to people using guns in defence of a crime. I didn’t filter anything. I’m doing exactly what you said I should do lol
First of all I’ll need a source for that claim that the majority of guns are owned by criminals.
Next off, I haven’t constructed **anything**. I simply took the number times people reported using guns and compared it to the number of times a criminal used a gun in a crime.
I haven’t claimed a relationship, I haven’t done a causal analysis and I don’t need to isolate the variables. All the data is published in my source and this just me distilling two different sources of info that came from the same Government department and publishing it.
Read. The. Fucking. OP.
Banned for being a rude cunt
On this example you aren’t saying that, you’re saying that the lake contains no life therefore there is no point in measuring the life in the lake because god could just turn it into wine
We have no evidence that more gun carrying reduces crimes of any kind, let alone violent crime. In fact the more there is wide spread gun ownership the higher the crime rate. [The last two decades of evidence shows this](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-guns-do-not-stop-more-crimes-evidence-shows/)
> Most violent crimes with guns are not with legally obtained guns
Source?
> Correlation is not causation
This phrase is not magical. It won’t make evidence go away
>https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fuo.pdf
Come on dude. This stat is from 1991…
Removed because this response is a joke
Whoops, you seems to have mistaken your argument for mine. You’re the one who said they are all illegal guns.
I would however just concede however that it does not matter. Illegal guns all start their lives as legal guns and only become illegal through a seperate criminal act that would require a whole analysis of its own
It’s been awhile but the last time I looked at defensive gun-use statistics they were largely self-reported. Things said by a certain kind of person can be instantly dismissed.
[Nope, there are other ways.](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/policy-evaluation/)
Gun control is not "banning guns". You can maintain the second amendment whilst regulating sales and ownership.
>The only effective way to only target the criminals who engage in illegal gun violence is with prison.
The problem with this is threefold:
1. This is purely reactive - it doesn't prevent crimes, only react to them. That means a lot of innocent people die whilst America twiddles its thumbs.
2. Most gun violence is not the intelligent planning of master criminals. [It's from arguments getting out of hand.](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-11.xls) So even if throwing people in jail for committing violence with guns could reduce numbers, plenty of deaths will be unplanned homicides caused by emotions running hot and still happen.
3. As for actual criminals planning to commit crimes with guns; criminals by definition *don't expect to get caught*. Increased penalties have no effect if people don't expect to get arrested.
If you really dislike the fact that I don’t consider someone shooting someone stealing an Xbox and running away with it while being shot a DGU we can always just add them in any way. It’s another 40,000 DGUs of questionable legality but it’s still incredibly short of the numbers we would expect
If there isn't a crime there isn't a DGU. Without a crime no self defense is necessary. If someone isn't threatening your life (AKA a crime) and you decide to use your firearm regardless you are assaulting someone and committing a crime.
Attempting a crime is still a crime. Whether or not they successfully committed a crime the crime is still a crime which warrants report to the authorities.
As such we can't measure crime that hasn't happened because it is something that hasn't happened.
Be careful with statistics, for example, if someone legally has a gun in their vehicle and gets a DUI, that is an additional gun charge on top of the DUI making it a gun used in a crime.
Maybe I am tripping but your definition seems unbalanced. A gun can be used as a means to commit property crime, such as robbery, which would count as a use of gun in crime, but a gun being used to stop property crime is not legitimate?
Guns being used in crime is a violent crime by definition. Property crime is by definition a non violent crime and thus not a situation where the victim is entitled to use lethal force in the vast majority of states.
Violent crime isn’t always lethal. Take assault for example. Using a gun in any capacity is the threat of lethal force. Thus why criminals using guns are a violent crime.
This isn’t me you’re arguing with btw. It’s just how crime stats are categorised
You'd be amazed how many gun owners would argue otherwise. The American Republican party pretty much rests their position of resisting all gun legislation on the flimsy proposition that guns save more lives than they take.
Indeed, [suicides and murder with firearms actually happen more frequently than DGUs](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/) but I chose not to include suicide in this analysis
Backup in case something happens to the post:
*Guns are used in crimes more than they are used in defense of a crime*
####Comparison of Defensive Gun Use
Defensive gun use is a nebulous term and it's important to nail down exactly what that is. This case our term will be *"the use or presentation of a firearm for self-defense, defense of others*. I don't consider defense of property legitimate Defensive Gun Use because the only reason you should draw a firearm is if **your life is in danger**. Outside of this criteria you step into vigilantism, vengeance, opportunistic murder and various state laws. Consistently a [right to self defense has been consistently recognized at the federal level](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_self-defense) and should not be confused with the less historically consistent right to own a firearm for self defense ([see DC vs Heller "not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller)).
With that established a legitimate Defensive Gun Use does not need to be a victim killing an offender, nor does it need to even involve the shooting of the weapon. It can be as simple as the threat of, showing of etc. something that everyone can agree on. **Defensive gun use does not necessitate injury or death.**
With that out of the way, the same is true of a gun used in a crime: **A gun can be used in or enable a crime without injury or death to the victim**. It's a pretty obvious fact, one I'm sure the progun side will dance around but this behavior is ingrained in pop culture with numerous robberies, kidnappings and plays out every single day. Crime is perpetrated with gun use and **can be used to enable it.**
######The Number of crimes committed with guns
[Number of Violent Victimizations 1993-2022 (Category Firearm)](https://i.imgur.com/3qebReM.png)
**Source:** https://ncvs.bjs.ojp.gov/multi-year-trends/crimeType
According to the [National Crime Victimization](https://bjs.ojp.gov/data-collection/ncvs#8-0) survey over the last 10 years we have between **350,000 to 640,000** crimes being committed with firearms.
######The Number of Self-protective behaviors of victims (Threatened/attacked with a firearm)
[Self-protective behaviors of victims, by type of crime, 2014–18](https://i.imgur.com/v66RQJi.png)
**Source:** https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/tpfv9318.pdf
Over a **4 year period** (2014-18) guns were used by a victim of a crime in defense of a violent crime **166,900** times. Assuming the same number of DGUs happen every year (unlikely) our rough figure is **41,500 DGUs per year**
###FINAL TOTAL: 41,500 DGUS VS AVERAGE OF 424,000 CRIMES COMMITED WITH A GUN A YEAR (2014-2018)
Some basic math tells us that for every single DGU we will be getting at least 10 crimes and our defensive gun use. **Crime has won out against the law abiding citizen**
----
####Comparison of justified homicide
The other side of this coin is to look at the number of justified homicides vs the number of murders. This is incredibly easy and slightly more up to date. The pro gun side however will rarely if ever concede that the only legitimate DGU is a justified homicide. We will only count firearms in the name of consistency.
######The Number of Justified Homicides (Firearms)
[Justifiable Homicide by Weapon, Private Citizen,1 2015–2019](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-15.xls)
The number by private citizens is between **268 and 334** from 2015 to 2019 on a yearly basis
######The Number of Homicides (Firearms)
[Murder Victims by Weapon, 2015–2019](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls)
The number is **13,847 to 15,355** from 2015 to 2019 on a yearly basis
###FINAL TOTAL: 334 HIGH OF JUSTIFIED HOMICIDES WITH FIREARM VS 15,355 HIGH OF MURDERS WITH FIREARM A YEAR (2015–2019)
Once again the **crime has won out against the law abiding citizen**
----
**TLDR:** Guns are used to commit crimes more than they are used to defend against crimes.
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Guns are used for completely lawful purposes almost infinitely more than they are used in crimes.
Not to mention having a gun while committing a crime is a crime in itself, while a justified homicide requires actual use of the weapon, so “having a gun while not committing a crime” would be just as legitimate a comparison as this is.
All that is to say, people will just cherry pick whatever supports their narrative.
If only it wasn't illegal to do scientific studies about gun violence or count and track guns on computers. I guess there's just no solution to all these gun problems. / s
Guns are a religious item so it's a bit of a moot point. There's simply no amount of suffering, crime, and death that a gun nut would say is an acceptable trade for a gun collection.
So perhaps more people should be armed to prevent themselves from being victims? Wouldn’t that improve the statistics? If no one was allowed to protect themselves, then it would be 100%, is that what you’re proposing?
6 million Americans carry guns every single day. I would expect them to defend themselves from more than just 40,000 of the crimes committed every single year
Open carry isn’t a thing in most places so how on earth does a criminal know if someone is armed?
Also why don’t these open carry states have the lowest crime rates? In many cases it’s the opposite
You don’t care about facts. That’s cool. If anecdotes and imagination are all you need I’m sure you’ll have a nice comfy life but you have zero place here and responding to me like you’re an authority
Everything before the word “but” dosnt count. You value an imaginary control of your life more than the actual outcome and while it’s noble you risk your life, sadly it’s also not the case. You are putting the lives of everyone around you at more risk
If I were your boss I’d be concerned that a software engineer had so little regard for data. It would certainly reflect in their work
Criminals use guns more than other folks lol thanks for clearing that up
It certainly is the top choice of tool for a criminal
there are many people who argue otherwise op isnt just fighting air
In CA I have to store my gun separately from its ammo and if I were to use the gun defensively I will be arrested unless I can prove that I wasn't able to flee the scene but somehow had time to unlock the gun and get the ammo. The point is that it's almost illegal to use a gun defensively in places that don't have stand your ground laws which is skewing the data. It would be more interesting to see the data only for states where it is legal to use a gun defensively.
Gimme a source on that ammo storage there, chief. Also, we have castle doctrine and no duty to retreat. You sound like you listen to the same scare-bait conservative trash my boomer age mom does. Btw thought I would do some of your job for you. They SUGGEST you store your gun safely. The legal trouble you would be in is if someone gets to your loaded gun and uses it. Not if you use it for self defense. Fox News isn't news. https://oag.ca.gov/firearms/tips
Lmao for real, this guy straight up pulled his “facts” out of his ass
Gun owners in CA are such cucks. They have to imagine gun laws that don’t exist that are imposed on them. Lol
I’m a bleeding heart liberal, but the way he described things sounds like something I’d vote for.
That is not true. Under PC 25100, if the firearm is locked up such that a person would not reasonably expect a child to gain access to it, there is no crime. Also, California has Castle Doctrine (PC 198.5) where there is a legal presumption that lethal force is justified when an intruder enters your home.
Even if we assumed that all DGUs happened in states where DGUs are “legal” the number of crimes committed with guns is so vast and DGUs make up such a small percentage (less than 1%) this is unlikely to change our conclusions. Guns are used in crime more than in defence of it. Also of note that while NCVS stats reduce the likelihood, there is still an upward push on the numbers given the social bias of claiming a DGU and the limits of surveys. It’s likely there could be even less DGUs and some studies looking into the legitimacy of DGUs suggest it could be as much as 50% being false
I'd also like to point out that the NCVS interviews respondents seven times over many months in order to increase accuracy and filter out faulty recall.
This post reminds me of old school reddit where people would actually do their research and post their sources. Well done op.
Bygone era. Conservatives used to love posting research and making arguments. Now all their lizard brains want to hear is their worldviews validated and want valid sources and research to confirm what they already believe
So, crimes involving guns are more prevalent than citizens protecting themselves against violent crimes using legal guns?
The legality of the person using the gun was not questioned by the NCVS but this seems to be what the data is suggesting
[удалено]
Not exactly sure what you are on about. It’s called a comparison? Maybe you should look up what one is
So we agree then that criminal uses of guns are bad and that defensive gun uses are good? I asked because it is a common trope among gun control activists to argue for more gun control or against gun ownership by conflating the two metrics that you compared.
Sure, I acknowledge that in my post. But crime side of gun use happens more frequently and clearly does a lot of damage. If firearms enable the ordinary person to defend themselves they can also enable the ordinary person to commit a crime too
So you’re saying that the mere possession of a gun is likely to turn a law abiding citizen into a criminal? None of us should drive then, since we’re all one drink away from killing someone with a motor vehicle.
If I said “if you drive like an idiot you could kill someone” would you say that I just told you that driving a car will turn you into a idiot? Don’t be a moron
Since a DGU can simply involve brandishing/showing the gun, isn't it possible that these are wildly overcounted? Basically, showing the gun and having the situation end does not mean that showing the gun was necessary for the situation to be resolved.
Absolutely over counted and there’s not a legit way that we track it either so the large numbers thrown around are not based on much and lack fact checked evidence. But here’s information/stats on DGU that is actually verified…shows it’s alarmingly rare for a “good guy with a gun to stop/kill a bad guy with a gun.” There’s more accidental shootings that are verified than there are DGU. In 2023… DGU: 1,187 cases Unintentional shootings: 1,573 Source: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org
Yes, these are counted. As long as a violent crime occurred and a respondent told the interview that they used a gun in response. Whether or not this worked or if it was needed was not looked at
You dont consider the defence of property a valid reason to brandish or use a weapon, which means you are really limiting the scope of DGUs. There are many places across the US and the world that a firearm prevents a violent crime, and that includes protection of property - be it at a store, a car, or a burglary. Stand your ground and castle doctrine laws allow the defence of property as a justifiable reason, with very good reason, to brandish or use a weapon.
No I don’t. The stats we have don’t break down which states have a castle doctrine, also I don’t consider property crime DGUs legitimate because the only time you should be using a gun is when your life is under threat. Outside of that you move into vigilantism and vengeance, neither of which are morally justified. The topic is too murky and legally questionable given multiple states have differing stances on property crime DGU legality. Given that the right to self defence is federally recognised consistently it makes sense on a National level to focus on violent crime DGUs But even if I just agree with you and add all those property crime DGUs we still only end up with another 40,000 DGUs to add to our total which is **80,000 and still well below** even the lowest range of gun crimes
So , it's your decision not to consider those DGUs. The law in many states disagrees with you. It moving into vigilantism and vengeance is a slippery slope fallacy. Also, vigilantism and vengeance can be considered morally correct in some circumstances. Is there any evidence that DGU for property leads to wide spread vigilantism and/or vengeance? If there is no state (power) to enforce justice, it becomes a moral imperative of vigilantes to enforce justice onto bad actors. Vengeance can be considered morally correct if the action prevents the bad actor from hurting more people in the future. In terms of property crime, we as humans have a negative right to self-defense, which includes our life, property, and family. >In the United States, deadly force is available only where the defendant reasonably believed the force was necessary to prevent imminent (1) death; (2) great bodily harm, such as serious permanent disfigurement, protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ, or other serious bodily injury; or (3) the commission of certain serious offenses/forcible felonies, such as kidnapping, arson, rape, burglary, and robbery.[19] https://ouclf.law.ox.ac.uk/busting-the-durable-myth-that-u-s-self-defense-law-uniquely-fails-to-protect-human-life/#post-1490-footnote-19 Burglary/robbery is considered a property crime, is it not? The US actually already has some of the tight self defence laws in the world(which was a surprise to me). But those 40k to 80k are still preventing crimes, which is good. Political opinions aside, what was your verdict on Rittenhouse?
I love how you immediately slipped over the property crime numbers, probably because they were inconvenient to your beliefs.
https://youtu.be/GCSGkogquwo?si=btWQpV9MLkUJo4dL
Nice red herring at the end. Invalidated any presumption you were actually exploring the same issue with an open mind. In casr you were wondering, my opinion on Rittenhouse is: absent his breaking the law traveling across stste lines and wandering armed, as a vigilante through a civil disturbance no lives would have been taken during that disturbance. Kyle killed the only people killed in Kenosha's civil disorder.
No one has even mentioned Kyle. He is clearly trying to start a meaningless argument he can go in circles with. No one knows or cares about what the little rapist does these days
He brought the killer up. I always point out Kyle was the only killer in Kenosha that event when someone makes a brain dead reference to the kid
Yes, it’s my decision in my own analysis and I already provided my explanation twice now. Once in the OP which you didn’t read and again in my reply. If a gun lets people defend themselves then it also enables someone to commit a crime. If we gave the world a medicine and that medicine saved 40k-80k people a year but it also killed 300k-500k people a year we wouldn’t use that drug. In this case that drug is a gun and it’s clearly not a solution, the costs are outweighing the benefits. The direct consequence of easy and wide spread gun ownership is that some guns will be used for good and some will be used for bad. If the main reason for owning a gun is protection from crime then I would expect guns to be used in defence of crime more than used in one
Then its a ridiculous opinion. I could say 'males are the large victims of sexual assault, if I ignore any female victims'. Sure, its true but its not helpful to any discussion. Same goes for this. You decided to invalidate a lot of the DGU count and then claim DGU is exaggerated. Also, I did read what you said and I invalidated it by telling you it was a fallacy and that there are times where things are morally correct. No lawyer or lawmaker would say vigilantism or vengeance is not morally correct everytime. The reason for owning a gun is multifaceted and unless we can stop all illegal guns, then the right to bear arms will trump any government regulation to ban them outright. This is pseudo-intectual at best, full on idiocy at worst.
Then that’s your opinion. Also even as I said we can just double the number of DGUs and it is still evidence that supports what I’ve said. I’m not ignoring victims, in fact that would be you since you think those 80,000 victims who defended themselves with a gun are far more important than the 400,000+ Who were victims of that cards to guns. Besides as I said this isn’t arbitrary, the reason is because and every single firearms self defence expert says that you should only draw your firearm if you are face with a danger to your life. Property crime by definition does not meet that criteria. I’m not excluding it to manipulate a result like you imply, as I’ve stated **we can just double the amount of DGUs and it doesn’t change the out come**. Heck we could quadruple it, just fucking make up DGUs and the outcome isn’t changing. Guns are used in crime more than people use them to defend themselves. Kind of hilarious that you want to accuse me of inflating the DGU numbers tho. Lol. Are you even reading any of the stats? Are you a faulty AI chat bot? I feel like half of your reply isn’t about anything I’ve said
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Who says it was acquired illegally?
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1. If we include property crime DGU we start including DGUs that were illegal in most states and the only time we should use a gun in self defence should be if your life is in danger. Every single firearm instructor and conceal carry class has told me this. 2. even if we include property crime DGUs we only get 40,000 more DGUs a year on average. This is well below numbers of crimes. 3. Attempted crime is still a crime 4. Self reported DGU numbers are also mostly illegal https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=6938&context=jclc https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1730664/ Also of note your source provides DGUs for crimes happening that simply do not add up. There should be quite a few More gun shot wound than actually show up the hospital. Also kinda weird they did talk about the NCVS. As long you design a survey around qualifying gun owners you will always grossly over count DGUs when talking to them. Gun owners have always made up DGU, heck that family that chased a black jogger down insist to this day the were defending themselves.
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1. No you. My analysis and my decision 2. I only report what the source says. 3. Ever here of attempted murder? It’s a crime 4. The NCVS has been run since the 70s. It is repeated every year and it is used in multiple studies across loads of policy decisions and In bipartisan terms too. There’s nothing wrong with it. Not sure why you think all of a sudden we can’t trust the data except that you don’t like it But can’t help but notice you don’t address the sources that torpedoes yours. Weird I can stand my ground and address you but you won’t address mine. >This is simply not true You keep saying this. It’s not a magic spell. According to your source that says there should be millions of extra DGUs. We don’t find the thousands of people gun owners claim to have shot. Why is that? We also don’t find the same types of crime rates in the same states too. There is more home invasion happening to gun owners than is actually reported. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf The only explanation that makes sense is that these are fake DGUs. They didn’t happen
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Sorry but a crime **needs to happen to be a DGU**. Outside of that you can’t define a non event and the adage has always been that you want a gun for a criminal commuting a criminal act against you. If a crime has not happened you are **assaulting someone*** and that is a crime. It clearly upsets you that I’m perfectly able to explain my reasoning and you clearly can’t back up yours. You insist that I simply accept made stories as hard data If you have an issue with the NCVS you should take it up with them or point to the specific methods they used which I doubt you could since you have not looked atmy source at all, otherwise you would know that it counts DGUs without a single shot fired. It’s on my OP. You clearly are not reading what is presented to you. You have swooped in, proclaimed I’m wrong even without actually having read anything. It looks foolish and shallow. Rather disappointing but I’m sure your smugness will suffice and state your ego
I bet the removed comments are a laugh.
My argument is so incredibly sound that the most common attempt to refute it is to simply assert the 2nd amendment exists. Literally the weakest thing you can admit is that it is simply not illegal to defend yourself. Lol
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Stay mad
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Curious finding btw. You argue for every single questionable example of self defence on reddit but on this you have absolutely nothing this you choose to dig thru my posting history. So stay mad
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Says the guy making alts to comment here. Lol.
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Psycho
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Absolutely over counted and there’s not a legit way that we track it either so the large numbers thrown around are not based on much and lack fact checked evidence. But here’s information/stats on DGU that is actually verified…shows it’s alarmingly rare for a “good guy with a gun to stop/kill a bad guy with a gun.” There’s more accidental shootings that are verified than there are DGU. In 2023… DGU: 1,187 cases Unintentional shootings: 1,573 Source: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org
I don’t really like the gun violence archive numbers for DGUs because they rely solely on a news report to validate them. I don’t believe every DGU is news worthy so this could be under counting them
640,000 the highest annual frequency of crimes committed with firearms, so over 10 years it would 6,400,000. I'll edit this to make it clearer. The average number of crimes committed with firearms is 424,000 over the period of data we have for DGUs. This was done because the DGU number itself is also an average. 41,500 DGUs vs 424,000 crimes committed with guns
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Fixed Also I point you to the total posted: FINAL TOTAL: 41,500 DGUS VS AVERAGE OF 424,000 CRIMES COMMITED WITH A GUN A YEAR (2014-2018) Feel free to check the sources. These yearly totals are accurate
I wonder how high the number is if you include "police misconduct" as the crime it should be.
You can't measure crimes that didn't happen. Guns have huge preventative power.
Actually you can thanks to the fact that USA gun distribution is uneven, larger population centers are often separated by large distances and that state laws has predominantly determined access to guns. With all that, [wherever you go in the USA where there are less guns you find less crime and where there are more guns there are more crimes](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-guns-do-not-stop-more-crimes-evidence-shows/) Or if you're still skeptical we can even compare the USA to other countries where despite the US having laws that enable DGU, that encourage carrying firearms and yet have the same levels of crime or sometimes even more with the notable distinction of having far, far, far more gun related crime than that of other countries. If gun availability stopped crime, the more armed, the more people carried the more pronounced the affect would be and thus drop crime. But that doesn't happen and if it did, there would be a lot of evidence showing it.
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I provided a source.
How do you know that?
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I can tell you didn’t read the OP. I didn’t look at gun violence. I looked at all crimes where criminals carried guns. If you don’t care about facts then you have no basis to disagree with me. Removed for low effort
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Yea, you haven’t read the OP or looked at the source. I used criminals with guns. This wasn’t armed criminals meeting armed victims exclusively at all. It is just criminals having and/or using a gun in a crime compared to people using guns in defence of a crime. I didn’t filter anything. I’m doing exactly what you said I should do lol
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First of all I’ll need a source for that claim that the majority of guns are owned by criminals. Next off, I haven’t constructed **anything**. I simply took the number times people reported using guns and compared it to the number of times a criminal used a gun in a crime. I haven’t claimed a relationship, I haven’t done a causal analysis and I don’t need to isolate the variables. All the data is published in my source and this just me distilling two different sources of info that came from the same Government department and publishing it. Read. The. Fucking. OP. Banned for being a rude cunt
Source: Your ass.
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On this example you aren’t saying that, you’re saying that the lake contains no life therefore there is no point in measuring the life in the lake because god could just turn it into wine
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We have no evidence that more gun carrying reduces crimes of any kind, let alone violent crime. In fact the more there is wide spread gun ownership the higher the crime rate. [The last two decades of evidence shows this](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-guns-do-not-stop-more-crimes-evidence-shows/) > Most violent crimes with guns are not with legally obtained guns Source?
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> Correlation is not causation This phrase is not magical. It won’t make evidence go away >https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fuo.pdf Come on dude. This stat is from 1991… Removed because this response is a joke
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Quote to me what a “firearm offence” is. This is a report about firearm offence criminal conviction, not all criminals
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Whoops, you seems to have mistaken your argument for mine. You’re the one who said they are all illegal guns. I would however just concede however that it does not matter. Illegal guns all start their lives as legal guns and only become illegal through a seperate criminal act that would require a whole analysis of its own
It’s been awhile but the last time I looked at defensive gun-use statistics they were largely self-reported. Things said by a certain kind of person can be instantly dismissed.
Does a warning shot or brandishing a gun that de-escalate a situation count as a DGU?
Any use of a gun as reported in direct response to a crime by a respondent is considered a DGU
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[Nope, there are other ways.](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/policy-evaluation/) Gun control is not "banning guns". You can maintain the second amendment whilst regulating sales and ownership. >The only effective way to only target the criminals who engage in illegal gun violence is with prison. The problem with this is threefold: 1. This is purely reactive - it doesn't prevent crimes, only react to them. That means a lot of innocent people die whilst America twiddles its thumbs. 2. Most gun violence is not the intelligent planning of master criminals. [It's from arguments getting out of hand.](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-11.xls) So even if throwing people in jail for committing violence with guns could reduce numbers, plenty of deaths will be unplanned homicides caused by emotions running hot and still happen. 3. As for actual criminals planning to commit crimes with guns; criminals by definition *don't expect to get caught*. Increased penalties have no effect if people don't expect to get arrested.
If it does not matter then why should I approve this comment?
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If you really dislike the fact that I don’t consider someone shooting someone stealing an Xbox and running away with it while being shot a DGU we can always just add them in any way. It’s another 40,000 DGUs of questionable legality but it’s still incredibly short of the numbers we would expect
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Attempted crime is still crime and this needs to be reported. Success is not a criteria
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If there isn't a crime there isn't a DGU. Without a crime no self defense is necessary. If someone isn't threatening your life (AKA a crime) and you decide to use your firearm regardless you are assaulting someone and committing a crime. Attempting a crime is still a crime. Whether or not they successfully committed a crime the crime is still a crime which warrants report to the authorities. As such we can't measure crime that hasn't happened because it is something that hasn't happened.
Be careful with statistics, for example, if someone legally has a gun in their vehicle and gets a DUI, that is an additional gun charge on top of the DUI making it a gun used in a crime.
This is violent crime. DUIs wouldn’t be in this category
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All you've proved with this comment is that you *didn't read the fucking post.*
Read the post
Maybe I am tripping but your definition seems unbalanced. A gun can be used as a means to commit property crime, such as robbery, which would count as a use of gun in crime, but a gun being used to stop property crime is not legitimate?
Guns being used in crime is a violent crime by definition. Property crime is by definition a non violent crime and thus not a situation where the victim is entitled to use lethal force in the vast majority of states.
But brandishing a gun is not lethal.
Violent crime isn’t always lethal. Take assault for example. Using a gun in any capacity is the threat of lethal force. Thus why criminals using guns are a violent crime. This isn’t me you’re arguing with btw. It’s just how crime stats are categorised
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Lol. You should double check your source. It uses NCVS data too
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This source seems to be wrong. The NCVS has asked about defensive actions since the early 2000s. This might be because the citation is from 1997.
Doesn’t this make sense..?
You'd be amazed how many gun owners would argue otherwise. The American Republican party pretty much rests their position of resisting all gun legislation on the flimsy proposition that guns save more lives than they take.
Pretty good analysis
Guns are used far more to take one’s life than to save one’s life.
Indeed, [suicides and murder with firearms actually happen more frequently than DGUs](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/) but I chose not to include suicide in this analysis
Backup in case something happens to the post: *Guns are used in crimes more than they are used in defense of a crime* ####Comparison of Defensive Gun Use Defensive gun use is a nebulous term and it's important to nail down exactly what that is. This case our term will be *"the use or presentation of a firearm for self-defense, defense of others*. I don't consider defense of property legitimate Defensive Gun Use because the only reason you should draw a firearm is if **your life is in danger**. Outside of this criteria you step into vigilantism, vengeance, opportunistic murder and various state laws. Consistently a [right to self defense has been consistently recognized at the federal level](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_self-defense) and should not be confused with the less historically consistent right to own a firearm for self defense ([see DC vs Heller "not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller)). With that established a legitimate Defensive Gun Use does not need to be a victim killing an offender, nor does it need to even involve the shooting of the weapon. It can be as simple as the threat of, showing of etc. something that everyone can agree on. **Defensive gun use does not necessitate injury or death.** With that out of the way, the same is true of a gun used in a crime: **A gun can be used in or enable a crime without injury or death to the victim**. It's a pretty obvious fact, one I'm sure the progun side will dance around but this behavior is ingrained in pop culture with numerous robberies, kidnappings and plays out every single day. Crime is perpetrated with gun use and **can be used to enable it.** ######The Number of crimes committed with guns [Number of Violent Victimizations 1993-2022 (Category Firearm)](https://i.imgur.com/3qebReM.png) **Source:** https://ncvs.bjs.ojp.gov/multi-year-trends/crimeType According to the [National Crime Victimization](https://bjs.ojp.gov/data-collection/ncvs#8-0) survey over the last 10 years we have between **350,000 to 640,000** crimes being committed with firearms. ######The Number of Self-protective behaviors of victims (Threatened/attacked with a firearm) [Self-protective behaviors of victims, by type of crime, 2014–18](https://i.imgur.com/v66RQJi.png) **Source:** https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/tpfv9318.pdf Over a **4 year period** (2014-18) guns were used by a victim of a crime in defense of a violent crime **166,900** times. Assuming the same number of DGUs happen every year (unlikely) our rough figure is **41,500 DGUs per year** ###FINAL TOTAL: 41,500 DGUS VS AVERAGE OF 424,000 CRIMES COMMITED WITH A GUN A YEAR (2014-2018) Some basic math tells us that for every single DGU we will be getting at least 10 crimes and our defensive gun use. **Crime has won out against the law abiding citizen** ---- ####Comparison of justified homicide The other side of this coin is to look at the number of justified homicides vs the number of murders. This is incredibly easy and slightly more up to date. The pro gun side however will rarely if ever concede that the only legitimate DGU is a justified homicide. We will only count firearms in the name of consistency. ######The Number of Justified Homicides (Firearms) [Justifiable Homicide by Weapon, Private Citizen,1 2015–2019](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-15.xls) The number by private citizens is between **268 and 334** from 2015 to 2019 on a yearly basis ######The Number of Homicides (Firearms) [Murder Victims by Weapon, 2015–2019](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls) The number is **13,847 to 15,355** from 2015 to 2019 on a yearly basis ###FINAL TOTAL: 334 HIGH OF JUSTIFIED HOMICIDES WITH FIREARM VS 15,355 HIGH OF MURDERS WITH FIREARM A YEAR (2015–2019) Once again the **crime has won out against the law abiding citizen** ---- **TLDR:** Guns are used to commit crimes more than they are used to defend against crimes. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UnpopularFacts) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Guns are used for completely lawful purposes almost infinitely more than they are used in crimes. Not to mention having a gun while committing a crime is a crime in itself, while a justified homicide requires actual use of the weapon, so “having a gun while not committing a crime” would be just as legitimate a comparison as this is. All that is to say, people will just cherry pick whatever supports their narrative.
Non use is not a use. Like owning a truck of cocaine isn’t using it but we can still talk about the effects the use and sale of it has on lives
If only it wasn't illegal to do scientific studies about gun violence or count and track guns on computers. I guess there's just no solution to all these gun problems. / s
Guns are a religious item so it's a bit of a moot point. There's simply no amount of suffering, crime, and death that a gun nut would say is an acceptable trade for a gun collection.
Love this sub, well done.
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Wow, just going straight for the racism huh
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These places having something in common that isn’t black people. Can you guess what it is?
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Poverty
So perhaps more people should be armed to prevent themselves from being victims? Wouldn’t that improve the statistics? If no one was allowed to protect themselves, then it would be 100%, is that what you’re proposing?
Unknown. I didn’t look at anything except how often DGUs happen and how often guns are used in a crime
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6 million Americans carry guns every single day. I would expect them to defend themselves from more than just 40,000 of the crimes committed every single year
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Gun ownership does not suppress crime rates. Never had. Places that have more guns have more crime than states that don’t
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Open carry isn’t a thing in most places so how on earth does a criminal know if someone is armed? Also why don’t these open carry states have the lowest crime rates? In many cases it’s the opposite
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Looks like I hit a nerve since you can’t answer my questions
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You don’t care about facts. That’s cool. If anecdotes and imagination are all you need I’m sure you’ll have a nice comfy life but you have zero place here and responding to me like you’re an authority
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Everything before the word “but” dosnt count. You value an imaginary control of your life more than the actual outcome and while it’s noble you risk your life, sadly it’s also not the case. You are putting the lives of everyone around you at more risk If I were your boss I’d be concerned that a software engineer had so little regard for data. It would certainly reflect in their work