defending against home invasion/ violent crimes

[supraman925]

I just learned today that "statistically speaking" only 2% of people who own guns in the whole United States are able to fend off intruders. What are the opinions of Calgunners? I'm quite sure I can fend off intruders myself because i carry my weapon on me at all times inside my house and i have placed guns and mags in different areas of the house just in case i get caught off guard but how many of you guys do this?

[Will Goes Boing]

You should read up the statistics of you ever having to get in a situation where you need to shoot someone. Even police officers who are at an exponentially higher risk of getting into a shooting day in and day out... go through their whole entire careers without ever getting into a shooting. You probably have a higher chance of choking to death on a pubic hair while going down on a chick than getting into a shootout with a home invader. Just my 0.02 cent.

[supraman925]

Because police are present, they show the criminals that they are a force to be reckon with therefore i can understand they they are in fact a form of deterence, criminals prey on weak souls, these are desperate times and throughout history, crime activities and alike lurks. But i'm asking, are people prepared for these worst case scenarios?

[Lone_Gunman]

"'statistically speaking' only 2% of people who own guns in the whole United States are able to fend off intruders." That begs the question, how many people who own guns in the U.S. are victims of violent crimes in the first place. Always remember, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

[ojisan]

How was this "only 2% of gun owners are capable" determined?

[2Cute2Shoot]

I don't know where you got that statistic but i really believe it would be more than 2%....at least for girls . I have so many friends who have had some psycho guy follow them home or come around. I am not saying they would be an attacker but still...I'm glad I have my 1911 for protection

[supraman925]

maybe im just confused with the overall populations vs actual gun owners, but believe me,i take criminal justice classes at college and the statistic is 2% , either 2% of the whole US population, or 2% of gun owners, either way 2% is very low.

[USMC VET]

Do you have some source that your criminal justice prof. is reading from? Something I can physically see where the 2% is coming from?

[blakdawg]

I would really like to see the underlying study - it sounds like some important information has been lost as the results have been summarized.

It is intellectually easy - but I suspect wrong - to take that statistic and conclude that, if 100 gun owners were the subject of home invasion, that 2 would "fend off intruders" and 98 would fail to do so. Even if that is literally true, I wonder what the underlying assumptions are - are those real "home invasions", where intruders deliberately break into an occupied home? Or are those burglaries, where the criminal would often/usually prefer not to find someone at home.

I'm a gun owner. I'm not home at the moment. If someone broke into my home, my guns and I would be unable to take action, because I'm at my office. Would that break-in be counted as part of the statistics? If it would, and it would count as a failure, then I submit that you've got yourself a useless statistic.

There are a lot of gun owners who think of self defense or home defense as secondary (or less) reasons to own guns. A person whose primary interest in firearms is for sporting use who lives in an area with a low crime rate may not store their guns in a fashion that allows for their rapid use.

Further, there are a lot of anti-gun organizations who preach that guns must be made useless "for safety reasons" - e.g., stored locked, unloaded, with ammunition stored somewhere else, also locked. If it's going to take someone 10 minutes to get a firearm up & running after running around the house unlocking different containers, yeah, it's unlikely that the gun will be very helpful versus a home invasion.

Also, this seems like it would be pretty tough to measure given that a successful defensive use of a firearm may not be recorded - I once confronted potential burglars/home invaders who ran away upon discovery. Given the circumstances, I didn't think calling the police would be helpful, so there's no official record anywhere of that encounter. So it's not going to be in anyone's statistics, nor will other encounters like that that other gun owners have.

And, frankly, that is the best kind of defensive use to have - I would much rather scare some guy off my porch than kill him.

My suspicion is that this statistic was created by people who want to discredit the private ownership of guns for self-defense purposes by claiming/demonstrating that guns are unlikely to be useful. I believe this is to some extent dishonest, given that many of the same people offer recommendations which would make guns less useful for preventing crime - it hardly makes sense to say "you should make your guns useless versus sudden attack" and then say "you should not have guns, because they are useless versus sudden attack".

Also, the "people should not have guns for self-defense because guns aren't effective in stopping all crime" argument would be more interesting if firearm ownership weren't a fundamental right - people in the US have a fundamental right to keep and bear arms, which exists and will continue to exist without regard to policy choices or preferences.

There are other areas of public policy that are negotiable and open to policy arguments because they're not listed in the Constitution - for example, medical care. Some people think that medical care is a basic human right that should be provided by the government. Other people think that access to medical care is a basic human right that cannot be infringed by the government, but should not be subsidized. Other people think that the government should be involved in deciding which procedures and drugs should be available, and which should not. Because medical care is not discussed specifically in the Constitution, there's some room for argument about the extent to which it's protected from interference, and the extent to which it must be provided by government.

Guns aren't like that. The RKBA is specifically addressed in the 2nd amendment. If you find someone trying to make policy arguments about it as if the 2A didn't exist, you are interacting with someone who's poorly informed or dishonest.

[blakdawg]

[accidental double post deleted - mods clobber this if you please.]