# "A life is saved every 1.3 seconds by private gun owners" Huh? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 18, 2003, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640 "2003-06-18T05:29:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/1 "2003-06-18T05:29:11Z")
This evening, I was channel surfing and tuned into “Scarborough Country” on MSNBC in the middle of a story about guns. I didn’t hear much of the story but on the bottom of the screen, where they show various text messages, a message appeared which caught my attention. I don’t remember the exact wording but it was something like “A life is saved every 1.3 seconds by private gun owners”. Did I see this correctly? And if I did, is there any truth to it at all? I can’t see how it could possibly be true. I’m not claiming that “private gun owners” don’t ever save lives, I simply don’t know. But one life every 1.3 seconds? That can’t possibly be true. If my calculations are correct that’s over 24 million lives saved a year! WTF??? This is a news channel? Am I missing some context in which this would make sense? Did I hallucinate or completely misread this? ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/2 "2003-06-18T05:58:38Z")
I think we can assume that this is bullshit. If nothing else, how would they know? ---
**Author:** ![j.c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@j.c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j.c)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/3 "2003-06-18T06:08:56Z")
Many cardiac specialist and gun-owners, as are bartenders. Imagine how many of us would have passed over without their help. Well, at least without the help of bartenders. ---
**Author:** ![tastycorn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@tastycorn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tastycorn)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/4 "2003-06-18T06:22:58Z")
Deadly paper cuts from those paper shooting range targets. Net life gain 1 Every suicide of a handgun owner saves the lives of his wife and kids he would have murdered. Net life gain of 2-3 Handguns half as deadly as assault rifles in drive bys. Net life gain .5 Handguns notoriously difficult to aim. 1 in 2 attempted murders only wound. Net life gain .5 I think it averages out to about a life every 1.3 seconds. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/5 "2003-06-18T09:50:32Z")
Well, I agree with your maths. 1 life every 1.3 seconds, with 86400 seconds in a day, would mean means private gun owners save 66461.538 lives per day. Lets round up to 66462, just to be tidy. A life half saved is a bit of a strange concept. Per year, that means private gun owners would have to save 24,258,630 people every year. Erm…that really does look unlikely, doesn’t it… I fear that you may indeed either hallucinated or misread this stat. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/6 "2003-06-18T10:11:24Z")
Every 1.8 seconds, a non smoker fails to die of lung cancer. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/7 "2003-06-18T11:39:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Gary Kumquat \* > \*\*…I fear that you may indeed either hallucinated or misread this stat. \*\* Given the political slant of that particular program I wouldn’t be surprised if they were simply playing fast and lose with the truth in order to support their position. Sort of like the what **Mangetout** said: > [@](#): > > Every 1.8 seconds, a non smoker fails to die of lung cancer. For example, maybe they counted up the populations in the areas that allow the carrying of concealed weapons, subtracted the number who have died in violent crimes, divided the length of time those laws have been in effect by that result and came up with 1.3 seconds. Maybe the quote was “A life is _protected_…” rather than “A life is _saved_…” and I’m simply remembering it wrong. Even so, it seems like a pretty blatant attempt to mislead people as to the facts. Maybe I should have posted this in the pit as a rant rather than in great debates. It really really _REALLY_ irritates the hell out of me when I see these kinds of “facts” presented, especially on a “news channel”. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/8 "2003-06-18T11:54:56Z")
I think it is most likely that it is just completely made up (86% of statistics are made up on the spot, you know - the remaining 24% are mathematically flawed). It is just a piece of infalsifiable, unverifiable doggerel. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/9 "2003-06-18T12:14:09Z")
**Mangetout** , you’re probably right. Unfortunately, there are probably lots of people who’ll believe it because they saw it on the “news”. We may start seeing this figure quoted in gun debates. ---
**Author:** ![BF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5ac83/32.png) [@BF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BF)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/10 "2003-06-18T12:34:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by davidm \* > \*\ ***Mangetout** , you’re probably right. Unfortunately, there are probably lots of people who’ll believe it because they saw it on the “news”. We may start seeing this figure quoted in gun debates. \*\* As a gun rights supporter, I was quite amused with the OP because this (IMHO) has to be the first time some pro-gun hyperbole is causing a sensation, so to speak. I fully agree the stat is pure BS, as there are a number of relatively credible stats that have been presented in this forum that estimated defensive gun use anywhere from 700K to 2.5 million times a year. The irony is that there have been a number of GC threads started precisely because someone saw something on the “news”, ie., 13 children a day are killed due to handgun violence, the “gunshow loophole”, and even quoted “factual” information after watching Bowling for Columbine. It’ll be interesting to see the progress of this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/11 "2003-06-18T12:36:42Z")
As **j.c.** pointed out, it doesn’t say that lives are saved by _using_ the guns, it says they’re saved by _owners_ of guns. ---
**Author:** ![Renob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8c91f0/32.png) [@Renob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renob)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/12 "2003-06-18T12:56:24Z")
I’ve checked the NRA’s website, and they only claim that up to 2.5 million lives are saved annually by guns (either the using of guns for self-defense or the brandishing of a firearm to ward off injury). Here’s the cite they give for that figure (I haven’t checked it out): Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, “Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun,” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Fall 1995, p. 164. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/13 "2003-06-18T16:08:52Z")
Maybe every time a gun owner thinks of killing someone and doesn’t, that is a life saved? ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/14 "2003-06-18T16:23:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Renob \* > \*\*Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, “Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun,” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Fall 1995, p. 164. \*\* If that’s the study I’m thinking of, they did a survey of folks in the US and asked if they had recently use a gun to protect themselves from a criminal attack (or something along those lines). Except they didn’t account for the possiblity of police officers and others who used their guns for self-protection in a non-private setting, so the figure may be a bit inflated if you are trying to show that private gun ownership accounted for that many saves or something. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/15 "2003-06-18T16:59:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Maybe every time a gun owner thinks of killing someone and doesn’t, that is a life saved? That’s rather repugnant. Kleck and Gertz’s numbers are surely inflated. And the NRA cites them because, well, it’s the NRA. However, what the NRA does by promoting this inflated figure is no different that when HCI claims that handguns are 43 times more likely to be used to kill a family member than a criminal. I’ll also note that the 2.5 million figure is speaking only of the United States. That 1.3 seconds number likely includes the population of the entire planet. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/16 "2003-06-18T17:12:52Z")
Getting away from the ridiculously absurd stat, and 2.5 million people was then roughly 1% of the American population. So if there were another country that was much like ours, except that private gun ownership was a rarity, they’d be losing nearly 1% of their population annually to violent crime? I’d need a cite on that. To the extent that private gun owners repel crime, it is largely crime committed by other private gun owners. I’m not for confiscation as a solution to crime, but let’s at least be honest about the nature of the problem: guns are what make guns necessary, even by the NRA’s argument. Absent a total breakdown of civil order, there’s a much lower limit to the extent and severity of crime if the criminals are only armed with knives, bludgeons, and garrotes. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/17 "2003-06-18T17:52:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RTFirefly \* > **2.5 million people was then roughly 1% of the American population. So if there were another country that was much like ours, except that private gun ownership was a rarity, they’d be losing nearly 1% of their population annually to violent crime? I’d need a cite on that.** No, the study included things like warding off a mugger. There’s no guarantee that a mugger is going to kill you (probably isn’t), but it was listed as one of the instances of guns used for self-protection. Burglaries were another instance, I think. So the number of lives definitely saved by guns is lower than that 2.5 million, which is likely inflated anyway. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/18 "2003-06-18T17:53:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by UncleBeer \* > \*\*That’s rather repugnant. > > Kleck and Gertz’s numbers are surely inflated. And the NRA cites them because, well, it’s the NRA. However, what the NRA does by promoting this inflated figure is no different that when HCI claims that handguns are 43 times more likely to be used to kill a family member than a criminal. OK, so the NRA’s use of stats is on a par with the HCI. A few years ago in this forum, **Unc** , you were saying I shouldn’t remain a member of HCI because of their low standards of honesty. I thought about what you said, and haven’t sent them any money for quite some time now. Shall I ask whether you currently support the NRA? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/19 "2003-06-18T17:58:25Z")
$%&@! coding. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640/20 "2003-06-18T18:00:51Z")
Sorry **UncleBeer** that was the only way I could think of for getting to the 24 million per year number. Saving a life is a difficult thing to quantify anyway, every time you stop at a red light are you saving a life (your own in this case) since failing to stop would likely leed to a serious accident. What about giving to Charity, if Bill Gates own a gun, and gives millions to charity, is he saving tens of thousands of lives? Or are only the charity workers who use that money saving lives? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-life-is-saved-every-1-3-seconds-by-private-gun-owners-huh/182640.md?page=2)