Charleston shooting: For every criminal killed in self-defence in the US, 34 innocent people die

[Surya Gayatri]

"The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun," says Wayne LaPierre, the vice president of the National Rifle Association.

That's the kernel of the NRA's response to recent US mass shooting tragedies (such as Wednesday's massacre of nine people in a Charleston church) — if only more people carried guns for protection, the thinking goes, then they would be less likely to be victimised by gun-wielding criminals.

The challenge to that argument is that, data shows, guns are rarely used in self-defence in the US — especially relative to the rate at which they're used in criminal homicides or suicides. A recent report from the Violence Policy Center, a gun control advocacy group, put those numbers in some perspective, and I dug up the raw numbers from the FBI's homicide data.

There are, of course, plenty of solid arguments for robust 2nd Amendment protections. Millions of people use guns for sport and recreation every day. The vast majority of gun owners are responsible citizens, not criminals.

But, though some people certainly use guns for self-defence, the data suggests that overall, guns are used far more often for killing than in self-defence. As a result, it's may be thinking twice about arguments for more guns in schools, churches and other public places.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/charleston-shooting-for-every-criminal-killed-in-selfdefence-in-the-us-34-innocent-people-die-10333734.html

_________________

Waiting for the firearms apologists to appear any second now. These are the FBI's own figures, so I wonder what faux refutations they'll gin up.

[Eleanors38]

1. Funny, CDC says there are at least 200,000 defensive gun uses a year, prob. more...

That puts the criminal homicides in the shade by around 18 - 1.

Of course, most SD uses don't REQUIRE you blow someone away. Use might include:

Firing and missing
Firing in the air (not recommended)
Displaying a gun
Working the action (esp. pump action)
Merely warning a thug you have a gun

Don't you consider these valid SD uses? Sure beats killing someone.

[Surya Gayatri]

3. I do not like or condone the use of firearms except on the field of battle,

at the firing range or in the hunting reserve.

The GUN CULTURE KILLS, stochastic deadliness, if you will..

[beevul]

9. Just to be crystal clear: You're against armed self defense? N/T

[Surya Gayatri]

12. Just to be crystal clear: Not with weapons grade fire-arms

and not until every other avenue has been exhausted to calm a situation.

I am an unapologetic pacifist.

[beevul]

14. "Weapons grade firearms"?

What are they, and how do they differ from regular old firearms?

I have to admit, I've never seen that term used before.

I am an unapologetic pacifist.

Setting aside the fact that you condone the use of guns and violence on the battlefield which doesn't exactly square with being an "unapologetic pacifist"...

You're entirely free to decide to be that kind of pacifist for yourself. Your right to swing your pacifism, however, ends where the noses of others begin.

[Surya Gayatri]

15. 'Swing' my pacifism? Whatever are you on about?

Wars DO have to be fought at crucial, unavoidable junctures. Weapons grade firearms are necessary to fight them.

I won't be doing the fighting, however.

[beevul]

16. Ok, now I get it.

You're under the impression that civilian legal firearms are the same firearms as used in war.

Correct me if I'm wrong about that.

On edit:

'Swing' my pacifism? Whatever are you on about?

Ever heard the phrase "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins"?

Your right to be a pacifist ends somewhere before imposing that choice on others.

[Surya Gayatri]

17. Increasingly so. That's why licensing and back-ground checking must imperatively be revisited.

And the same restrictions apply to you, openly flashing your piece around in public to the discomfort and fear of people in the vicinity.

[beevul]

18. Except its a falsehood.

Civilian legal firearms do not function the way actual military firearms do. Just because something has a military "look", does not mean it "functions" militarily.

If the reverse were true, we'd just draft people, put a uniform on them, and send them out into the field.

After all, if they "look" like soldiers, they must be, right?

On edit:

And the same restrictions apply to you, openly flashing your piece around in public to the discomfort and fear of people in the vivinity.

I don't carry a gun, and haven't bought a gun in ten+ years.

[Surya Gayatri]

19. Spare us the apologist, gun-love songs. We've heard them all before.

Over and out. No more need be said and won't be.

[beevul]

20. In other words...

In other words, there is a real and true and factual difference between the military weapons you rail about, and civilian legal weapons, one which invalidates your talking points, and you cant be bothered to acknowledge it or discuss it.


Why didn't you just say so.

[Surya Gayatri]

21. Collective, impersonal "you"...N/T

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. And over 400,000 crimes per year involve the use of a gun

http://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/gun-violence/Pages/welcome.aspx

So guns remain a net problem.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

34. How does disarming those who legitimately use their weapons solve that problem?

[muriel_volestrangler]

36. Is that a riddle?

I didn't suggest disarming everyone. I completed the statistics on the effects of guns in the USA the other poster had conveniently left out.

[Nevernose]

28. That's not what the study says

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/01/16/the-study-that-gun-rights-activists-keep-citing-but-completely-misunderstand/

It says the research is so bad, due to the CDC's 18 year ban on gun research, that there's no way of knowing.

[thucythucy]

29. You're comparing apples to oranges.

The OP is referring to gun deaths, the number of people killed during a criminal act, versus the number killed in preventing a criminal act.

If you're going to use figures for non-lethal defensive use of firearms to prevent crime, you might try comparing those to the number of crimes committed with a gun that did not result in a death. To me that would be apples to apples, oranges to oranges. For instance:

How many rapes were committed at gunpoint?
How many burglaries?
How many armed robberies and muggings?
How many domestic assaults involved a firearm but didn't result in a death?
How many people were wounded during the commission of a crime, as opposed to outright killed? (You could compare that to the number of criminals wounded by someone using a firearm in self defense).
How many road rage incidents involved a firearm, without a death?
How many people disabled by gun crime, as opposed to murdered?

And so on.

I would bet that, if you factored in those statistics, your "18-1" figure would be considerably reduced.

[Eleanors38]

2. How does Japan do it? Bigger suicide rate than U.S. in a gun desert.

Must be the tall buildings and mountains.

[Surya Gayatri]

4. Private despair always finds a way. Homocide? Not so easy with a knife or your bare hands.

[Eleanors38]

5. Rwanda's Hutus would beg to differ. They did bloody work on

several hundred thousand Tutsi. Using machetes.

The "civilized world" may have developed some mythological qualms about methodology, but I submit that culture, economy and other factors are far more influential in a people's disposition to kill, rather than the instrument at-hand.

[Surya Gayatri]

6. Idea! How about a coast-to-coast trade-in scheme.

Bring in your fire-arm and get a big shiny machete instead.

Unless the US falls in to mass tribal genocide, I think I could predict the effect on homocide figures.

[Eleanors38]

10. I already have a bolo knife for back-up, but thanks for the offer!

Incidentally, if I were to be attacked in my house (unlikely), I am not interested in a "lower order" of weapon. I want a superior weapon. Fair fights are for the movies.

[Surya Gayatri]

13. You must feel REALLY, REALLY safe with all that hardware. AWESOME!

[Eleanors38]

24. Only somewhat safer for an old guy on SS...

My sleeping patterns are remarkably stable over the years, but on rare occasions it gets disrupted by the rough-looking guy passing through my side yard gate, walking to my neighbor (an even older lady, who is clearly at home), and watching him TRY THE DOOR KNOB NEVERTHELESS. A little cheeky, no? Think he might have something more in mind than a laptop or jewelry? He did this, house-after-house before disappearing in the woods before the cops arrived.

[Eleanors38]

42. No law against trying that.

[Surya Gayatri]

7. '...culture, economy and other factors are far more influential in a people's disposition to kill'

So, you are saying that Americans are more culturally conditioned killers than their brethren in other comparable industrialized nations?

Damning indictment, indeed.

[Eleanors38]

8. Please re-read. This country does not have the highest murder rate...

but like other societies, culture, economy and other factors are more important than the instrumentality used in killing. Put another way, click the ruby slippers twice to rid all guns in the U.S., and the killing will resume by other means. Please note: Our murder rate is way down compared with the late 60s, or even with the early 90s.

[Surya Gayatri]

11. 'This country does not have the highest murder rate'...COMPARED TO WHOM?

Chart: The U.S. has far more gun-related killings than any other developed country (or as I said 'comparable industrialized nations')

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484

The above chart measures data for the nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which includes all Western countries plus Turkey, Israel, Chile, Japan, and South Korea. I did not include Mexico, which has about triple the U.S. rate due in large part to the ongoing drug war.

The rate in several developing countries, particularly in Latin America, is significantly higher. Honduras, which has been called the murder capital of the world, has an average firearm murder rate that's about 20 times America's. But make no mistake: For a rich, developed country, the U.S. gun-related homicide rate is very, very high.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/14/chart-the-u-s-has-far-more-gun-related-killings-than-any-other-developed-country/

[Eleanors38]

25. Please re-read the statement I made.

[LittleBlue]

38. Agreed

The US has a lot of guns but also a powerful gang culture on top of a huge narcotics trafficking hub.

Eliminate those and I suspect our firearm homicides would drop drastically.

[Eleanors38]

39. Another way would be to concentrate efforts on community development...

with better schools, business relocation, and training. Meat & potato stuff, but what progressive policy is supposed to be about.

[LittleBlue]

40. +1

Yep

[Eleanors38]

41. For all the talk about Malcolm X being radical, he had a rather conservative streak...

in his outlook, one centered on localized community-control of economics and politics. This is not to suggest some sort of domestic isolation, but to put a premium on community rather than bureaucracies far-removed. Within such a context, a community can develop cooperative and/or publically owned businesses, and foster new institutions. This is STILL a viable, flexible and efficient approach for any peoples who face entrenched, unchanging, even hostile forces.

[onehandle]

22. K&R Isn't it amazing when they show up?

And isn't it amazing that some of them have nothing to talk about at DU but guns?

It's as if they have organized... somewhere. Assign sub-topics and foot soldiers.

This happens in forums all over the Internet. Have a knitting blog with comments? They are watching and are all over you if you even hint that guns are negative in any way. They remind me of Sentinels from The Matrix.

[img][/img]

But mainly, it's as if they have something to fear. And they do.

Tick-tock... There will be a tipping point.

[Surya Gayatri]

23. They must be incredibly BORING people in real life...BORING and dangerous.

Can you imagine sitting next to one a dinner party, for example?

[Eleanors38]

26. That fantasy organization might be what banners Wish they had.

[beevul]

33. Just look at the accusations.

It's as if they have organized... somewhere.

Projection. Anti-gunners HAVE organized here, in the GCRA group, and block people for things as trivial as deleted misposts, along with the alert jihad we now know is being waged from there:

Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: This has the be the same asshole who unsuccessfully alerted on the same DUer yesterday with almost the same comments "Rude personal attack, intended to be hurtful, not discussing the issue at hand. 1 more hide and they're back in timeout yet again, so please do hide". Take a powder shithead, you're abusing you alerting privileges.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1172&pid=169374

And isn't it amazing that some of them have nothing to talk about at DU but guns?

As if "all gun owners have blood on their hands" and "small penis brigade" are polite discussion rudely interrupted by pro-gun posters.

[Sancho]

30. Maybe instead of defending ourself against "bad guys", we need to keep "bad guys" from having guns..

because the proliferation of guns leads to other problems besides being shot by "bad guys"...

and because "bad guys" are not a synonym for "convicted criminals".

Some "convicted criminals" are not dangerous at all. Many, many people who are emotionally unstable, mentally ill, untrained, too young to know better, brainwashed by hate groups, or stressed by life are NOT "convicted criminals".

We need to make it much harder for dangerous people to easily possess guns. We could do that if we wanted to...and then we all may not have to be as concerned about self defense.

[mike in raleigh]

31. Better yet, why do we have so many bad guys in the first place?

[Sancho]

32. Of course, it would be nice if the US did a better job on many fronts...

economic opportunity,
mental health care,
social networking,
criminal rehabilitation,
etc.

All those and more might reduce the number of "bad guys" who shoot themselves or others.

Certainly, our GOP friends would rather spend money on guns instead of butter. They would also say it's ok to accumulate excessive wealth instead of doing society good.

Regardless, it is possible to prevent the most dangerous people from easily possessing guns, and the only reason we don't is a relatively small subset of the country controlling the issue.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

35. You say you're a pacifist.

If the gun owners refuse to surrender their guns will you remain a pacifist or will you suddenly find a justification for mass violence?

[LittleBlue]

37. How many criminals are deterred?

There is no statistic for that. I'm one of them. A skinhead looking fuck wanted to get violent with me until he saw my .357. He had tattoos I later learned were white power.

Turned a potentially violent confrontation to a nothing incident. Thank God I carried it that day to deter wild bears on camping trips. Never imagined I'd need it for a person.