Apparently, the same is true of American gun haters. Imagine that.
I’ve never yet seen these statistics done properly… Perhaps some time when I have a lot of time on my hands I’ll try to do it myself. Gun crime rates per capita (technically speaking, crime per the integral of population density with respect to area) is the wrong measure to use, since a gun crime (or most crimes, really) is an interaction between two people. What you really want to measure is crime per capita per population density (technically, crime per the integral of the square of population density with respect to area).
As for the gun laws being tightest in places where there’s the most gun violence, well, which way does the causality run? It seems to me that if you’ve got a lot more gun crime, there’s a lot more incentive to pass restrictive gun laws.
You throw your money one way and run in the other. If he goes after the money, you get away. If he goes after you, at least you have a head start.
But “run for it” is nearly always the best option. Even if he points a gun at you and says “get in the car”, you still run. Most criminals - heck, most people - are lousy shots, and won’t hit you except by accident unless the muzzle is actually pressed against you.
Regards,
Shodan
Firearm murders per capital by country:
USA #8
AU #27
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir_percap-crime-murders-firearms-per-capita
And…?
So apparently criminals in Australia do have a harder time getting guns. Or they’re more reluctant to use them, or something.
Quite likely. Correlation does not imply causation.
Isn’t it logical that, the more guns there are in a country, the easier criminals will find it to get them? But it’s fair for you to ask for a cite, I guess, as long as you provide one for your comment about Australia.
17 years ago the DOJ analyzed crime data from 1987-92 and put the number of persons defending themselves with a firearm against crime of violence averages 62,000 annually plus 20,000 stopping property crimes.
[INDENT]"During the same period an estimated annual average of 62,000 violent crime victims . . . used a firearm in an effort to defend themselves. In addition, an annual average of about 20,000 victims of theft, household burglary or motor vehicle theft attempted to defend their property with guns.
U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
Bureau of Justice Statistics:
Crime Data Brief Guns and Crime: Handgun Victimization, Firearm Self-Defense, and Firearm Theft April 1994, NCJ-147003[/INDENT]
Given the changes in firearm laws in the ensuing 24 years, that 62,000 annual average should be considered a low-end estimate today. More than 30 states have moved to a shall issue concealed weapons permit system (or unrestricted) since then and many millions of citizens now carry a gun for defense now.
Even if we were to accept that 62,000 average as applicable today it is still impressive; that is 170 people a day nationwide that defended their lives and person from bodily harm. What is the old saying . . . If it saves one life?
Now to the precise point of your question . . . The USDoJ says those who use a firearm to defend themselves are the least likely group to sustain injuries in the incident. They were even less likely to be injured than those who offered no resistance.
[INDENT]“At a minimum, victims use guns to attack or threaten the perpetrators in . . . about 70,000 times per year–according to NCVS data for recent years. These victims were less likely to report being injured than those who either defended themselves by other means or took no self-protective measures at all. Thus, while 33 percent of all surviving robbery victims were injured, only 25 percent of those who offered no resistance and 17 percent of those who defended themselves with guns were injured. For surviving assault victims, the corresponding injury rates were, respectively, 30 percent, 27 percent, and 12 percent.”
National Institute of Justice - Firearms and Violence. by Jeffrey A. Roth[/INDENT]
Those armed citizens have an impact on criminal behavior.
[INDENT]"Professors James D. Wright and Peter Rossi surveyed 2,000 felons incarcerated in state prisons across the United States. Wright and Rossi reported that 34% of the felons said they personally had been “scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim”; 69% said that they knew at least one other criminal who had also; 34% said that when thinking about committing a crime they either “often” or “regularly” worried that they “[m]ight get shot at by the victim”; and 57% agreed with the statement, “Most criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police.”
Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms (1986). See Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda? by Don B. Kates, et. al. Originally published as 61 Tenn. L. Rev. 513-596 (1994).[/INDENT]
As I said, with the changes in gun laws in the years since these studies, I think one could safely assume that instances of and thus these percentages describing defensive gun use have only grown.
If 34% of felons described being personally “scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim” when only 9 states allowed concealed carry what is it now when 41 states allow it?
Thank you for the statistics! Fascinating. It should be noted, though, that the paragraph after the one quoting injury rates reads:
Still, it seems that pulling a gun may not have as much danger of escalation as a lot of people (including me) assume.
In other words, the cites don’t really address the question, unless there’s a definition of “violent crime” that only includes muggings.
Certainly having and producing a concealed firearm is a useful thing when confronted with an actively violent criminal, but absent statistics otherwise I’m not really convinced the data you’ve provided speaks to the question in the OP.
Supporting Zeriel’s point:
Next sentence in link: In most cases victims defending themselves with firearms were confronted by unarmed offenders or those armed with weapons other than firearms. So at best, the stat has to be treated with care before applying it to the OP. It’s not clear whether from that statistic whether an unarmed defender could have done as well.
But props for finding that study. You linked to a press release: it might be interesting to give the whole work a close reading. (Alas, I for one am too lazy.)
Moving on to armed/unarmed victim comparisons:
Interesting. So we have an 8 percentage point edge for gun use over no resistance at all. I wouldn’t call that large. I’d like to check the statistical significance. Interesting though. Now, again, let’s move on to the very next sentence:
For two reasons, these statistics are an insufficient basis for the personal decision whether or not to obtain a gun for self-protection. First, the decision involves a trade-off between the risks of gun accidents and violent victimization. Second, it is not entirely clear that the relatively few robberies and assaults in which victims defended themselves with guns are typical of these types of crimes and that the lower injury rates resulted from the self-defense action rather than some other factor. Perhaps offenders lost the advantage of surprise, which allowed victims not only to deploy their guns but also to take other evasive action. More detailed analysis of gun self-defense cases is needed to measure both the frequency and consequences of different self-defense actions using guns.
Emphasis added. Yi-yi. Criminologists really need to work harder. That or they should get better funding.