Post

Informed consent wrote:

Yeah, moldy numbers in my head, had to go back to sources, which depending who you talk to, there is a range of gun defense claims.
The New York Times puts it at anywhere between 60,000 to 2.5 million.
More professional lobby and law enforcement put it more like 500,000 to 3 million.

Such a politicized subject, and every stat compiler having their own intentions for why makes for such a wide range in the numbers.

One, more crime is prevented than committed, so yeah, there will be higher numbers in defense claims than in recorded crime.

Two, I am ashamed of people who punish the innocent along with the guilty.

Solely a gun problem, eh?
I can load a shotgun and set it on the porch, and let it sit there all day.
Even set a box of shells next to it, in case it gets hungry.
Animals pad up and down the road.
Birds fly over head, including some circling buzzards.
No doubt in anticipation of the inevitable slaughter.
People drive by all day long.
The mail carrier. UPS, Federal Express, pull in and make deliveries.
School bus picks up and drops off the kids.
How many people and critters die around my house on a given day?
None.
That shotgun does not so much as twitch.
Must have a more tranquil personality than most American guns.
Pffft.
Why don't you compare other crimes?
The streets of many other nations are not safer.
Just a different kind of mean.
You may be less likely to be shot, but not less likely to be violently accosted in general.
Even in the sacred EU and commonwealth countries, violence in the street is no less prevalent.
Just of a different character.

You specifically said "logged". Now you are admitting that actually there are no 8 million logged reports, but rather some people just offer a broad range of guesses, with even the upper end of the range being well below your stated number.

In reality there are only a couple thousand cases of legal self-defense with guns per year, period. That's what actually gets reported to police. That's what legal self-defense means by definition. If you threaten someone with a gun, let alone fire it and do not report the incident to police, then you are the lawbreaker. It's that simple. Just think of it: if somebody tries to kill you and you barely escape with your life thanks to your gun, then why on Earth won't you report that to the police ASAP?! Even if somebody merely tries to steal something from your backyard and you scare him away, why would not you call 911 immediately? There's a decent chance they'll catch him in the neighborhood, and you should be concerned that he knows where you live and may want revenge later (even if only by vandalizing your property while you are not home). In virtually all circumstances you should also think about legal trouble for yourself. Brandishing a gun (let alone discharging it in an urban area) is a crime. And someone (or some security camera) may see you doing that without seeing the full picture and report it to the police. By calling them yourself ASAP you establish your good faith and lack of guilty conscience and enter your side of the story into the record as something you volunteer rather than something that perhaps you make up under hostile interrogation in an attempt not to get arrested. The simple fact is that quite a few people pull a gun on others but do not report it to the police precisely because they suspect (or even know) that what they did was in fact illegal (i.e. it was more bullying - often with racial undertones - than self-defense), and yet when asked by researchers about defensive gun usage still claim having used a gun in self-defense.

So spare me all those guesstimates and show me actual police reports. Also, don't you find any figure in the millions absolutely ridiculous, given that there are fewer than 400,000 violent crimes reported annually in the US? Sure, a lot of people use guns in defense of property rather than themselves and others. But should that even count as self-defense? For that matter, if you shoot a kid solely for stealing your Xbox, you are a much worse lowlife than he (and trust me, you won't want me to serve on your jury).