Myths about guns and crime prevention

Private ownership

The myth: "Private ownership of guns is not effective in preventing crime."

The Facts:

• Every year, people in the United States use guns to defend themselves against criminals an estimated 2,500,000 times – more than 6,500 people a day, or once every 13 seconds. Of these instances, 15.6% of the people using firearms defensively stated that they "almost certainly" saved their lives by doing so. Firearms are used 60 times more often to protect lives than to take lives.
  • In 83.5% (2,087,500) of these successful gun defenses, the attacker either threatened or used force first, proving that guns are very well suited for self-defense.
  • Of the 2,500,000 times citizens use guns to defend themselves, 92% merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers.
  • When using guns in self-defense, 91.1% of the time not a single shot is fired. Less than 8% of the time does a citizen wound his or her attacker, and in less than one in a thousand instances is the attacker killed.
• The rate of defensive gun use (DGU) is six times that of criminal gun use.
  • Of all forms of firearm homicide, 13% are civilian legal defensive homicides.
• For every accidental death, suicide, or homicide with a firearm, 10 lives are saved through defensive use.
• After the implementation of Canada's 1977 gun controls prohibiting handgun possession for protection, the “breaking and entering” crime rate rose 25%, surpassing the American rate.

Only cops

See also: Myth:Soldiers and cops

The myth: "Only police need or should have guns."

The Facts:

• “...most criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police.”
• 11% of police shootings kill an innocent person - about 2% of shootings by citizens kill an innocent person.
• Police have trouble keeping their own guns. Hundreds of firearms are missing from the FBI and 449 of them have been involved in crimes.
• People who saw the helplessness of the L.A. Police Department during the 1992 King Riots or the looting and violence in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina know that citizens need guns to defend themselves.

Danger to self

See also: 43 times and Myth:You are more likely to be murdered if you own a gun

The myth: "You are more likely to be injured or killed using a gun for self-defense"

The Facts:

• You are far more likely to survive a violent assault if you defend yourself with a gun. In episodes where a robbery victim was injured, the injury/defense rates were:
  • Resisting with a gun 6%
  • Did nothing at all 25%
  • Resisted with a knife 40%
  • Non-violent resistance 45%

Protecting women

The myth: "Guns are not effective in preventing crime against women."

Rape Rates 1995–2003 (per 100,000 pop.)

	1995	2003	% change
Australia	72.5	91.7	+26.5
United Kingdom	43.3	69.2	+59.8
United States	37.1	32.1	-13.5

The Facts:

• Of the 2,500,000 annual self-defense cases using guns, more than 7.7% (192,500) are by women defending themselves against sexual abuse.
  • Firearm availability appears to be particularly useful in avoiding rape. Australia and the United Kingdom virtually banned handgun ownership. During the same period handgun ownership in the United States steadily rose. Yet the rate of rape decreased in the United States, and skyrocketed in the other countries, as shown in the table.
• When a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of rape attacks are completed, compared to 32% when the woman was unarmed.
• The probability of serious injury from an attack is 2.5 times greater for women offering no resistance than for women resisting with guns. Men also benefit from using guns but the benefits are smaller, 1.4 times more likely to receive a serious injury.
• 28.5% of women have one or more guns in the house.
  • 41.7% of women either own or have convenient access to guns.
• In 1966, the city of Orlando, Florida responded to a wave of rapes by providing firearms training to over 6,000 women in the use of handguns. Rapes dropped by over 80% the following year.
• More Americans believe having a gun in the home makes them safer. This belief grows every year the survey is taken.
• Even Arthur Kellerman, a researcher whose work is often cited by gun control groups said “If you've got to resist, your chances of being hurt are less the more lethal your weapon. If that were my wife, would I want her to have a .38 Special in her hand? Yeah.”