# Report: Guns in the home provide greater health risk than benefit **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 28, 2011, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014 "2011-04-28T11:02:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/121 "2011-04-28T22:29:46Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > What if I’ve attached all three to a cross bow? And then attached the crossbow to the end of the [nunchuck gun](http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Nunchuck_Gun)? ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/122 "2011-04-28T22:34:26Z")
> [@HoboStew](#): > > And then attached the crossbow to the end of the [nunchuck gun](http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Nunchuck_Gun)? No, that would be dangerous. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/123 "2011-04-28T22:35:32Z")
> [@HoboStew](#): > > I could just as easily turn the question back around on you. I have loads of fun with my plutonium basketball game. Sure it renders the cities I play it in uninhabitable for several million years after the game is over and lots of people die, but lots of things are dangerous! Live a little! Actually, that’s a strawman argument which is somewhat loaded with hyperbole, and as a result it’s not something relevant to the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/124 "2011-04-28T22:38:51Z")
How the hell does a potential attacker know that a given woman has taken a gun class? What probably reduced assaults is the heightened awareness that comes with self-defense training. ---
**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/125 "2011-04-28T22:46:38Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > Actually, that’s a strawman argument which is somewhat loaded with hyperbole, and as a result it’s not something relevant to the thread. Its not a strawman at all, although it is definitely loaded with hyperbole. You asked [QUOTE=Una Persson] Of what use is life if we err on the side of judging based on the practical goals and mechanistic utility, and nothing else? [/QUOTE] and I answered with a clear example of where I would err on practical goals and mechanistic utility over recreation. You seem to be OK with the costs of gun ownership as it stands now. Would you still be OK if the death toll was 10x what it currently is? 100x? Its all a matter of degrees, which was the point of my post. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/126 "2011-04-28T22:46:56Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > How the hell does a potential attacker know that a given woman has taken a gun class? What probably reduced assaults is the heightened awareness that comes with self-defense training. The training initiative was made very public, thus giving the impression more women were armed. The point is that it’s about perception. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/127 "2011-04-28T22:47:51Z")
I live in Florida, and I’ve never heard of the initiative. ---
**Author:** ![bdgr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a87d85/32.png) [@bdgr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bdgr)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/128 "2011-04-28T22:52:02Z")
I"ve use a gun a couple of times to denfed myself. No shots were fired and there isn’t any record of it. For instance, someone tried to break in the front door, I pointed a gun at them, they ran. Of all the people I know to have used a gun in self defense, that’s how it went most of the time. Most studies that say guns aren’t used in self defense only count when they are actually fired, and there is no reliable data on how many times it is used as a deterrent. With licensed carry, the biggest detterent is probably the idea that nobody knows who might have a gun. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/129 "2011-04-28T23:20:21Z")
> [@HoboStew](#): > > The point is, obviously, that you have to draw a line somewhere. Personally, I draw it at a device that offers 0 practical use and presents all sorts of dangers and problems in society.. Define “practical use” as you are using it in this context. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/130 "2011-04-28T23:24:27Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > …What about Spain? There is a much higher proportion of Hispanics in Spain. Does that give them a much higher crime rate? > > It’s awfully simplistic to bring race into it. In the US, as in many other countries, race is a marker for social and economic differences, and they are much more important in explaining crime rates. > [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > According to the Seventh United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, covering the period 1998 - 2000 (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention) the murder rate in > Spain is 0.0122456 per 1,000 people. In the United > States it is 0.042802 per 1,000 people. In > Mexico it is 0.130213 per 1,000 people. > [Countries Compared by Crime \> Murders \> Per capita. International Statistics at NationMaster.com](http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita)… – ensuing claptrap removed by me. Thus per your own cite the response to **Giles** ’ question is that in Spain the murder rate is in fact, much lower than in the US – despite the fact that, as he mentions, Spain has, per-capita, at least the same % of Hispanic population\*…not to mention the huge number of [**Moroccans and other Sub-Saharan**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Spain) emigrants. [**In the past six years, Spain’s foreign-born population has more than quadrupled, to nearly 4 million people.**](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12555928) Wouldn’t have anything to do with the respective gun-control measures in either nation, would it? \*NB: “Hispanics” properly defined as those not of Spanish origin; mostly immigrants & and first generation descendants. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/131 "2011-04-28T23:28:57Z")
\*In 1966 the police in Orlando, Florida, responded to a rape epidemic by drafting a highly publicized program to train 2,500 women in firearm use. The next year rape fell by 88 percent in Orlando (the only major city to experience a decrease that year); burglary fell by 25 percent. Actually, of the 2,500 women not one ended up firing her weapon; the deterrent effect of the publicity sufficed. Five years later Orlando’s rape rate wasstill thirteen percent below the pre-program level, whereas the surrounding standard metropolitan area had suffered a 308 percent increase. \* > **[gun control or people control, Social Issues, Free Essays @ ChuckIII...](http://www.chuckiii.com/Reports/Social_Issues/gun_control_or_people_control.shtml)** > > Free essays & term papers - gun control or people control, Social Issues ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/132 "2011-04-28T23:45:05Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > – ensuing claptrap removed by me. > > Thus per your own cite the response to **Giles** ’ question is that in Spain the murder rate is in fact, much lower than in the US – despite the fact that, as he mentions, Spain has, per-capita, at least the same % of Hispanic population\*…not to mention the huge number of [**Moroccans and other Sub-Saharan**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Spain) emigrants. > > [**In the past six years, Spain’s foreign-born population has more than quadrupled, to nearly 4 million people.**](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12555928) > > Wouldn’t have anything to do with the respective gun-control measures in either nation, would it? > > \*NB: “Hispanics” properly defined as those not of Spanish origin; mostly immigrants & and first generation descendants. This is what I got from the website you posted: “Immigrants from several sub-Saharan African countries have also settled in Spain as contract workers, although they represent only 4.08% of all the foreign residents in the country.” Morocco is north of the Sahara Desert. Nearly all of the immigrant population of Spain comes from racial groups that have practiced urban civilization for at least two thousand years. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/133 "2011-04-29T00:09:35Z")
> [@HoboStew](#): > > Frankly driving/shooting a tank sounds like way more fun than a gun, but w/e. It is. Unfortunately, it does require a bit of a commitment in a person’s life, and the people who primarily own them may occasionally tell you to go kill someone with it. The guns in my gun safe are considerably more within my budget, and no one makes me dress funny, salute anyone, or go to a foreign country and kill anyone. > [@emacknight](#): > > > [@TreacherousCretin](#): > > > > Shouldn’t a distinction also be made between handguns, shotguns, and rifles? > > What if I’ve attached all three to a cross bow? You have a place reserved in perpetuity in my Zombie Apocalypse Bunker. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/134 "2011-04-29T00:21:46Z")
> [@Nadir](#): > > So are you denying that a home with stairs is more dangerous than one without? No, I’m pointing out that your argument has no merit. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/135 "2011-04-29T00:34:59Z")
Hey left-wingers: if you want to encourage the NRA to become even more reactionary, encourage people who’d ordinarily be more moderate to turn into single-issue (gun) voters, and generally get gun owners and gun advocates even _more_ fanatically invested in defending the 2nd Amendment at the cost of other, ultimately more important political issues, then by all means, keep citing studies like the one in the OP and keep spouting totally uninformed knee-jerk anti gun rhetoric. The whole “gun lobby” that you so hate would _never exist_ if not for the people like _you_ who it rose up as a backlash against. The politicization of gun issues would never have occurred if _you_ hadn’t started chipping away at the 2nd Amendment. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/136 "2011-04-29T00:46:04Z")
This makes no more sense than vaccines cause autism bullcrap. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/137 "2011-04-29T00:47:27Z")
I seem to recall your using Alaska’s murder rate as proof that guns reduce crime, but I don’t remember if you ever explained why their rape rate is more than twice your country’s average. Did you? ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/138 "2011-04-29T00:48:41Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > This is what I got from the website you posted: “Immigrants from several sub-Saharan African countries have also settled in Spain as contract workers, although they represent only 4.08% of all the foreign residents in the country.” Yes. So? > [@](#): > > Morocco is north of the Sahara Desert. Nearly all of the immigrant population of Spain comes from racial groups that have practiced urban civilization for at least two thousand years. Talk about moving the goal posts. Are you now implying that Hispanics in the US have not “practiced urban civilization” prior to immigrating? :rolleyes: Point being (still! imagine that) the large number of immigrants in Spain – with literally millions of Hispanics amongst them – and the comparatively low murder rate compared to the US. Care to try again? ---
**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/139 "2011-04-29T00:57:17Z")
[QUOTE=Bone] Define “practical use” as you are using it in this context. [/QUOTE] I did, 3 posts prior to the one you quoted. > [@HoboStew](#): > > By “practical use” I meant as a tool to accomplish a specific goal, not a recreational need. ---
**Author:** ![opmike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9d8465/32.png) [@opmike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/opmike)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014/140 "2011-04-29T01:19:34Z")
I’d be interested to see the statistics for responsible gun owners. As with car statistics (going back this analogy, I apologize), those figures frequently include people who were driving drunk or otherwise compromised, fiddling around with radio, texting/talking on phone, going well in excess of the flow of traffic or what road conditions allow, and a myriad of other things we generally regard to be poor methods of driving or poor things to do with driving, and that many of us here wouldn’t do. With the gun issue, how do these figures change for responsible gun owners like myself? While I have a gun available for self-defense, my primary use of firearms is in competition shooting. Primarily, I shoot in USPSA, IDPA, and 3-gun style competitions. I also do instruction. My many fellow competitors and I aren’t just the average guy walking into a store to buy a gun who sticks it under his pillow, and never takes any time to become both safe and proficient with it. This type of person is a **major** liability. Many of us exhibit a level of proficiency with firearms that meet or exceed what you would commonly find in LE/Military circles. Some of us are also weapons manipulation and technique instructors for those aforementioned groups. We have our firearms secured in sturdy floor safes, and those of us with children (I don’t have any) have given them instruction on firearm safety, and they have been taught to avoid guns they have no business around and how to properly clear a firearm should the need ever arise. We don’t represent the majority, but my point is, simply citing a statistic and throwing the, “your guns are more likely to hurt you” comment in EVERYONE’s face who has one in their household is disingenuous. A statistical likelihood may be present, but it won’t be some even distribution. One could argue what does and doesn’t constitute responsible gun ownership (I’m sure some would argue that is an oxymoron), but I think there’s some pretty obvious, low hanging fruit we could add. I’m just interested how these figures change when they eliminate people who are completely incompetent. As an instructor, I’ve seen first-hand the HUGE divide between those who have and don’t have a proficiency with firearms, and how much safer they become after I and others are able to spend an afternoon, or couple of days with them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/report-guns-in-the-home-provide-greater-health-risk-than-benefit/580014.md?page=8)