Guns don't offer protection – whatever the National Rifle Association says

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Guns don't offer protection – whatever the National Rifle Association says

The insistence that guns protect people from rape and violence is not rooted in scientific reality

"The one thing a violent rapist deserves is to face is a good woman with a gun!" That was Wayne LaPierre, executive director of the National Rifle Association, the standard bearers for America's gun lobby, making the case that personal firearms prevent rape.

The assertion that guns offer protection is a mantra the NRA has repeated often. In the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting, LaPierre opined: "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun", insisting that schools should have armed guards.

Academics such as John Lott and Gary Kleck have long claimed that more firearms reduce crime. But is this really the case? Stripped of machismo bluster, this is at heart a testable claim that merely requires sturdy epidemiological analysis. And this was precisely what Prof Charles Branas and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania examined in their 2009 paper investigating the link between gun possession and gun assault. They compared 677 cases in which people were injured in a shooting incident with 684 people living in the same area that had not suffered a gun injury. The researchers matched these "controls" for age, race and gender. They found that those with firearms were about 4.5 times more likely to be shot than those who did not carry, utterly belying this oft repeated mantra.

The reasons for this, the authors suggest, are manifold. "A gun may falsely empower its possessor to overreact, instigating and losing otherwise tractable conflicts with similarly armed persons. Along the same lines, individuals who are in possession of a gun may increase their risk of gun assault by entering dangerous environments that they would have normally avoided. Alternatively, an individual may bring a gun to an otherwise gun-free conflict only to have that gun wrested away and turned on them."

This result is not particularly unexpected. Prof David Hemenway of Harvard school of public health has published numerous academic investigations in this area and found that such claims are rooted far more in myth than fact. While defensive gun use may occasionally occur successfully, it is rare and very much the exception – it doesn't change the fact that actually owning and using a firearm hugely increases the risk of being shot. This is a finding supported by numerous other studies in health policy, including several articles in the New England Journal of Medicine. Arguments to the contrary are not rooted in reality; the Branas study also found that for individuals who had time to resist and counter in a gun assault, the odds of actually being shot actually increased to 5.45 fold relative to an individual not carrying.

The problem goes deeper than this, however. There's good evidence that the very act of being in possession of a weapon has an unfortunate effect of making us suspect others have one too. This was shown in a 2012 paper by psychologists Prof Jessica Witt and Dr James Brockmole, where subjects were given either a replica gun or a neutral object and asked to identify the objects other people were holding.

Subjects in possession of a replica firearm were much more likely to identify a neutral object as a firearm. The erroneous assumption that someone else is armed can and does often end in tragedy.

Indeed, the evidence suggests the very act of being armed changes one's perception of others to a decidedly more paranoid one. Other studies have shown an element of racial priming too, where a black subject is more likely to be assumed to be carrying a weapon. Guns have a curious psychological effect beyond this: a 2006 study by Dr Jennifer Klinesmith and colleagues showed men exposed to firearms before an experiment had much higher testosterone levels and were three times more likely to engage in aggressive behaviour relative to the subjects not primed with a weapon.

LaPierre's proclamation bears the hallmarks of a litany of misconceptions. Gun aficionados often frame the debate in terms of protection, but it is vital to realise that the vast majority of rape and murder victims are not harmed by nefarious strangers, but by people they know, and often love – friends, family members, lovers. Far from protecting people and keeping families safe, the sad truth is that firearms are often used in episodes of domestic violence. The John Hopkins centre for gun policy research has some sobering facts on this; women living in a home with one or more guns were three times more likely to be murdered; for women who had been abused by their partner, their risk of being murdered rose fivefold if the partner owned a gun.

Nor did guns make the women safer; women who purchased guns were 50% more likely to be killed by an intimate partner. So LaPierre's "good woman with a gun" is actually, it seems, putting herself in danger.

Viewed in this light, the NRA's insistence that rapes can be prevented with firearms or that teachers should be armed appear even more stupid than they already seemed. It is worth remembering that just as America leads the world in gun ownership, so too does it lead the world in gun homicide, with 11,000 to 12,000 murders committed by firearms each year. The tired old rationalisation that guns protect people is frankly contradicted by the evidence. The inescapable conclusion is that gun ownership makes everyone less safe. The logic the NRA espouses is perverse and transparently self-serving – the solution to gun crimes is not more guns, and no amount of rhetorical dexterity can surmount this fact. If the US is to have a truly honest discussion about its gun culture, it needs to be rooted in fact rather than fantasy, and the sound and fury from the NRA should be dismissed with the contempt it deserves.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2013/mar/25/guns-protection-national-rifle-association

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Some uncomfortable readimg for gun enthusiasts.

[Novembro 1,763]

"The one thing a violent rapist deserves is to face is a good woman with a gun!"

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Some uncomfortable readimg for gun enthusiasts.

You think they'll read this? And grasp it, too? Whatever it is you're smoking I want some.

[Boiler 43,396]

Going to save the Police etc a lot of money.

[Expat1 971]

Interesting data. Two studies seem to contradict it - one from the DOJ (no friend to gun owners) and one from Pew Research.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/05/14/disarming-realities-as-gun-sales-soar-gun-crimes-plummet/

According to DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. gun-related homicides dropped 39 percent over the course of 18 years, from 18,253 during 1993, to 11,101 in 2011. During the same period, non-fatal firearm crimes decreased even more, a whopping 69 percent. The majority of those declines in both categories occurred during the first 10 years of that time frame. Firearm homicides declined from 1993 to 1999, rose through 2006, and then declined again through 2011. Non-fatal firearm violence declined from 1993 through 2004, then fluctuated in the mid-to-late 2000s.

The March Pew study, drawn from numbers obtained from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also found a dramatic drop in gun crime over the past two decades. Their accounting shows a 49 percent decline in the homicide rate, and a 75 percent decline of non-fatal violent crime victimization.

At the same time:

Those gun crime rates certainly aren’t diminishing for lack of supply…at least not for law-abiding legal buyers. Last December, the FBI recorded a record number of 2.78 million background checks for purchases that month, surpassing a 2.01 million mark set the month before by about 39 percent. That December 2012 figure, in turn, was up 49 percent from a previous record on that month the year before. FBI checks for all of 2012 totaled 19.6 million, an annual record, and an increase of 19 percent over 2011.

So can this (very significant) decrease in gun crime along with a significant ramp-up in supply and ownership be explained? Because according to the original post the two should track together.

[lostinblue 1,989]

David Robert Grimes - debunked? http://objectiveskeptic.blogspot.com/

This british fellow is a considered a fruitcake among his peers. More british dribble and trolling

[lostinblue 1,989]

Friday, November 15, 2013 Dr Robert Grimes unscientific opinions are a threat to public health.

Letter sent to Oxford University regarding scientific misconduct and medical negligence

Dr Robert Grimes who self promotes his employment as a researcher in Oxford University stated in the Irish Times (Anti-fluoride lobby can’t get its teeth into the truth, Monday Sept 9^th 2013) that the arguments of anti-fluoridation campaigners are detrimental to the public understanding of science and medicine.

Dr. Grimes further stated on Newstalk Radio that the source of fluoride is irrelevant, a fluoride ion is a fluoride ion. This statement is again factually and scientifically incorrect.

http://ffwireland.blogspot.com/2013/11/dr-robert-grimes-unscientific-opinions.html

A british fruitcake wanting to take away the 2nd as we know it ... Sounds like his hobby is collecting stamps also .

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

You really had to do some trawling to find something to discredit the author didn't you.

Here's the thing - you missed the point. All he's doing is collating work other people have done and referencing it. Maybe it's those people you should take issue with?

Also what's with this thing of yours about British people collecting stamps? I don't do it, but if I did - what would be the problem with that? Is stamp collecting not a valid interest for a person to have?

Edited September 22, 2014 by Hail Ming!

[lostinblue 1,989]

You really had to do some trawling to find something to discredit the author didn't you.

Here's the thing - you missed the point. All he's doing is collating work other people have done and referencing it. Maybe it's those people you should take issue with?

Also what's with this thing of yours about British people collecting stamps? I don't do it, but if I did - what would be the problem with that? Is stamp collecting not a valid interest for a person to have?

Why collate... Just go to any leftist site and it is all there. All anti 2nd. dribble.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Investigating the Link Between Gun Possession and Gun Assault

Objectives. We investigated the possible relationship between being shot in an assault and possession of a gun at the time.

Methods. We enrolled 677 case participants that had been shot in an assault and 684 population-based control participants within Philadelphia, PA, from 2003 to 2006. We adjusted odds ratios for confounding variables.

Results. After adjustment, individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 (P < .05) times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. Among gun assaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist, this adjusted odds ratio increased to 5.45 (P < .05).

Conclusions. On average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault. Although successful defensive gun uses occur each year, the probability of success may be low for civilian gun users in urban areas. Such users should reconsider their possession of guns or, at least, understand that regular possession necessitates careful safety countermeasures

Edited September 22, 2014 by Hail Ming!

[Teddy B 17,251]

Interesting data. Two studies seem to contradict it - one from the DOJ (no friend to gun owners) and one from Pew Research.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/05/14/disarming-realities-as-gun-sales-soar-gun-crimes-plummet/

According to DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. gun-related homicides dropped 39 percent over the course of 18 years, from 18,253 during 1993, to 11,101 in 2011. During the same period, non-fatal firearm crimes decreased even more, a whopping 69 percent. The majority of those declines in both categories occurred during the first 10 years of that time frame. Firearm homicides declined from 1993 to 1999, rose through 2006, and then declined again through 2011. Non-fatal firearm violence declined from 1993 through 2004, then fluctuated in the mid-to-late 2000s.

The March Pew study, drawn from numbers obtained from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also found a dramatic drop in gun crime over the past two decades. Their accounting shows a 49 percent decline in the homicide rate, and a 75 percent decline of non-fatal violent crime victimization.

At the same time:

Those gun crime rates certainly aren’t diminishing for lack of supply…at least not for law-abiding legal buyers. Last December, the FBI recorded a record number of 2.78 million background checks for purchases that month, surpassing a 2.01 million mark set the month before by about 39 percent. That December 2012 figure, in turn, was up 49 percent from a previous record on that month the year before. FBI checks for all of 2012 totaled 19.6 million, an annual record, and an increase of 19 percent over 2011.

So can this (very significant) decrease in gun crime along with a significant ramp-up in supply and ownership be explained? Because according to the original post the two should track together.

Not neccesarily, in a good amount of cases this ramp up in gun purchases is people who already own guns simply buying more. There is no doubt that owning a gun or having a gun in your home makes a person more likely to be shot with a gun.

[Teddy B 17,251]

There is so much in that op that holds true with the gun aficionados right here on VJ, it's crazy.

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

I think it was said here how some would slap a firearm on their person to go ride around in the "hood". If you need a gun to go somewhere, why would you go?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

There is so much in that op that holds true with the gun aficionados right here on VJ, it's crazy.

Well just look at the reaction - a link posted from a fringe blogger about fluoride toxicity and a rant about leftist websites.