Guns used for lawful self defense Pt. 4

[Blind groper]

Collector

In the reference I posted earlier, two, not one, surveys, showed a reduction in numbers of gun owners. It is true, as I pointed out, that background checks for buying guns increased, but this appears to be the reduced number of gun owners buying more guns.

Seth gave the clue as to why. Seth said more checks since Obama got into power. That makes sense to me. Paranoid gun lovers get all upset when they see a more sane person become president. Sanity might lead to gun controls and the nutters want to buy more guns before that happens.

Fortunately, the majority of Americans are sane, and are happy to see more gun control.

[Seth]

Collector

In the reference I posted earlier, two, not one, surveys, showed a reduction in numbers of gun owners. It is true, as I pointed out, that background checks for buying guns increased, but this appears to be the reduced number of gun owners buying more guns.

Seth gave the clue as to why. Seth said more checks since Obama got into power. That makes sense to me. Paranoid gun lovers get all upset when they see a more sane person become president. Sanity might lead to gun controls and the nutters want to buy more guns before that happens.

Fortunately, the majority of Americans are sane, and are happy to see more gun control.

Let's play dueling polls:

November 22, 2005
Gun Ownership and Use in America
Women more likely than men to use guns for protection
by Joseph Carroll, Gallup Poll Assistant Editor

How many Americans personally own guns, and what do they use them for? A recent Gallup Poll* shows that 3 in 10 Americans personally own a gun; most gun owners say they use their guns to protect themselves against crime, for hunting, and for target shooting. Gun ownership varies by different groups in the country, with men more likely to be gun owners than women, Southerners and Midwesterners more likely than Easterners or Westerners, Republicans more so than Democrats, and older rather than younger Americans.

Gun Ownership

The poll, conducted Oct. 13-16, finds that 4 in 10 Americans report they have a gun in their homes, including 30% who say they personally own a gun and 12% who say another member of their household owns it. These results show essentially no change since this question was last asked in 2000. At that time, 27% of Americans said they personally owned a gun and 14% said another household member owned one.

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Certain groups of Americans -- men, older Americans, Midwesterners, Southerners, Republicans, and whites -- are more likely than other groups to say they personally own a gun.

Nearly half of men (47%) report personal ownership, compared with just 13% of women.

Americans aged 18 to 29 are slightly less likely than those who are older to be gun owners. Only one in five 18- to 29-year-olds (21%) say they own a gun, while 32% of 30- to 49-year-olds and 31% of those aged 50 and older report ownership.

Roughly one in three Americans who live in the Midwest (34%) and the South (36%) say they personally own a gun. Ownership is lower among those residing in the East (22%) and the West (23%).

Forty-one percent of Republicans say they own a gun, compared with 27% of independents and 23% of Democrats.

One in three whites (33%) own a gun, while only about one in six nonwhites (18%) do.

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Gun Use

The poll also shows that most gun owners use their guns for each of these three purposes: crime protection (67%), target shooting (66%), and hunting (58%).

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These results represent essentially no change since the question was last asked in 2000. Because there is so little difference in results among the two polls, Gallup combined the data from its 2000 and 2005 surveys to provide a more detailed look at the reasons why different groups use guns.

Male gun owners are more likely than female owners to say they use a gun for hunting (63% to 45%, respectively) or for target shooting (68% to 59%), while female owners are slightly more likely than male gun owners to use a gun for protection (74% to 63%, respectively).

Gun owners aged 18 to 49, are more likely than those aged 50 and older to say they use a gun for hunting (65% to 52%) or for target practice (74% to 58%). There are essentially no differences between younger and older gun owners who use their guns for crime protection (67% among 18- to 49-year-olds and 64% of those aged 50 and older).

Republican and Democratic gun owners are almost equally likely to say they use a gun for protection against crime, 64% to 69%, respectively. However, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say they use a gun for target shooting (71% to 53%) or for hunting (64% to 53%).

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*Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,012 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Oct. 13-16, 2005. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.

For results based on the sample of 305 adults who personally own a gun, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±6 percentage points.

For results based on the sample of 579 adults who personally own a gun, conducted Aug. 29-Sept. 5, 2000, and Oct. 13-16, 2005, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
Source: www.gallup.com/poll/20098/​Gun-Ownershi ... erica.aspx

What I find amusing is the last graph, that shows that Democrats own their guns more often for self protection than Republicans, by 5%.

Talk about hypocrisy.

And here's 2011:

October 26, 2011
Self-Reported Gun Ownership in U.S. Is Highest Since 1993
Majority of men, Republicans, and Southerners report having a gun in their households
by Lydia Saad

PRINCETON, NJ -- Forty-seven percent of American adults currently report that they have a gun in their home or elsewhere on their property. This is up from 41% a year ago and is the highest Gallup has recorded since 1993, albeit marginally above the 44% and 45% highs seen during that period.

U.S. Gun Households, 1991-2011

The new result comes from Gallup's Oct. 6-9 Crime poll, which also finds public support for personal gun rights at a high-water mark. Given this, the latest increase in self-reported gun ownership could reflect a change in Americans' comfort with publicly stating that they have a gun as much as it reflects a real uptick in gun ownership.

Republicans (including independents who lean Republican) are more likely than Democrats (including Democratic leaners) to say they have a gun in their household: 55% to 40%. While sizable, this partisan gap is narrower than that seen in recent years, as Democrats' self-reported gun ownership spiked to 40% this year.

2002-2011 Trend: Gun in Household, by Party ID

The percentage of women who report household gun ownership is also at a new high, now registering 43%.

2002-2011 Trend: Gun in Household, by Gender

Gun ownership is more common in the South (54%) and Midwest (51%) than in the East (36%) or West (43%) -- a finding typical of Gallup's trends in gun ownership by region.

2002-2011 Trend: Gun in Household, by Region

One in Three Americans Personally Own a Gun

Since 2000, Gallup has asked respondents with guns in their households a follow-up question to determine if the gun belongs to the respondent or to someone else. On this basis, Gallup finds that 34% of all Americans personally own a gun.

The gender gap in personal gun ownership is wider than that seen for household ownership, as 46% of all adult men vs. 23% of all women say they personally own a gun.

Middle-aged adults -- those 35 to 54 years of age -- and adults with no college education are more likely than their counterparts to be gun owners.

Summary of Gun Ownership, October 2011

Bottom Line

A clear societal change took place regarding gun ownership in the early 1990s, when the percentage of Americans saying there was a gun in their home or on their property dropped from the low to mid-50s into the low to mid-40s and remained at that level for the next 15 years. Whether this reflected a true decline in gun ownership or a cultural shift in Americans' willingness to say they had guns is unclear. However, the new data suggest that attitudes may again be changing. At 47%, reported gun ownership is the highest it has been in nearly two decades -- a finding that may be related to Americans' dampened support for gun-control laws. However, to ensure that this year's increase reflects a meaningful rebound in reported gun ownership, it will be important to see whether the uptick continues in future polling.
Survey Methods

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Oct. 6-9, 2011, with a random sample of 1,005 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample includes a minimum quota of 400 cell phone respondents and 600 landline respondents per 1,000 national adults, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents by region. Landline telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cell phone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.

Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and phone status (cell phone only/landline only/both, cell phone mostly, and having an unlisted landline number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2010 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

For more details on Gallup's polling methodology, visit www.gallup.com.
Source: http://www.gallup.com/poll/150353/Self- ... -1993.aspx

You'll have to go to the link to see the graphs, I can't post more than five images.

An interview with
John R. Lott, Jr.
author of More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws

Question: What does the title mean: More Guns, Less Crime?

John R. Lott, Jr.: States with the largest increases in gun ownership also have the largest drops in violent crimes. Thirty-one states now have such laws—called “shall-issue” laws. These laws allow adults the right to carry concealed handguns if they do not have a criminal record or a history of significant mental illness.

Question: It just seems to defy common sense that crimes likely to involve guns would be reduced by allowing more people to carry guns. How do you explain the results?

Lott: Criminals are deterred by higher penalties. Just as higher arrest and conviction rates deter crime, so does the risk that someone committing a crime will confront someone able to defend him or herself. There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rate—as more people obtain permits there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. For each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent, and robberies by over 2 percent.

Concealed handgun laws reduce violent crime for two reasons. First, they reduce the number of attempted crimes because criminals are uncertain which potential victims can defend themselves. Second, victims who have guns are in a much better position to defend themselves.

Question: What is the basis for these numbers?

Lott: The analysis is based on data for all 3,054 counties in the United States during 18 years from 1977 to 1994.

Question: Your argument about criminals and deterrence doesn’t tell the whole story. Don’t statistics show that most people are killed by someone they know?

Lott: You are referring to the often-cited statistic that 58 percent of murder victims are killed by either relatives or acquaintances. However, what most people don’t understand is that this “acquaintance murder” number also includes gang members killing other gang members, drug buyers killing drug pushers, cabdrivers killed by customers they picked up for the first time, prostitutes and their clients, and so on. “Acquaintance” covers a wide range of relationships. The vast majority of murders are not committed by previously law-abiding citizens. Ninety percent of adult murderers have had criminal records as adults.

Question: But how about children? In March of this year [1998] four children and a teacher were killed by two school boys in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Won’t tragedies like this increase if more people are allowed to carry guns? Shouldn’t this be taken into consideration before making gun ownership laws more lenient?

Lott: The horrific shooting in Arkansas occurred in one of the few places where having guns was already illegal. These laws risk creating situations in which the good guys cannot defend themselves from the bad ones. I have studied multiple victim public shootings in the United States from 1977 to 1995. These were incidents in which at least two or more people were killed and or injured in a public place; in order to focus on the type of shooting seen in Arkansas, shootings that were the byproduct of another crime, such as robbery, were excluded. The effect of “shall-issue” laws on these crimes has been dramatic. When states passed these laws, the number of multiple-victim shootings declined by 84 percent. Deaths from these shootings plummeted on average by 90 percent, and injuries by 82 percent.

For other types of crimes, I find that both children as well as adults are protected when law-abiding adults are allowed to carry concealed handguns.

Finally, after extensively studying the number of accidental shootings, there is no evidence that increasing the number of concealed handguns increases accidental shootings. We know that the type of person who obtains a permit is extremely law-abiding and possibly they are extremely careful in how they take care of their guns. The total number of accidental gun deaths each year is about 1,300 and each year such accidents take the lives of 200 children 14 years of age and under. However, these regrettable numbers of lives lost need to be put into some perspective with the other risks children face. Despite over 200 million guns owned by between 76 to 85 million people, the children killed is much smaller than the number lost through bicycle accidents, drowning, and fires. Children are 14.5 times more likely to die from car accidents than from accidents involving guns.

Question: Wouldn’t allowing concealed weapons increase the incidents of citizens attacking each other in tense situations? For instance, sometimes in traffic jams or accidents people become very hostile—screaming and shoving at one another. If armed, might people shoot each other in the heat of the moment?

Lott: During state legislative hearings on concealed-handgun laws, possibly the most commonly raised concern involved fears that armed citizens would attack each other in the heat of the moment following car accidents. The evidence shows that such fears are unfounded. Despite millions of people licensed to carry concealed handguns and many states having these laws for decades, there has only been one case where a person with a permit used a gun after a traffic accident and even in that one case it was in self-defense.

Question: Violence is often directed at women. Won’t more guns put more women at risk?

Lott: Murder rates decline when either more women or more men carry concealed handguns, but a gun represents a much larger change in a woman’s ability to defend herself than it does for a man. An additional woman carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for women by about 3 to 4 times more than an additional man carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for men.

Question: Aren’t you playing into people’s fears and prejudices though? Don’t politicians pass these shall-issue laws to mollify middle-class white suburbanites anxious about the encroachment of urban minority crime?

Lott: I won’t speculate about motives, but the results tell a different story. High crime urban areas and neighborhoods with large minority populations have the greatest reductions in violent crime when citizens are legally allowed to carry concealed handguns.

Question: What about other countries? It’s often argued that Britain, for instance, has a lower violent crime rate than the USA because guns are much harder to obtain and own.

Lott: The data analyzed in this book is from the USA. Many countries, such as Switzerland, New Zealand, Finland, and Israel have high gun-ownership rates and low crime rates, while other countries have low gun ownership rates and either low or high crime rates. It is difficult to obtain comparable data on crime rates both over time and across countries, and to control for all the other differences across the legal systems and cultures across countries. Even the cross country polling data on gun ownership is difficult to assess, because ownership is underreported in countries where gun ownership is illegal and the same polls are never used across countries.

Question: This is certainly controversial and there are certain to be counter-arguments from those who disagree with you. How will you respond to them?

Lott: Some people do use guns in horrible ways, but other people use guns to prevent horrible things from happening to them. The ultimate question that concerns us all is: Will allowing law-abiding citizens to own guns save lives? While there are many anecdotal stories illustrating both good and bad uses of guns, this question can only be answered by looking at data to find out what the net effect is.

All of chapter seven of the book is devoted to answering objections that people have raised to my analysis. There are of course strong feelings on both sides about the issue of gun ownership and gun control laws. The best we can do is to try to discover and understand the facts. If you agree, or especially if you disagree with my conclusions I hope you’ll read the book carefully and develop an informed opinion.

Source: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html

[Seth]

To Seth.

I just pointed out, gun nutters are buying more guns. Hence the extra number of checks. Simple really. I bet it applies to you and Collector. As our resident gun nutters, tell me you have not bought extra guns over the past few years. Well, so have lots more of the 100 million odd gun freaks.

Oh yeah, I bought a lot, which I intend to sell if an "assault weapons" ban is passed, for three to ten times what I paid for them.

What is good to see, though, the total number of gun loving idiots is falling, as more Americans wake up to sanity.

Except you're wrong.

On the statistics. As I pointed out from FBI figures, in 11 years there were almost 160, 000 murders, and only 2, 500 cases where a citizen killed a felon. 2, 500 is a sufficient pool to allow you a lot of meaningless anecdotes, but it is still only 1.5% of murders. Not very meaningful!

Meaningful as shit to those 2,500 people, who are still alive because they had the proper tool for the job. You don't mind if they get killed, but I do.

And still, more guns, less crime. Irrefutable fact.

You lose.

[Blind groper]

Seth

I did not bother reading most of your last posts. I do not read long cut and paste bullshit. If you consider it meaningful, you will take the time to summarise it.

[Seth]

Seth

I did not bother reading most of your last posts. I do not read long cut and paste bullshit. If you consider it meaningful, you will take the time to summarise it.

Translation: "Facts upset me because they destroy my dogma and make my arguments look foolish, so I'm going to evade this just like I evade discussion of anything that impeaches my claims."

[Blind groper]

Seth

Translating your last post.

"I am too freaking lazy to summarise."

[Seth]

Seth

Translating your last post.

"I am too freaking lazy to summarise."

No, it's "I'm tired of wasting time with idiots who can't be bothered to properly interpret data."

[Blind groper]

Seth

It would be a nice change to see you actually present some data instead of anecdotes and red neck idiotic opinions.

[Seth]

Seth

It would be a nice change to see you actually present some data instead of anecdotes and red neck idiotic opinions.

You first. You're utterly immune to data, which I have been presenting, so I've stopped wasting my time with you.

[Jason]

Blah blah blah bluster...

<extraneous quote>

<extraneous quote>

Blah

<extraneous quote>

<extraneous quote>


Blah blah blah..

[Seth]

More fresh data:

Crime
Burglars Force Homeowner Into Closet – And it Turns out Very, Very Poorly for Them
May. 17, 2013 11:15pm Liz Klimas

82
131
2
3
36

Texas Homeowner Wounds Intruder After Being Forced Into Closet That Actually Held His Guns

Police outside the home Tuesday after a homeowner defended himself against intruders with a firearm. (Image: KTRK video screenshot)

Three suspected burglars on Tuesday broke into Texas man’s home, beat him, and then forced him into an upstairs closet.

Luckily for the homeowner, his assailants made a ​huge ​mistake: they put him into same closet where he keeps his guns.

Houston Police Department Sgt. Jerry Brandon told an ABC affiliate the homeowner thought the three men had left his home after a few minutes and headed downstairs, firearm in hand.

This is where he confronted one of the burglars and exchanged fire, wounding the intruder. The two other men escaped, according to authorities, while their compatriot has been hospitalized.

Here’s the KTRK’s report:

“Guess what? The owner had a gun,” neighbor Craig Gaddis told KTRK. “He did exactly what he was supposed to do — with the gun, that’s what they’re made for — protect his home.”
Texas Homeowner Wounds Intruder After Being Forced Into Closet That Actually Held His Guns

(Image: KTRK video screenshot)

The Houston Chronicle reported Gaddis saying a similar robbery occurred a couple weeks ago in the same area and neighbors believe they are connected.

Charges are expected to be brought against the wounded intruder, but not the homeowner, according to the report.

[MrJonno]

Right a guy gets beaten up by burglars and stuck in a closet, in what sort of insane world is it a good idea to get out of the closet and go hunting the burglars armed or not?

It isnt just guns its the entire mindset that is so utterly fucked up

[Seth]

Right a guy gets beaten up by burglars and stuck in a closet, in what sort of insane world is it a good idea to get out of the closet and go hunting the burglars armed or not?

On a world where the safety of a home's occupants is orders of magnitude more important than the safety or life of a bunch of home-invading thugs, that's where.

It isnt just guns its the entire mindset that is so utterly fucked up

Yah know, it's my experience that the only people who complain about criminals getting their comeuppance are criminals who object to their victims being empowered to do them harm in self defense. Crooks and thugs hate it when they know THEY might end up dead.

What does that say about you, Jonno?

[Collector1337]

Right a guy gets beaten up by burglars and stuck in a closet, in what sort of insane world is it a good idea to get out of the closet and go hunting the burglars armed or not?

It isnt just guns its the entire mindset that is so utterly fucked up

You sure like defending criminals. It's pretty disgusting.

[MrJonno]

Don't really care too much for criminals but the sort of people who think its a good idea hunting them in a house when you are no longer under threat as just as likely to take a pot shot at the postman or the nearest school