In the recent carnage in Ct. The woman who bought guns for her protection was killed by her own son , who then went and killed 25 others, and himself. It didn’t protect his mother and did kill many more, plus injured some. Yes, it was illegal for her son to have a gun and she was innocent of the crime,but so many kill so many others with guns, I just wonder how many lives were really saved by having a gun?
Why was it illegal for him to have a gun? Steal one, sure, but have one?
This one will be impossible to answer with anything other than wild guesses.
Reported for forum change.
He was underage for handguns.
Charles Whitman killed his wife and mother on August 1, 1966. Later that day he climbed a tower at the University of Texas and set up a sniper’s nest. He would go on to kill another 13 and wound 32 more.
Whitman was confronted, shot and killed by a group of 3 police officers and one civilian who climbed the tower to put an end to the rampage.
How many more people would Whitman have shot had he not been killed? How can anyone say with any certainty?
How many people would he have killed if he didn’t have any guns in the first place?
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That wasn’t the question asked in the OP. However, I don’t believe Iggy’s answer addrresses the OP either, as I take the question to exclude the use of firearms by duly designated law enforcement officers.
(Personally, I believe the question not resolvable, as it is very difficult to measure crimes that didn’t happen for whatever reason.)
Ultimately, it isn’t really quantifiable. For example, in two separate incidents, two of my friends’ wives have brandished guns to home invaders, who promptly left the scene when confronted by women who were ready and willing to defend themselves and their children with deadly force, if necessary. Now, were these guys just burglars, or were they looking to kill any defenseless people that they found in my friends’ houses? Were their lives saved by the gun, or just their property? It is hard to say. But both women were very glad to have a handgun to protect themselves, as they are small, petite women that would have no chance against a determined male opponent in a physical altercation.
Completely impossible to provide a factual answer.
As data points, in 2011, there were about 32,000 firearm related deaths, the vast majority 20,000 were suicides, about 11,000 homicides and 850+ accidental deaths.
There is absolutely now way to quantify how many lives were saved, and numbers floating around the net are meaningless.
Also, while it’s fair to say most of the accidents would not have happened without guns around (“Really, Officer, I was just cleaning my knife and it went off”), I don’t know how many of the suicides would have happened without guns. Would people choose another method or not kill themselves?
Often the argument on murders is that many of the shootings are in the heat of the moment, and without guns, it could be less fatal.
Again, difficult to provide a factual answer even for how many of the current firearm related deaths could have been prevented and impossible to compare to the number “saved.”
On that day there were over 300,000,000 Americans who not killed by the 300,000,000 other guns in the country.
Gun advocates often say that crimes are prevented by simply having an armed populace. Criminals (so the argument goes) are less likely to act in such an environment. They also say that many crimes are prevented simply by brandishing a weapon. Obviously there are no statistics on brandishing, although many gun advocates will tell you of a “friend of a friend” who escaped certain death doing just that. I know of no statistics supporting either of these contentions. Indeed, if you google “crime statistics by state”, gun states (Florida, Nevada, Texas) have some of the highest violent crime rates. However, I have not seen any attempts to parse the statistics in the way the OP asks.
No. He could not buy one from a dealer at that age, but 18 year olds are allowed to own handguns.
You can’t answer that kind of hypothetical, but it appears that having a gun in your home increases, not decreases, your chances of being killed.
From here.
And from a paper to be published.
So it seems clear that the people saved by guns are more than outweighed by those killed by guns who wouldn’t have been killed without a gun in the house. I would say that the killer’s mother would have been a lot safer without a gun.
Since this question requires speculation, let’s move it over to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
With all due respect (and I’m on your side on this issue!). This:
"Third, it is possible that the association between a gun in the home and risk of a violent death may be related to other factors that we were unable to control for in our analysis. For instance, with homicide, the association may be related to certain neighborhood characteristics or the decedent’s previous involvement in other violent or illegal behaviors. Persons living in high-crime neighborhoods or involved in illegal behaviors may acquire a gun for protection. The risk comes not necessarily from the presence of the gun in the house but from these types of environmental factors and exposures. "
seems like a pretty big variable that was not controlled for in this study
True, but it seems unlikely that suicide rates are affected all that much by neighborhood type.
Criminals feel they need to defend themselves also. How many guns in a place like Oakland are bought for defense from rival gangs as opposed to being bought directly to attack others? The high homicide rate in a place like that occurs even given that fact that the victim is probably carrying. Plus there are the innocents, killed from misplaced shots or misidentification. I think we can all agree that a significant decrease in gun ownership there would decrease the murder rate, though this isn’t easy to accomplish in the middle of an arms race.
I wouldn’t mistake the standard descriptions of the limitations of the study with the study being invalid. It is unlikely that the reviewers would pass it if it were.
Here is a link to a good starting point to research this question.
How Often Are Firearms Used in Self-Defense?
Estimates run between 108,000 Defensive Gun Uses per year (National Crime Victimization Survey) to about 2,000,000 (Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist). The US Department of Justice says 1,500,000.
The page links to results of thirteen other surveys. It also links to sites which dispute those numbers and criticize the surveys. This is one of those questions where you have to make up your mind who you are going to believe.
Having a gun in the house saved me, so I am one person who can say that.
I didn’t have to use it but once the asshole breaking in saw me aiming it at them they changed their mind about coming in the window.
A civilian went up that tower along with law enforcement officers. They acted as a group.
If we don;t like that one…
Very recent Clakamas shooting. A civilian confronted the gunman. The shooting apparently stopped and the gunman went of to kill himself.