Its only anecdotal, but I can't recall ever hearing a news story about guns doing something helpful.

[Stinky The Clown]

You would think news organizations would be all over that, huh?

[Blanket Statements]

1. My gun opened a jar of pickles for me just the other day

Did the laundry too

[Duckhunter935]

2. nope

same as if you drive and don't get in an accident. Not news.


If it bleeds it leads

[Stinky The Clown]

3. I bet if a gun stopped a robbery, it would be a news story.

Or warded off a rapist.

Or stopped a 7-11 snatch and grab.

etc.

[Blanket Statements]

5. Guns can't actually do anything by themselves

See, theyre inanimate objects

[Duckhunter935]

9. very true

[Duckhunter935]

7. nope

Might be a crime story on page 9

[Shandris]

11. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/21/21063199-indiana-pastor-pulls-gun-on-man-stops-robbery

Well, that took all of 4 seconds. It's even from my home state.

Google search terms: "man with gun stops robbery"

[Duckhunter935]

4. how about feeding people

Hunting for food is a good thing. Kind of hard with a knife.

[Brickbat]

6. I did a couple weeks ago.

I mean, I guess it depends on what you mean by "helpful," although I'm sure this old guy is happy he had his handy.

http://www.startribune.com/politics/statelocal/232153831.html

It was past 2 a.m. when Charles Carlson awoke to noises.

He went to the kitchen of his Sandstone, Minn., farmhouse to see what was going on and ended up with a revolver pointed at his head, according to charges filed Friday in Pine County.

Carlson knew the man’s gun was loaded, “as he could see the rounds in each chamber of the cylinder.” So Carlson, 75, pretended to be blind and hard of hearing. The intruder lowered his weapon for a moment — long enough for Carlson to grab his own loaded Glock 9mm handgun.

Charges filed Friday against a second alleged intruder, 16-year-old Franklin Joseph Brewster, give the first details of an early morning drama that unfolded on Fox Road, west of Sandstone, and left one man dead. Carlson shot and killed Gypsy Wayne Watts, 23, after Watts and Brewster entered his house looking for drugs and money, the charges say.

[Duckhunter935]

8. or this one

AutoZone Fires Worker Who Stopped Robbery

Devin McLean and his store manager were about to close the AutoZone in York County, Va. when a gunman barged into the store.

“He pulled a gun from his waist band and demanded me and my manager go back into the office,” McLean told Fox News.

At some point, McLean was left in a restroom while the gunman made the manager open the store safe. That’s when McLean, a 23-year-old Air Force veteran, bolted through a side door and ran to his truck.

He returned through the front door holding a Glock 40 – pointed directly at the masked robber.

“I told him to freeze and to drop his weapon,” McLean told Fox News.

Instead, the robber took off – last seen running down the street from the store.

http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/autozone-fires-worker-who-stopped-robbery.html

[defacto7]

10. The last thing I would call that story is helpful.

Unless you are clairvoyant you have no idea what the outcome would have been had he not had the weapon. You say he's happy he killed a person? That's one warped old guy. You seem to see it as helpful, I see it as an atrocity. Maybe they would have killed the old guy, but not likely. But the old guy was more likely to have been killed trying to use the weapon than not having it. He was only lucky he survived instead of having averages on his side. Most stories end with some alternate ending.

[Agschmid]

12. +1

Nothing helpful about that.

[Blanket Statements]

13. Defending yourself as an atrocity? Wow!

And he didn't say the man was happy he killed someone

[defacto7]

20. You're right, he didn't.

I rephrased it so as to not be quite as bad as my first thought based on what he did say... "I'm sure this old guy is happy he had his handy" That points to the commenter as problematic. I was trying to be nice.

You also do your own twisting by saying "defending yourself as an atrocity" as being my point.. I think killing is an atrocity no matter the circumstances. I see being "happy" to be able to put yourself in a position that makes you more likely to be killed is illogical. It's like throwing dice in a casino hoping it doesn't come up 7.

[Blanket Statements]

34. So relying on the kindness of the armed man who broke into his house

Isn't rolling the dice?

[petronius]

14. Perhaps that's why stories about guns being helpful are seemingly rare

When a 'bad thing' happens, it's generally very obvious and usually the sort of thing that sells newspapers.

But a 'good thing' done by a gun is generally just the absence of a 'bad thing' - 'absence of a bad thing' is difficult to demonstrate, and it often not all that exciting anyway...

[Duckhunter935]

16. the OP knows that

He can Google or Bing also like everyone else.

[defacto7]

22. That's a good response for a lot of subjects,

but it doesn't hold true for all subjects. People getting killed with guns or shot with them is not something the news overlooks no matter which side you root for. That's like saying the news is the judge of innocences or guilt and chooses to ignore a death by gun if it was "just the bad guy". I think the logic fails in this instance.

I think a gun as a can or bottle opener is still the best "good gun" story offered though not very practical.

[petronius]

23. The "absence of a bad thing" that I was referring to was nobody

getting injured or killed (I would call it a bad thing if anyone is hurt, even if it's the 'right' person getting their so-called just desserts). I wasn't suggesting that the news ignores a shooting when it's just a 'bad guy' getting shot - witness the post that started this sub-thread, for example.

What I was saying is that the good/helpful uses of a firearm often would be when and if a firearm is used to prevent (possible) harm, and that sort of outcome is difficult to demonstrate and not really front-page material...

[defacto7]

25. Thanks for the clarification.

That makes more sense, but it's like ghosts.. the what ifs. Maybe angels prevent possible harm, or dead relatives from the netherworld... no evidence of it. I tend to go with what we know, not what we project may or may not happen or what may or may not be published. I'm still left with no evidence of good uses whatever the state of people's interest in media stories.

[petronius]

32. There have been attempts, through means other than analysis of media

reports, to estimate the number of defensive ('good') gun uses that occur - these estimates vary pretty widely, and are plagued by the what-ifs (even in a real defensive use, there's no way of knowing what would have happened without the firearm being present). But it does seem clear that 'good' uses do occur, even if they're largely absent in the media.

For example, here's a source (see page 8) that reports 235,700 uses of firearms in defense against violent crime over 2007-2011, or ~47,000 per year. There's no way to know if the defensive attempt succeeded, or if it actually prevented death/injury that wouldn't have been prevented otherwise, but even the low estimates of defensive uses of firearms seem to be non-trivial.

If I had to guess, I'd say the the following:

1. that the number of actual deaths prevented through the intervention of a firearm is smaller (perhaps by a lot) than the number of deaths (homicide, suicide, accident) that occur through the medium of a firearm;
2. that the total number of 'bad' uses is greater than the total number of 'good' uses; and
3. that the number of 'neutral' uses (not crime/accident, not defense) vastly outweighs the other uses put together...

[Demo_Chris]

15. Happens hundreds or thousands of times a day. Not really news...

Nor should it be.

News is some child getting shot, and it is fortunately rare enough that we still pay attention.

[Duckhunter935]

17. correct nt

[sarisataka]

18. One I always recall...

911 Tells Mom 'Do What You Have To Do': Okla. Mom Sarah McKinley Kills Intruder Justin Martin
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/mom-kills-intruder_n_1183336.html

but I suppose many would say we can't be sure what would have happened if she did not have shot the intruder

[defacto7]

24. Some win the lottery...

most don't.

"I suppose many would say we can't be sure what would have happened if she did not have shot the intruder"

No, you can't be sure either way even with your particular choice of dice. It's humanly impossible. People die sometimes when bad things happen to them, but if you think guns raise the chances for your safety in the majority of cases... that's not the fact. It may make you feel that way.... but your feelings are not fact.

[sarisataka]

33. Some do

the OP implied that no one ever has a positive outcome in an encounter where a gun it involved. Obviously not true. Feelings, facts, statistics... if a person is charging me with a knife, yes I would rather have a gun.

Not to say a gun is a magic talisman to protect from all evil. Were that true, no police office would ever die. It is a force multiplier which in some cases means the good person avoids becoming a statistic. Since it is an inanimate object wielded by a human, it can be used for ill and make people into those statistics.

[josejimenez]

19. Guns Get Workers To America

Someone has to carry them across the border. They will do the jobs Americans don't want to do.

[flvegan]

21. No? Ask Canadians and Brits about not speaking German right now.

[laundry_queen]

29. .

[Hoyt]

26. Hey, Zimmerman summoned up courage to stalk and kill a "suspicious" unarmed kid.

He would have stayed in his car without his gun.

[The Straight Story]

27. Self defense stories are not allowed in GD, only one side is here

And do you think the news covers ever hunter who got some food for their family?

What about sports? Tons of schools/colleges have shooting sports. Bet the results would not be allowed in GD either (unlike super bowl/soccer/college ball/etc).

We look for what we want to bolster our hate/anger/etc - look at how many positive stories are posted about Muslims on RW sites. Not allowed, might interfere with their perception (and non-progressive people don't like to have their ideals challenged. Apparently we don't either....)

45 million gun owners, less than one percent use them in a bad way, they get the press, people get their biases fed.

Would you like 45 million stories a day about responsible gun owners?

Hell no, might challenge the perception people want to feed themselves (or, another way, makes it harder to use tragedies to spread hate and fear).

[Hoyt]

28. Seems like a high price to coddle folks whose gunz are more important than our society.

[solarhydrocan]

30. 1776

George Washington was a terrorist, if you lived in London

[Warpy]

31. Somebody with a CCW license saved a woman's life

a few blocks from me. Her STBX hubby was stalking her and attacked her at work, hunting knife. A guy with a gun yelled at him to drop the knife and shot him when he didn't.

The woman lived after a long hospitalization, her STBX nearly finishing the job before he got popped.

The DA refused to prosecute the guy who saved her life. As a matter of fact, I don't think the cops ever formally arrested him.

That's one case out of the hundreds of murders and suicides that have taken place in this town since then, all with guns, some cutting very close to home.