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You are here: Home / Gun Issues / Gun nuts / Gunfondlers: Big Fans of Statistics, But Only the Invented Ones

Gunfondlers: Big Fans of Statistics, But Only the Invented Ones

by Anne Laurie|  January 15, 201510:24 pm| 66 Comments

This post is in: Gun nuts

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Hat tip to commentor Howard Beale IV for the AddictingInfo link:

The Texas House approved the use of “panic buttons” in lawmakers’ offices after several incidences earlier this month where open-carry advocates showed up to bully and harass politicians and staffers they deemed “anti-gun.” Nothing says free and open democracy like people with guns threatening people who oppose them at the place that they work.

In a disturbing video posted to social media, open-carry advocates from the group “Open Carry Tarrant County” pile into the office of Texas Rep. Poncho Nevarez (Eagle Pass), and start demanding to know his stance on gun control. At issue is a new bill led by Texas Republicans that would repeal a century-long ban on openly carrying handguns. To his immense credit, Nevarez doesn’t waiver from his position that he is for strong gun control laws, however that position led to the group hurling ugly accusations, and finally, outright threats at him…

Which reminded me, Politico (yes, I know) just published an interesting article on “The Myth Behind Defensive Gun Ownership“:

…[A] tragic myth: that millions of gun owners successfully use their firearms to defend themselves and their families from criminals. Despite having nearly no academic support in public health literature, this myth is the single largest motivation behind gun ownership. It traces its origin to a two-decade-old series of surveys that, despite being thoroughly repudiated at the time, persists in influencing personal safety decisions and public policy throughout the United States.

In 1992, Gary Kleck and Marc Getz, criminologists at Florida State University, conducted a random digit-dial survey to establish the annual number of defensive gun uses in the United States. They surveyed 5,000 individuals, asking them if they had used a firearm in self-defense in the past year and, if so, for what reason and to what effect. Sixty-six incidences of defensive gun use were reported from the sample. The researchers then extrapolated their findings to the entire U.S. population, resulting in an estimate of between 1 million and 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year…

These sorts of biases, which are inherent in reporting self-defense incidents, can lead to nonsensical results. In several crime categories, for example, gun owners would have to protect themselves more than 100 percent of the time for Kleck and Getz’s estimates to make sense. For example, guns were allegedly used in self-defense in 845,000 burglaries, according to Kleck and Getz. However, from reliable victimization surveys, we know that there were fewer than 1.3 million burglaries where someone was in the home at the time of the crime, and only 33 percent of these had occupants who weren’t sleeping. From surveys on firearm ownership, we also know that 42 percent of U.S. households owned firearms at the time of the survey. Even if burglars only rob houses of gun owners, and those gun owners use their weapons in self-defense every single time they are awake, the 845,000 statistic cited in Kleck and Gertz’s paper is simply mathematically impossible…
Brand new data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, a non-partisan organization devoted to collecting gun violence data, further confirms Hemenway’s suspicion that Kleck and Getz’s findings are absurd. The archive found that for all of 2014 there were fewer than 1,600 verified defensive guns uses, meaning a police report was filed. This total includes all outcomes and types of defensive uses with a police report—a far cry from the millions that Kleck and Getz estimated.

Many gun advocates will protest at this point that not all defensive gun uses are reported to the police, which is true. However, Kleck’s surveys and the NCVS reports indicate that more than 50 percent of such incidents are reported to the police. This would indicate 3,200 defensive uses on an annual basis, still well short of what surveys suggest. Further, if there actually are 50,000 defensive gun uses as NCVS’ data suggests, or more than 1 million as Kleck and Getz’s surveys claim, that would mean only 3.2 percent or 0.16 percent respectively of defensive gun uses are reported to the police. Believing that such a small fraction of incidents are reported is indulging in fantasy…

More data at the link.

The comments, predictably, demonstrate that the fierce resistance to mere data is based largely on a conviction approaching the religious that just having a totem gun on one’s person radiates a serene power to discourage BAD GUYS and TERRORISTS from approaching…

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66Comments

  1. 1.

    srv

    January 15, 2015 at 10:29 pm

    So much obsession about guns, it gets to be a bore. Have to think bigger.

    Back to Oscars – you should get your nominations in today for this year. Iron Sky: The Coming Race shows brilliantly just how close you people got to the end game.

  2. 2.

    LWA (Liberal With Attitude)

    January 15, 2015 at 10:33 pm

    So again, I will make the case that there isn’t really any natural or moral right to own a deadly weapon, absent a documented or reasonable fear of attack.
    I think we need to start forcing the other side to defend the very existence of such a right, rather than just have it as an assumed position.

  3. 3.

    satby

    January 15, 2015 at 10:36 pm

    All statistics that don’t agree with rightwing gun fondlers point of view are false and manufactured by elitist pointy headed liberals and therefore be disregarded. And just to be sure, the Republicans pushed through a law to be sure NIH couldn’t study gun injuries and fatalities.

  4. 4.

    jl

    January 15, 2015 at 10:38 pm

    @srv: I expected Jesus to be riding that dinosaur! What the..?

    As for the gun nuts in the clip, were they talking about the Texas Constitution or the US Constitution, or the common law constitution of common law county governments, the only legitimate governments in the US not operating under a fake admiralty flag with a fringe on top, that must constitutionally be run by non-mud people? They need to be more precise in their lunacy or no one will pay attention to them. But maybe that is why they feel that they have to swank around intimidating people with their open carry guns.

  5. 5.

    fuckwit

    January 15, 2015 at 10:42 pm

    If you live out in the country, you need guns. To defend yourself. From bears, mountain lions, coyotes, snakes, etc. And yes from any bad guys who might come for you out there (i.e. you know, there are a lot of crazy people cooking meth out there in the sticks). Whaddya gonna do, call the cops? They’ll be there in a half an hour, maybe, if they can even get through the gate and mile-long dirt road to your property.

    If you live in the suburbs, a gun is a liability to your safety and that of everyone around you, not an asset to it. You’re more likely to kill yourself, a family member, or some douchenozzle at the bar you got into an argument with, or to be killed by any one of same. Guns are more danger than they’re worth in that situation.

    And if you live in a city, there’s no point of having a gun unless you’re a cop or a criminal.

    As the USA becomes more urbanized, the rationale for having guns for self-defense shrinks rapidly. But the cultural biases change a lot more slowly than reality does.

  6. 6.

    Mandalay

    January 15, 2015 at 10:42 pm

    @LWA (Liberal With Attitude):

    I think we need to start forcing the other side to defend the very existence of such a right, rather than just have it as an assumed position.

    And their response will be that it is enshrined in the Second Amendment, probably accompanied by a rolling of the eyes.

    Your next move?

  7. 7.

    jl

    January 15, 2015 at 10:42 pm

    NYPD and Lynch not winning support from the potential perps that comprise the populace of NYC. Seems to be consensus across racial and ethnic groups that they’ve been acting like jackasses over the protests and in their fight with the mayor.

    However, far more whites than blacks or Hispanics believe the NYPD is doing a good job overall, which does not surprise me. The broad consensus disapproval of the recent police reactions does surprise me a little.

    NYC Turns Its Back on NYPD
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/nyc-turns-its-back-on-nypd

  8. 8.

    Tommy

    January 15, 2015 at 10:43 pm

    I’ve mentioned this before and I think it warrants repeating. When I lived on Capital Hill in DC I was mugged twice. House broken into. Car broken into. Girlfriends car stolen and never found. Now this was the 90s and ALL guns were illegal in DC at the time. But many people I knew on Capital Hill had them. Even staffers working at the Capital and White House (among other government agencies).

    I talked to them about getting a gun, which I’d only fired once. Almost every person, liberal or conservative said the same thing to me.

    Tommy that is a terrible, stupid idea. Most likely, that gun you buy to protect yourself, will be taken away from and used against you. Better to upgrade your security system and put a gate on your front door like you have bars on your windows. Don’t be stupid!

    I had never for a second thought my gun might be used against me. And since hindsight is usually 20/20, it was some of the best pieces of advice I’ve received in my lifetime. As they also noted people watch too many TV shows and movies and think they are “bas asses” when they are not. Plus, even if you did use the gun, would you really want to live with the fact you might have killed somebody over some “stuff” in your house?

  9. 9.

    srv

    January 15, 2015 at 10:50 pm

    @jl: Jesus was a Nazi?

    Iron Sky 1 was about Nazis on the moon. I don’t think Jesus would be riding a T-Rex named Blondie. Unless he was Hitler.

  10. 10.

    jl

    January 15, 2015 at 10:50 pm

    @Mandalay:

    A better strategy would be to get more honest Supremes who understand that the words

    ” A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, ”

    are not meaningless ceremonial throat clearing used to preface an amendment that, unlike any other, grants a completely unconditional and unrestricted right that is more equal than any of the others, and the rest of the Constitution.

  11. 11.

    jl

    January 15, 2015 at 10:53 pm

    @srv: I’m not familiar with the first movie. So, I see a T-Rex with someone riding on it loom up out of the distance, it’s gotta be Jesus riding that sucker. Right? Right! And it had Sarah Palin. What was I supposed to think?

  12. 12.

    satby

    January 15, 2015 at 10:55 pm

    @fuckwit: I live in the country and I don’t need a gun. And my neighbors don’t use their guns for self defense, they use them to kill animals. Otherwise harmless animals like deer, raccoons, chipmunk, and gophers; not bears or mountain lions. So I honestly doubt they need guns either.

  13. 13.

    LWA (Liberal With Attitude)

    January 15, 2015 at 10:56 pm

    @Mandalay:
    This is why I frame it in terms of a moral or natural right- the Amendments to the Constitution can and have been changed.
    Lets say it loud and say it proud- Repeal the 2nd Amendment!

    Its not even important that it is (currently) politically impossible. Merely changing people’s minds about the right to own a gun changes the political dynamic.

    Look at abortion- theoretically its still enshrined in the “penumbras and emanations” of the Constitution. But because enough Legislators, Congressmen, judges and Supremes don’t believe it exists as a right, it is virtually extinct in parts of the nation.

    With 218/60/5 (Congresspersons, Senators, Justices) we could:
    Establish strict insurance requirements for gun ownership;
    Establish liability requirements for gun manufacturers;
    Require registration of the tranfer of guns between private parties;
    Magazine limits;
    Bullet tracing;
    etc, etc, etc.
    We can, even without repeal, tighten the regulatory noose around guns, just as has happened with abortion.

    But it all starts with getting people to challenge this idea that a deadly weapon is a right. It isn’t, and we can win that argument pretty easily.

  14. 14.

    KG

    January 15, 2015 at 10:56 pm

    @LWA (Liberal With Attitude): there is a right to self defense that is inherent in the inalienable right to life, it is a fundamental right under international law. If you cannot legally defend yourself (or your property) or others, then the inalienable right to life is rather meaningless, no? And that right to self defense dates back to Roman law. If one does not have the strength to physically defend themselves, their property, or another person, then a tool can be used, including a gun. They called it Col Colt!s Equalizer for a reason.

    Now, like all rights, there are and should be limits – a proportional use of force, for example. The problem today is the cultural fetishizing of guns.

  15. 15.

    Mike in NC

    January 15, 2015 at 10:59 pm

    “Lies, Damned Lies, & Statistics”

    M. Twain

  16. 16.

    LWA (Liberal With Attitude)

    January 15, 2015 at 10:59 pm

    @jl: The conservative Justices who would happily strike down Roe V Wade were not the first move, by the anti-abortion movement.

    They were its culmination, after decades of slogging through the political wilderness, fighting and winning skirmish after battle after campaign.

    It will take a decade of work, for us to get a Justice who doesn’t equate gun ownership with a Sacrament. But it will happen.

  17. 17.

    Kay

    January 15, 2015 at 11:01 pm

    I think it’s funny how the liberty-lovers don’t object to the fact that they cause all kinds of security check points and monitoring to go in.

    Empty your pockets and walk thru this metal detector, everyone. Freedom isn’t free. Because they won’t secure their personal arsenal, every school kid in the country has to undergo “shooter drills”. They’re less free. We all are. Maybe at some point they’ll figure it out sometime after they put in the body scanner at the middle school.

  18. 18.

    Mike J

    January 15, 2015 at 11:03 pm

    As I stated in an earlier thread, what a pity that American Sniper guy didn’t have somebody with a gun near him to keep him alive.

  19. 19.

    LWA (Liberal With Attitude)

    January 15, 2015 at 11:06 pm

    @KG: The right to self-defense is limited to a reasonable standard. I can’t point to burglary statistics, and demand a right to a machine gun.

    The number of actual encounters where a person really needed to save their life by using a gun are actually miniscule. Like the post suggests, most are lies by wild extrapolation, but most are anecdata of the “I heard a noise, and grabbed my gun and went to investigate- I didn’t see anything, so the gun must have saved my life.”

    For everyone here to ask themselves- Have you personally ever been in a life or death situation, where you think having a gun would have made a difference? How about your family and friends? Anyone you know?

    Its possible we could get a few affirmatives- but overwhelmingly, virtually no one ever really needs a gun for defense- its been a long time since Black Bart challenged anyone to a duel at high noon, and unlike Hollywood movies, criminals don’t burst in, give you warning, patiently wait for you to find your gun, load it, then shoot wildly and miss, allowing you to kill them

  20. 20.

    Major Major Major Major

    January 15, 2015 at 11:07 pm

    @Mike J: maybe everybody else at the range was a bad guy.

  21. 21.

    goblue72

    January 15, 2015 at 11:07 pm

    @fuckwit: This isn’t about Country Joe and his deer rifle. This is about small dick losers with an obsessive fetish that the rest of the civilized world rightly sees as juvenile and deranged.

  22. 22.

    Major Major Major Major

    January 15, 2015 at 11:09 pm

    @LWA (Liberal With Attitude): well that’s why you keep the gun loaded and unlocked at your bedside, silly

  23. 23.

    Petorado

    January 15, 2015 at 11:10 pm

    Using Kleck and Getz’s methodology, one could come up with astonishing statistics about the size of men’s genitalia in this country and the length of the biggest bass they ever caught. Hooda thunk that anonymously polling people about a question that appeals to their vanity could produce skewed data.

  24. 24.

    Major Major Major Major

    January 15, 2015 at 11:12 pm

    @KG: I always confuse “time-manner-place” between a german and japanese linguistic rule for prepositions, and the the way in which we limit rights for the first amendment but somehow not the second.

  25. 25.

    Mike J

    January 15, 2015 at 11:16 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Did you say you had found a new MC server to play on? What mod pack?

  26. 26.

    Major Major Major Major

    January 15, 2015 at 11:20 pm

    @Mike J: vanilla ish. A few /home’s, plentiful food, don’t lose your stuff when you die unless you’re in the pvp zone. Anti-griefing thing with the golden shovel, whatever that’s called. I can get you the server name if you want, no whitelist and pretty young.

  27. 27.

    Mandalay

    January 15, 2015 at 11:21 pm

    @LWA (Liberal With Attitude):

    This is why I frame it in terms of a moral or natural right- the Amendments to the Constitution can and have been changed. Lets say it loud and say it proud- Repeal the 2nd Amendment!

    A noble objective, but that’s hardly forcing the other side to defend their position. They are in the driving seat from a legal perspective, so they don’t need to defend anything.

    And sadly I am not sure that you have the right idea by chipping away at the laws either, since winning the argument does not translate to changing the laws. Sandy Hook proved that.

    But there are other indirect routes to gun legislation changes that more closely reflect the will of the people in the longer term: get rid of gerrymandering, get rid of rich white men in both parties dominating Congress, and get rid of wealthy donors owning politicians. None of those objectives are easy attained, but they are an alternative pathway to better gun laws.

  28. 28.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    January 15, 2015 at 11:34 pm

    @fuckwit:

    I think it was Howard Dean’s idea that gun ownership should be regulated based on population density. If you live 5 miles from your nearest neighbor and have to drive 50 miles to get to a movie theater, you can keep a Howitzer in your back yard for all I care.

    Exurban =/= rural, so a lot of the gun idiots would have their stashes severely slashed.

  29. 29.

    fuckwit

    January 15, 2015 at 11:36 pm

    @satby: I don’t know how harmless deer are, ever seen them destroy someone’s garden? They can be tasty though. But good point, I’d forgotten the probably best use for guns: getting dinner, and getting rid of things that eat the dinner you’d been growing before you can. My point being: in the suburbs and city, guns are way more trouble than they are worth, and only in rural areas are they a useful tool.

  30. 30.

    Major Major Major Major

    January 15, 2015 at 11:36 pm

    @Mike J: spigot is the pack, looks like.

  31. 31.

    Tree With Water

    January 15, 2015 at 11:41 pm

    I look forward to reading and viewing all this. My initial reaction is Howard Beale? This is the type of reporting 60 Minutes used to do, back when it was still 60 Minutes. When millions tuned in, and talked things over the next day.

  32. 32.

    Anne Laurie

    January 15, 2015 at 11:44 pm

    @Tommy: Some twenty years ago, a young male co-worker came in shaken. He’d been contacted by the police; the gun he’d reported stolen a few years before had been used in an attempted murder. The cops were careful to tell him that if he hadn’t reported the theft — apparently, quite a few people “didn’t bother” — he’d have been on the hook as an accessory. Worse, as far as my co-worker was concerned, somebody almost died because of “his” gun.

    One more thing to think about, before buying a gun for protection.

  33. 33.

    Tommy

    January 15, 2015 at 11:48 pm

    @fuckwit: Deer are a problem where I live and I bet in many other places. I know people that won’t drive (like my parents) at night because of the fear of hitting one going 60 on a highway. There was a news report the other day that noted one of the super rich suburbs of St. Louis is paying “sharp shooters” (their words not mine) tens of thousands of dollars to kill 1,000 deer this year. The estimate is there are more than 50 deer per square mile.

    Where I live in rural, southern Illinois hunting is a way of life. Not that long ago the deer population was getting pretty small. We put in a number of restrictions. Shortened the gun and bow seasons. Limited the number of hunting permits. The good news is it worked and the deer population bounced back to levels higher than it as ever been by most estimates from the State Wildlife Department. Bad news the deer population is maybe larger than it has ever been.

    Now my small side of the family (dad’s side) are not hunters. My mother’s side and the family my brother married into, HUGE hunters. Not talked to them about “hiring” people to kill deer, but they must be livid. They’d do it for free (and use just about every single part of the animal I might add). Heck they’d buy a permit from the state to do it for free.

  34. 34.

    Major Major Major Major

    January 15, 2015 at 11:52 pm

    @Tommy: I used to live in Marin County: Where even the deer know to walk on the sidewalks(TM).

    (West Marin, I’m not a rich asshole)

    When I lived in Colorado I totaled a car on an elk’s neck. Totaled the elk too.

  35. 35.

    Alison

    January 16, 2015 at 12:01 am

    @Major Major Major Major: Hey, I grew up in Marin and we were far from rich.

    Okay, it was Novato, which hardly counts. Most of Marin probably thinks it ought to be annexed to Sonoma County :P

  36. 36.

    Tommy

    January 16, 2015 at 12:06 am

    @Major Major Major Major: I couldn’t imagine hitting an Elk. Our deer, generally speaking, are a fraction of the size of an elk. Some guy not that far from me (and I don’t really know hunting terms) shot a deer last year with the largest “rack” or points in the history of Illinois. As slow as news is around here it made the front page of all the papers and the local TV news. The deer or I guess a buck, was huge but still not remotely the size of a full grown elk.

    The fear of some, driving at night and hitting a deer is very real. My parents visit, they live directly across the state from me, about once a month to see me and my brother and their grandkid (really it is ALL about Katie). This time of the year, when it gets dark earlier, they openly say they’re leaving mid-afternoon to get home before it gets dark. My parents are not fearful people, but they’d say practical. When many people you know, my parents included, have hit a deer in recent times, you start to think about it.

  37. 37.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    January 16, 2015 at 12:07 am

    are awake, the 845,000 statistic cited in Kleck and Gertz’s paper is simply mathematically impossible…

    and you can almost hear the snoring. Math lacks truthiness since it math is merely factually correct, that’s why it doesn’t work in politics.

  38. 38.

    Mike J

    January 16, 2015 at 12:12 am

    Know why basketball is so popular in Memphis? Every house has a goal so they have something to hang a deer from while skinning it. On my block, when I was a kid, there was always at least one house with a deer hung up during the season.

    For the most part, the firearms used for hunting aren’t what kill people. Handguns are the real problem, and people don’t hunt with those.

  39. 39.

    wasabi gasp

    January 16, 2015 at 12:31 am

    In the upcoming black comedy Good Guys with Guns, the panic button blasts “The Star-Spangled Banner” at ear-splitting volume, immediately shocking everyone into chest-clutching patriotism.

  40. 40.

    KG

    January 16, 2015 at 12:33 am

    @Major Major Major Major: I’m by no means opposed to limiting second amendment rights… And we do, to some extent, like I can’t go buy a tank or artillery. I do think there need to be more and better regulations. I think insurance should be required, I think strict liability should apply in any case that isn’t self defense. And above all, we must change the culture when it comes to gun fetishes.

    @LWA (Liberal With Attitude): the right to self defense is limited to a reasonable use of force. Which is governed by a subjective and objective standard. If a person reasonably believes their life (or the life of another) is in danger, and if a reasonable person in the same of similar circumstances would conclude the same, then deadly force can be used. The question then becomes whether we so wish to restrict the right to keep and bear arms to the point that we would put otherwise law abiding citizens in danger, even if it is statistically improbable. Because statistics don’t matter when it happens to an individual – the guy that’s out of work doesn’t care that unemployment is going down, and the guy that gets shot by a burglar doesn’t care that the statistics say his experience is uncommon

    Have I ever been in a life or death situation? Once, when I nearly rolled an F350 on the freeway in the middle of the night. But not when it comes to an interaction with another person. Part of that is because I’m six feet tall and well over 200, and have a decade plus of martial arts training. Part of it is luck.

  41. 41.

    Tree With Water

    January 16, 2015 at 12:34 am

    @Tommy: @Major Major Major Major: I live in west Sonoma county (Marin county’s northern neighbor). I’m never moving again I love it here so much.

    Just last week I heard about a an anti-deer whistle that attaches to a car (easily I was assured) and costs in the neighborhood of $30. I’d never heard of such a gizmo, but apparently it serves to spook deer while the car is moving. The lady who told me about it swore by it, and she’s lived in my heavily wooded vicinity (i.e. redwood tree country) for 30 plus years. Lots of deers hereabouts.. Then again, maybe it just wasn’t in the cosmic cards that she would ever smack a deer, and the whistle has nothing at all to do with it.

  42. 42.

    Alison

    January 16, 2015 at 12:58 am

    @Tree With Water: Hi, neighbor! (Relatively speaking ;) )

  43. 43.

    Peale

    January 16, 2015 at 1:05 am

    @jl: I thought that “union” meeting try other day was a hoot. The police are mad at lynch for not using these incidents to get more body armor, guns and officers. God, how many more coos can one city have?

  44. 44.

    pseudonymous in nc

    January 16, 2015 at 1:12 am

    @fuckwit:

    If you live out in the country, you need guns.

    No you fucking don’t. You’re not Grizzly fucking Adams.

  45. 45.

    Tommy

    January 16, 2015 at 1:23 am

    @Tree With Water: I’ll have to look into it. Thanks for the heads up.

    And yup, you are just a hop, skip, and fall to the south-east of me. I grew up here but from 18 (going away to college) in 1987 until 2002 I lived either in Macomb, IL. Baton Rouge, LA (grad school). Or the DC metro area (Silver Springs or Alexandria), but 90% of the time on Capital Hill in DC).

    I FLAT out love living here. I miss something, like all the great ethnic neighbourhoods of DC (about the only ethnic place around me is “The Hill” in St. Louis, which is Italian). The culture. But there are other things about living here that off-set that stuff.

  46. 46.

    Major Major Major Major

    January 16, 2015 at 2:00 am

    @Tree With Water: I’ll be in Guerneville over the weekend, it’s a fun part of the state :)

  47. 47.

    patrick II

    January 16, 2015 at 2:32 am

    If there are actually over 1,000,000 successful gun confrontations in a year it would mean some significant number of burglars being shot. If just ten percent of confrontations ended in a burglar killed or wounded, that would be over 100,000 criminals shot in a year. By now we would have run out of criminals. Even if just 1 percent of those criminals confronted by a homeowner with a gun and are shot it would make 10,000 burglars a year losing gun fights. I am pretty sure I would have heard about that by now.

  48. 48.

    Kay

    January 16, 2015 at 2:44 am

    This is the new safety measure the industry is pushing:

    The measure would have overhauled Michigan’s concealed permit applications in a way that would have allowed people who faced restraining orders as a result of domestic violence or stalking allegations to obtain guns, as long as their orders didn’t specifically restrict their access to firearms.

    It’s incredible. They’re straight-up trying to get more people killed.

  49. 49.

    jc

    January 16, 2015 at 3:02 am

    God, what a depressing video. Just what this country needs: obnoxious tough guy dimwits intimidating elected officials in their offices. How did those gun-slingers even get into that office? In my city (SF) a while back, the mayor was assassinated by a supervisor, and today guns are absolutely forbidden from being brought into City Hall.

  50. 50.

    xenos

    January 16, 2015 at 3:26 am

    @patrick II: I have had people declare to me, as indisputable fact, that there are 15, 000 robberies per day foiled by gun owners. I suppose if I believed such a thing I might want to carry a gun around, loaded with one in the chamber and the safety off, just like many gun nuts do.

    Wait a minute, even if true I would not be stupid enough to do that.

    Just think of the risk analysis that leads to such a conclusion.

  51. 51.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 16, 2015 at 4:02 am

    @Kay:

    They’re straight-up trying to get more people killed.

    As long as cash registers jingle, they do not care if more people are killed.

  52. 52.

    tybee

    January 16, 2015 at 5:29 am

    @Mike in NC:

    disraeli

  53. 53.

    Matt McIrvin

    January 16, 2015 at 7:13 am

    The Kleck and Getz numbers would mean that one in every 100 or 200 adult Americans was using a gun defensively against a criminal every single year. Everyone would know somebody that it had happened to recently… unless, I suppose, the uses were concentrated among some minority who were doing it many times a year.

    But just on that face of it, that’s ridiculous. It couldn’t possibly have been true even in 1992. It’s not as if this is the sort of thing that there’s a social stigma against reporting, like, say, being sexually assaulted.

  54. 54.

    Elmo

    January 16, 2015 at 7:21 am

    I’m pretty sure I prevented an attack on my house by brandishing a shotgun when I lived in Tennessee. But even I’m questioning my support for gun rights. This country has gone crazy, and crazy people shouldn’t have guns.

  55. 55.

    satby

    January 16, 2015 at 7:46 am

    @fuckwit: I have nothing against hunters who will use the meat instead of just hanging a head on their wall, and I live in the country as I already stated, so I know how destructive all the animals I mentioned can be to human things. It’s an ecosystem, if we weren’t here disrupting it there might be better balance between predators and prey. Either way, if the primary use of your gun is to kill rodents, your doing something wrong.

  56. 56.

    brantl

    January 16, 2015 at 7:50 am

    @Kay: They object to the scans, too. No one should be able to inspect their pockets; they’re the good guys. How you’re supposed to differentiate between good and bad people, is only by color, as far as they’re concerned. Never mind that the most successful native terrorists have been white. They also have the “cowboy mythos” wrapped around their heads so tight, it’s a wonder they don’t pop.

  57. 57.

    satby

    January 16, 2015 at 7:51 am

    @Kay: getting more people killed makes other people feel less safe and buy more guns. That’s a win for the NRA and their corporate masters.

  58. 58.

    satby

    January 16, 2015 at 7:51 am

    @brantl: yep

  59. 59.

    AndoChronic

    January 16, 2015 at 8:39 am

    I carry a gun to defend myself against those types represented in the video.

  60. 60.

    charluckles

    January 16, 2015 at 8:54 am

    Can’t remember where I first saw this:

    http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2015/01/13/gun-owners-participate-in-simulation-of-paris-massacre/

    “Time and time again, the armed civilian “dies” – shot by a round that marks him or her with paint.
    In only two cases volunteers were able to take out one of two gunmen in the process.”

    It’s all a fantasy.

  61. 61.

    AndoChronic

    January 16, 2015 at 8:56 am

    i.e. The “gee, I think camo makes for good professional dress”, “I severed in the military so I’m now a Constitution expert”, and personally perceived socially exalted types not the lawmakers. Although, some could still confuse that with meaning Jesse Ventura I suppose.

  62. 62.

    Craig

    January 16, 2015 at 9:15 am

    @LWA (Liberal With Attitude):
    unlike Hollywood movies, criminals don’t burst in, give you warning, patiently wait for you to find your gun, load it, then shoot wildly and miss, allowing you to kill them

    A cop by the name of Tueller ran a series of experiments. If an opponent is within 21 feet of you, he can close the distance and start hitting, stabbing, whatever before you can get your pistol out. And that’s if the pistol is open carry. I would think a concealed pistol would take even more time to withdraw.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill

  63. 63.

    Craig

    January 16, 2015 at 9:26 am

    @fuckwit:

    People who use pepper spray against a bear attack are injured less often, and their injuries are less severe than people who use a gun. From that bastion of liberal thinking, “Field and Stream”:

    http://www.fieldandstream.com/articles/hunting/2008/12/use-pepper-spray-instead-guns-stop-charging-grizzly

    http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/grizzly/bear%20spray.pdf

    The theory is that a gun wound puts the bear in “fight to the death” mode, whereas pepper spray is like a wasp sting, it tells the bear to move on.

  64. 64.

    Steve from Antioch

    January 16, 2015 at 9:27 am

    @Craig:

    True, and that “study” even with its flaws, is the foundation for much modern police training.

    It’s often cited when police shoot and kill someone with knife even though the person is 7 yards away.

  65. 65.

    Gary D

    January 16, 2015 at 9:39 am

    Wow. absolutely terrible gun related statistics and John Lott, “the worst statistician in the world”, isn’t involved? Are you sure his influence isn’t in there somewhere?

  66. 66.

    'Niques

    January 16, 2015 at 11:23 am

    @Tree With Water: Haven’t yet read all the comments, but I remember these when I was in Michigan in the late 1980s . . . barely perceptible to the human ear, but apparently quite loud to deer. Don’t know why they aren’t universally well-known.

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