Shhhhh! Ixnay on ayingsay “ableKay”! He might hear you and show up again.
Or maybe he expended all of the available YouTube clips.
Both of these numbers could be correct depending on how DGU is defined. If DGU is anytime a gun was used to make the owner feel safer, then I could imagine it happening millions of times a year. It would be DGU anytime the owner heard a strange noise or a strange car pulled into his driveway and he got his gun to be safer. In most of these cases the gun was unnecessary, but it gave a sense of security to the owner.
If DGU is when a gun is used to prevent an actual attack, then a number like 5,000 seems more likely. This would be when the attacker actually has intent to harm the owner. This scenario is the most relevant to the gun debate since it is when the gun was actually used to prevent harm to the owner rather than just giving the owner a feeling of security against an unknown threat.
That’s the pig in the ointment, isn’t it? Definitions. Is it a “defensive gun use” if you show the gun, but don’t “brandish” it? How about if you just say you’ve got one, but don’t show it? Or, stretching the point beyond the limits, claim to have one but really don’t?
The 2.5 million estimated DGU’s per year includes such gems as:
You’re walking down the street. Somebody on the other side of the street starts yelling at you. You yell back “Leave me alone, I have a gun!” He leaves.
You’re in bed, in the middle of the night. Somebody breaks into your apartment to steal the TV from your living room. You lock your bedroom door and yell out, “Get out of here, I have a gun!” The home invader steals your TV and leaves.
Bear in mind that in neither of these instances do you physically use, or, really, even need to have a gun.
LOL.
I know. Good jeans are so expensive these days, it would suck to blast a hole through them.
Linky-dinky parlay voo? I’d like to have that to hand, it would be cite for sore eyes.
Why is it gun control works in Australia but won’t work in America? Because Australians aren’t human!
Guy#1: “I’ll stop him!”
BLAM BLAM BLAM
Guy#2: “No you fool, it’s an Australian! You’ll only make it angry!”
Australian: “GNARRR!!!”
Does this guy post here on the SDMB? Some of his debate chops seem very familiar…
Oh, good lord. It was one of Kable’s links, you could search back through his posts…
Just kidding.
I think it might be the report they’re talking about here:
Note that the definition does not match up with the actual question used on the survey:
Nah, I figure this thread is a gun-grabbers circle jerk and nobody is listening outside of yourselves. Plus I got what I wanted out of it already.
How many DGUs per year does you paper cite? Be honest.
I do? Cite?
How many reported in your cite? I don’t see 5,000 mentioned anywhere. Be honest.
Ca3799, I blame you.
It is true. You were right.
Originally Posted by Ca3799
I guess Kable has given up on edjamakating us.
Originally Posted by Kable
Nah, I figure this thread is a gun-grabbers circle jerk and nobody is listening outside of yourselves.
So, I was right, then? Your efforts have been in vain?
“It is wrong for law enforcement to keep this information to themselves,” NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre said during a speech yesterday evening. “All across this nation, Americans have been waiting to hear which weapons were used by these terrorists so that our members can go purchase those same weapons. Withholding this information serves no purpose other than make it more difficult for these patriots to know which models of guns they should next be stocking up on.”
"NRA member Timothy Campbell of Dallas, Texas, says he has called Boston and MIT police departments over a dozen times since the murder of an MIT police officer last Thursday, but neither department has been willing to release the exact brands and models of guns used. While many cite fears that guns like the ones used in acts of terrorism or mass murder will be targeted for stricter regulation or even banning by the government, Campbell, an avid gun collector, says he recognizes that the odds that access to such weapons would be restricted are “essentially zero,” he still is eager to purchase the guns as soon as the Tsarnaev weapons are identified. “I don’t really know why I want to own them so bad,” he said during an interview conducted this morning. “I guess it’s probably a penis thing.”
"A Boston-area Glock dealer who also wished to remain anonymous agreed. “Having one of our guns used in the shooting of an actual congressperson was probably the best advertisement we ever had. The sales were phenomenal afterwards.”
You don’t mean to suggest that the NRA’s main priority is encouraging the sales of guns and ammunition rather than to protect the rights of responsible gun owners, do you? Why, only a crazy gun grabber would think that!
Ca3799, it is probably worthwhile to point out that the piece you’re quoting from above is satire and not actual quotes.
The dead give away should be the penis thing, of course.
Of course not. Prior to the last few weeks I’d never been involved in a gun control debate so I wanted to practice it a bit, see what research there was on the topic, see what points you all would make and what you would ignore, see if you were honest or dishonest with your facts. See if I’d missed anything. You guys helped me answer all those questions, so I figure there is no point continuing to beat a dead horse in your little pocket of the internet. So carry on with your circle jerk, my sides won the debate, the gun-grabbers were outed, and the polls are continuing to shift back in our favor.
I’ll leave you with one thing to think about. If gun fondling conservatives are really living in such fear induced by the NRA, how come they are so much happier than you? 
Yes, the assholes who want to misrepresent the empirical evidence and other facts regarding the larger debate (including arguing for the interpretation of a non-significant crude association in a paper they otherwise dismiss as fraudulent) are the ones with intellectual integrity.
And as the evidence cited in your link shows, conservatives’ self-reported happiness is associated with their justification of the status quo. I’ve never found the phrase “happy as a pig in shit” more apropos.
Kable, I do thank you for your participation. I have found a new benchmark for very stupid people who nevertheless are willing to show how stupid they are by arguing way out of their depth.
I am in all honesty most appreciative of your lack of shame. It’s been highly amusing.
Thanks Hentor, keep your heart bleeding.