What would be the number?

[needledriver]

Suppose you are opposed to the right affirmed by the 2nd Amendment.

Suppose people are able to defend themselves in life threatening circumstances; from abusive and violent spouses, from armed home invasions, from armed assaults and robberies, and more.

How many lives saved by people who were able to choose to use firearms to defend themselves would it take to convince you that the 2nd Amendment has an overall positive value and should be let stand?

If even one life is saved for every life taken?
Two lives to one?
Five lives to one?
Ten lives to one?

As it stands right now, the lowest estimate of defensive gun uses per year in the US is around 50,000, while the number of deaths from murder or accident by firearm are around 15,000.

That's ratio of about 3 1/2 lives saved for every life lost. That's 35,000 people a year (who may very well have lost their lives had they not been able to defend themselves) more than the 15,000 a year who lost their lives to firearms accident and violence.

Suppose you are successful in opposing the 2nd Amendment and the result is that everyone who would otherwise be able to defend themselves with a firearm is now not able, and loses their life as a result.

How many additional deaths per year of people unable to defend themselves would you be willing to accept as the price for getting rid of the people's right to keep and bear arms?

[jmg257]

1. How would you substantiate the number of lives saved just based on the number of DGUs?

Was every reported incident of the 50,000 be otherwise fatal?

[needledriver]

3. I don't.

That's why I say "who may very well have lost their lives had they not been able to defend themselves". It's impossible to determine with any certainty whether the actual outcome of an encounter where someone used a firearms defensively would have resulted in a death had the firearm not been available to the defender. That's one reason why I went for the lowest of the lowball estimates of defensive gun use. I figure the actual number of defensive gun uses falls somewhere between the high estimate of around 2 1/2 million defensive gun uses and the low estimate of around 50,000. On the same basis, the actual number of lives saved by defensive gun uses probably ranges from somewhat less than 50,000 to somewhat less than 2 1/2 million.

Even without having hard numbers to work with, I figure it's a fair bet that more lives are saved by defensive gun use than are lost to firearms violence and accident.

Even so, if any lives at all are saved by defensive gun use - don't those lives count, too? It doesn't have to be a ratio. Lives saved by defensive gun uses have a distinct value all their own, which does not need to be balanced against the number of lives lost to firearms violence and accident. You must factor every life saved into your calculations of the value of the 2nd Amendment.

[jmg257]

6. Yes, agreed that any lives saved count - figuring it as the main purpose of self-defense.

How to quantify those will always be a hard task.


"Even without having hard numbers to work with, I figure it's a fair bet that more lives are saved by defensive gun use than are lost to firearms violence and accident."

Hmm...that I will have to give some tough thought to.

[pablo_marmol]

2. Even though I believe that guns result in a "null effect" w/regard to violence.........

.........this sentence is somewhat problematic:

As it stands right now, the lowest estimate of defensive gun uses per year in the US is around 50,000, while the number of deaths from murder or accident by firearm are around 15,000.

DGU's no doubt outnumber gun murders by a wide margin, but since you can't prove a negative - how many people weren't killed by virtue of the DGU - we'll never know for certain how many actual lives are saved via DGU.

Certainly, we can infer that some percentage of folks are alive today by virtue of a DGU -- but deciding on a percentage? Hmmm.

And again -- educated (liberal!) individuals such as Dr. Gary Kleck point out that the best available evidence suggests that DGU's effectively cancel murder by gun.

Edited to add: The question you pose is most certainly a fair one, in that many of us have responded to the other thread wherein the shoe is on the other foot.

[JonathanRackham]

4. People talk about throwing out the 2nd Amendment.

Why not suspend the 4th Amendment for a couple of weeks and round up all the illegal firearms out there in the gun free zones? All's it would take is a simple constitutional amendment to clean up the high crime areas.

[ileus]

5. If it saves one life, it's worth it.

In fact if I carry/own a firearm my whole life and never have to use it, it's still worth it. Why risk life, and like most people out there I only have one.

Safety first.

[Uponthegears]

7. Total propaganda

You ask:

"How many lives saved by people who were able to choose to use firearms to defend themselves would it take to convince you that the 2nd Amendment has an overall positive value and should be let stand?"

That question, while having the patina of reasonableness (i.e., what can be more "reasonable" that cost vs. benefit when it comes to human life <<< a debatable premise, BUT one I am willing to accept for the purposes of this discussion), is rendered nothing more than flotsam by the hypothetical you offer to support it.

You claim that there are about 15,000 shooting deaths each year. Again, I'll accept that figure. It isn't the problem.

What is the problem is this:

"As it stands right now, the lowest estimate of defensive gun uses per year in the US is around 50,000 . . . That's 35,000 people a year (who may very well have lost their lives had they not been able to defend themselves"

That number is total bull puckey. In fact, you practically admit it with the phrase "who MAY . . . have lost their lives." The term "defensive gun uses" as you use it encompasses incidents where a gun is used in defense of property as well as when it is used in response to a non-lethal threat. Moreover, it includes incidents where the gun was not used, or even brandished (e.g., incidents where the alleged "victim" claims that their assailant would have proceeded further had not the assailant "known" they were armed.)

This means that your question really isn't "How many net lives saved would it take for people to embrace "the Second Amendment?" but, rather, "How many saved lives, saved big screen TV's, saved BBQ pits, saved moments of insecurity/fear, etc. would it take before people are willing to accepts 15,000 dead human beings?"

If you want to talk about "lives saved" you need to limit your "defensive gun uses" to ONLY incidents where the victim faced an imminent risk of serious bodily injury or death (the common law definition of when deadly force -- such as the use of a deadly weapon -- could be used in self-defense). An inflated version of that number (I say "inflated" because we have in a number of states where the common law definition of self defense has been legislatively modified to allow deadly force to be used even where no such risk is present) can be determined by counting the number of police reports indicating that a weapon was USED in self-defense, that its use was investigated, and that a determination was made not to charge the victim and/or the victim was charged, but was acquitted.

NOW, take that number and compare it to 15,000. Better yet (just so we don't have to listen to the old "well, a criminal will just find another way to kill you" canard), take that number and compare it to ONLY those incidents involving accidental/negligent/self-inflicted deaths. Either way, the number of GENUINE, common law, self-defense incidents are a mere fraction of lives sacrificed on the altar of the meme that non-urban residents (who are the ones scarfing up firearms like they were Skittles) face a substantial risk of becoming the victim of violent crime, much less a risk that outweighs the risk that their weapon will end up killing their child, their spouse, and/or their depressed selves.

[needledriver]

12. You may call it bull puckey

But what metric am I supposed to use?

I tried to search for statistics on defensive gun uses. I found pages that state over two million defensive gun uses per year. I found pages that refute the figure most of which use justifiable defensive homicides as their yardstick for effective defensive gun use.

The most accessible analysis of defensive gun use statistics I have found is from the Violence Policy Center, where they strenuously reject the notion of over two million defensive gun uses per year.

http://www.vpc.org/studies/justifiable15.pdf

In the course of debunking the over two million figure, they come to the conclusion that "only 235,700" defensive gun uses occurred during the five year period of study:

"During this same five-year period [2007 to 2001], only 235,700 of the self-protective behaviors involved a firearm. Of this number, it is not known what type of firearm was used or whether it was fired or not. The number may also include off duty law enforcement officers who use their firearms in self-defense."

235,700 divided by 5 is 47,140. I rounded that up for simplicities' sake, but I'll continue with the 47,140 figure as an average for defensive gun uses per year.

These statistics were drawn from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. These are statistics on violent crime, not saving big screen tvs or bbq grills. For “violent crime” the NCVS measures rape/sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault (see Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Violent Crime,” (see http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=931). That falls well into the situation where the victim faces an imminent risk of serious bodily injury or death.

So I'll take that number: 47,140 defensive gun uses per year as determined by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and (since I'm using exact figures) compare it to 11,994 deaths by firearm (due to homicide, accident, and undetermined intent) for the year 2015, according to the CDC:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf

You do the math yourself, and tell me how many more people are alive because they were able to make the choice to use a firearm to defend their self.

[Uponthegears]

19. See #18

[SheilaT]

8. Somehow I find the claim that there are 50,000 defensive gun uses

Last edited Fri Jul 15, 2016, 12:30 PM - Edit history (1)

each year in this country to be a bit unreliable.

But you're saying that the 30,000 or so who die every year from gun violence are just a big yawn. meanwhile, IKEA pulls a dresser off the market because six kids died over several years. I'd say, let IKEA continue marketing the faulty dresser, but take guns out of people's hands.

And if your spouse or cousin or young child is killed by a gun, it'll be perfectly fine, because of those 50,000 magical defensive gun uses.

[jmg257]

9. Its actually a bit low - Check with the VPC...

As detailed in the chart on the next page, for the three-year period 2012 through 2014, the NCVS estimates that there were 18,328,600 victims of attempted or completed violent crime. During this same three-year period, only 163,600 of the self-protective behaviors involved a firearm

According to the NCVS, looking at the total number of self-protective behaviors undertaken by victims of attempted or completed property crime for the three-year period 2012 through 2014, in only 0.2 percent of these instances had the intended victim in resistance to a criminal threatened or attacked with a firearm. During this same three-year period, only 99,900 of the self-protective behaviors involved a firearm

Roughly 263,000 over 3 years = 88,000 a year.

http://www.vpc.org/studies/justifiable16.pdf

[SheilaT]

10. Then why don't I read about these things every single day,

the way ever single day I read about people killed by guns?

The rare times someone really does run off a burglar with a home gun it makes the news.

So what are the estimates as to how many more people would die if homeowners weren't so eager to display a firearm? Would the lives saved REALLY outnumber the tens of thousands currently killed?

In fact, reading the linked report, I see no justification that owning a firearm saves lives. Especially when we already know that the chance of someone dying from a firearm in the home is substantial.

And yet, every single day people die from guns, and there's apparently no number of these deaths large enough to make very many people seriously reconsider the level and kind of gun ownership in this country. Well, a week ago the murder of some police officers almost got that conversation started, but not really.

[DonP]

11. Don't like facts, huh?

Well in an average year I'm gonna guess that 88,000 people don't really care what you think.

Try the fingers in your ears thing and go "LA LA LA" real loud so you don'l have to hear anything that doesn't agree with your predetermined prejudices.

[beevul]

14. Your viewpoint is based in a false assumption.

This:

The rare times someone really does run off a burglar with a home gun it makes the news.

[jmg257]

15. Not sure - they are often posted here, when it makes the news.

I would guess though that someone getting killed by a gun is much more news-worthy then someone not getting killed because of a gun. {On edit: unless its a bit unique, like a woman, or an old person etc...quite popular self-defense stories then}


"So what are the estimates as to how many more people would die if homeowners weren't so eager to display a firearm? Would the lives saved REALLY outnumber the tens of thousands currently killed? "

No idea - since in most areas 70-80% of the 10,000 killed by gun violence are killed by less then 1% of the population (and often known to police) and typically unrelated to homeowners defending themselves, it would be hard to come up with a number.


"In fact, reading the linked report, I see no justification that owning a firearm saves lives. Especially when we already know that the chance of someone dying from a firearm in the home is substantial."


Justification isn't really the issue - millions of people choose guns for their defense and other lawful uses...that's what justifies owning them (and is supported by the USSC).


"And yet, every single day people die from guns, and there's apparently no number of these deaths large enough to make very many people seriously reconsider the level and kind of gun ownership in this country. Well, a week ago the murder of some police officers almost got that conversation started, but not really."


If everything that can be done is being done to remove the threat from the less then 1% that cause 70-80% of the gun violence*, I think then a reasonable next step would be to start having lawful peoples' rights/ownership evaluated.

*Richmond, Calif: among America’s highest per capita rates of gun violence: 70 percent of their gun violence in 2008 was caused by fewer than 1 percent of the city’s residents.

Cincinnati: less than 1 percent of the city’s population was responsible for 74 percent of homicides in 2007.

Chicago: a city of 2.7 million people, about 1,400 are responsible for much of the violence, all of them are on what the department calls its Strategic Subject List.

Newark: Shootings have increased by nearly half in 2015, drug trafficking, particularly of marijuana and prescription pills, is the main cause of the uptick in gun violence, said the director of the Newark Police Department. Initiatives require police and prosecutors to focus on the small number of lawbreakers responsible for most violent crimes. In Newark, that’s 1,470 people, less than 1 percent of the city’s 277,000 residents

etc. etc.

As Chicago says: “We are targeting the correct individuals,” Mr. Johnson said. “We just need our judicial partners and our state legislators to hold these people accountable.”



Until that time comes, and people are REALLY serious about spending the $$ and instituting the programs they know work, the numbers will be what they are.

[sarisataka]

16. The reason you do not

Hear about them is that they are not rare. That means only the unusual are newsworthy. It is the same reaon we do not hear detailed accounts of every robbery or assault. They get reported when some detail stands out or it is a slow news day.

DGUs also do not show up since they are not really tracked by anyone. Since self defense is not a crime they don't appear on a police summary report, only perhaps on the incident report buried in a file.

[needledriver]

17. Two things-

Nowhere do I yawn at the serious and tragic nature of the subject of homicide by firearm.

I agree - every single day people die from firearms. My point is that every single day even more people's lives are saved because they are able to use firearms to defend themselves. The question I put to you in the OP was, what ratio of lives saved to lives lost do you need to see in order for you to accept the right to keep and bear arms?

[LongtimeAZDem]

26. Perhaps because they don't get reposted by the sites you visit?

Try this:

Reddit Defensive Gun Use

[gejohnston]

28. because the media doesn't choose to report them,

and since almost all of them are "no shots fired" it doesn't exactly follow the "it bleeds it leads" business model. the actual number killed by "gun violence" is closer to 8K, since two thirds are suicides. Unless you are going to call the other 48 percent of all suicides rope violence, pill violence, or train violence.............

So what are the estimates as to how many more people would die if homeowners weren't so eager to display a firearm? Would the lives saved REALLY outnumber the tens of thousands currently killed?

Almost all of them are criminals killing each other in places like DC and Chicago. BTW heroin killed 14K people, why don't we hear about those? Gun accidents with pre schoolers are in the double digits nationwide, yet it makes national news, if not international news. Yet the much more common deaths from drownings, drinking drano, medical screw ups, don't make the news.
First thing I learned in Journalism 101, dog bites man isn't news, but man bites dog is. IOW, the more common it is, the less newsworthy it is. That is why plane crashes and shark attacks make the nightly news, but car crashes do not.

In fact, reading the linked report, I see no justification that owning a firearm saves lives. Especially when we already know that the chance of someone dying from a firearm in the home is substantial.

It is really close to nonexistent. The only "studies" that claim otherwise failed any kind of peer review and could not be validated by anyone else.

And yet, every single day people die from guns, and there's apparently no number of these deaths large enough to make very many people seriously reconsider the level and kind of gun ownership in this country. Well, a week ago the murder of some police officers almost got that conversation started, but not really.

Look at some countries where legal gun ownership is almost nonexistent, and have much stricter laws than UK or Australia, like Brazil and Mexico. Their murder rates are astronomical. Then look at countries with gun ownership rates that are about the same as ours, one in three homes, that also allow "assault weapons". Those include Finland, Canada, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland. Some surveys put Finland with a higher rate than ours. There are areas of Norway where owning and carrying a gun is actually mandatory. Granted, it is mostly high powered rifles, but still.
Yet these countries don't have problems like Chicago, Newark, Baltimore, or Detroit. I'm not saying the high gun ownership rate has anything to do with it, in fact, gun ownership has nothing to do with anything according to most criminologists.
What is the difference? Let's take Iceland which doesn't have a military and the police own maybe ten or twenty. Almost all of the guns are privately owned. What else does it have
no poverty to speak of. One percent are rich, one percent are poor and everyone else is middle class. Political corruption is simply not tolerated, and they don't have a drug problem nor do they have gangs.
Let's look at the world's most violent cities, most of which are in South America, but a few are in the US, like Baltimore and Chicago.
What do they have in common?
drug gangs
high poverty
poor infrastructure
political corruption
extreme wealth inequality

“Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.”― Aristotle

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one." ----Cesare Beccaria's Essay on Crimes and Punishments.

One more thing

Well, a week ago the murder of some police officers almost got that conversation started, but not really.

The conversation has been going on for decades, if not centuries. The problem is that one side is open to having an honest conversion based on facts and evidence, the other simply isn't. At best you will get fallacious arguments and personal attacks, at worst you get "talk to the hand". If you go to any social media for, say, Moms Demand Action, and say "hey I'm a gun owner, let's talk". You will be blocked. When they do talk, they either don't know what they are talking about or are dishonest. Honest conversation is a two way street.

[Uponthegears]

18. Will you folks stop at nothing??????

That is not the number of SUCCESSFUL armed resistances to violent crime. Indeed, it is highly probable that it is the number of UNSUCCESSFUL armed resistances to violent crime (look at the rest of the chart). In other words, NO LIFE SAVED, NO INJURY PREVENTED through the use of a firearm. Yes, someone with a gun TRIED to stop .9% of violent crimes, but there is NOTHING in this chart that shows they accomplished ANYTHING.

Above the chart that you used to try to mislead folks is the more relevant statistic. From 2009-2013 (5 years), there were only 1114 justifiable homicides . . . barely over 200/year. During that same period, the cornucopia of guns you folks proudly proclaim render gun control an impossibility were used to murder 42,332 people . . . slightly over 8000/year . . . a net loss (using the OP's logic) of 7800/year.

Btw, using the OP's 15,000 number, there are about 7000 non-homicide (we'll call them "innocent&quot firearm deaths per year (15,000 total deaths - 8000 homicide deaths). Even if we leave out those uncontrollable criminals who killed 8000, we still have a net loss of 6800 lives every single year committed with that sea of guns you folks proudly swell every time you introduce another gun into the stream of commerce.

Armed self-defense is a deadly myth.

[jmg257]

20. Sorry - VPCs numbers are hardly mis-leading - quoted very specific DGU values as THEY provided them.

You want to count how many people were actually justifiably killed, or how many DGU were actually successful - good on you, but that was not the topic of discussion.

It was THEIR 'CHART' QUOTES, not mine - I even highlighted different categories so it was rather obvious what was what (i.e. property crimes). I posted a link to the entire pdf, so anyone can do their own research.

But it is nice to see so many DGUs don't resolve to someone dying.


"you folks proudly proclaim render gun control an impossibility"

I am sure you mean someone else here, as I never say that.


"Even if we leave out those uncontrollable criminals who killed 8000, "

I disagree here also - vast majority of these criminals are quite controllable, just need the REAL desire to so.

[Uponthegears]

21. Please, please, you're killing me . . .

You know I have no problem with the VPC statistics.

I have a problem with you trying to claim they represent the number of instances where a defensive gun stopped a violent crime. That's not what they represent and you know it.

As far as "so many DGU's [that] don't resolve to someone dying" what those statistic show is "so many DGU's that don't result in people being protected."

I apologize for suggesting that you are among the folks who point to the 100's of millions of privately-owned firearms in this country and say "banning guns is an impossibility." Of course, we know that just the opposite is true. As some are fond of pointing out, a majority of these weapons are held by law-abiding citizens. IF the new justice appointed by Hillary Clinton (considered by some the most anti-gun candidate in history) were to vote with the 4 dissenters in Heller, the "2nd Amendment creates an individual right" doctrine falls. IF a new Congress votes to strictly limit the private ownership of firearms, these citizens (being law-abiding) would voluntarily surrender their weapons, right?

Listen, I know it's tough for you guys. You use crime statistics which are inflated by the inclusion of crimes committed in areas that most of you all wouldn't dare go (even with your "self-protection&quot to convince upper-middle class suburbanites with substantial disposable incomes that they are in danger from the shadowy figure hiding in their well-manicured hedge so they will pluck down $800-1000 to join your "self-protection" club. Otherwise, you become the whipping boy for this country's refusal to address social problems in a constructive manner (which, btw, is not "getting tough on crime&quot .

Unfortunately, because we won't address these social problems, this self-protection myth is swelling number of weapons in the stream of commerce (where they are available to all)and putting us as a society in greater danger.

[jmg257]

22. "I have a problem with you trying to claim they represent the number of instances where a defensive

gun stopped a violent crime."

WTF did I say that? EVER?? I quoted and posted VPC numbers of the amount of DGUs - and added them up - PERIOD.

VERY specific what I posted:

"... During this same three-year period, only 163,600 of the self-protective behaviors involved a firearm"
... During this same three-year period, only 99,900 of the self-protective behaviors involved a firearm"

"Roughly 263,000 over 3 years = 88,000 a year."

No flourishing, no garnishing, no 'misleading', no 'trying' anything but quoting & basic math.


In fact, I actually asked the OP how HE came up his numbers of 35,000 live being saved re: 'successful' DGU uses.

How would you substantiate the number of lives saved just based on the number of DGUs?

"you become the whipping boy for this country's refusal to address social problems in a constructive manner (which, btw, is not "getting tough on crime&quot . because we won't address these social problems,"

Huh - "addressing social problems", which if you read the 2 "numbers" threads, is almost exactly what I DID say...

"Until that time comes, and people are REALLY serious about spending the $$ and instituting the programs they know work, the numbers will be what they are."

FWIW:

Here's a link, from one of the studies I got the qoutes & crime numbers, & workable programs & remedies, from, that may help: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/14/forget-new-gun-laws-heres-what-could-really-keep-people-from-shooting-each-other/

On edit: the other is from a similar article about Chicago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/us/armed-with-data-chicago-police-try-to-predict-who-may-shoot-or-be-shot.html?


I think you are confusing your responses.

[Uponthegears]

23. That would be real embarrassing

But I think you're right.

Sorry

[jmg257]

24. He he - No worries...Cheers! I do hear you!

[needledriver]

25. I am not a statistician

So I may have misunderstood common statistical practice.

I came up with the 35,000 number as a rounded figure of what I remember from the last time I looked at the VPC numbers. As I stated in post #7, when I looked again at the VPC paper on the subject I see that during the five-year period 2007 - 2011, only 235,700 of the self-protective behaviors involved a firearm. 235,700 divided by 5 is 47,140, which I rounded up to 50,000 to simplify the math.

The rest of the VPC quote citing the 235,700 figure is:

"Of this number, it is not known what type of firearm was used or whether it was fired or not. The number may also include off duty law enforcement officers who use their firearms in self-defense."

As I said, I am not a statistician, but it seems to me that you would muddy your outcome if you included the set of unsuccessful defensive gun uses (i.e homicides) within the set of all defensive gun uses without explicitly stating so on your results. Even so, if we subtract the number of unsuccessful defensive gun uses from the total of all defensive gun uses, we still end up with more people alive because they defended themselves with firearms than dead because they tried and failed.

Let's take the 47,140 average defensive gun uses per year and the homicide total for 2013 and see how that would work out. Total homicides by firearm: 11,208. Total deaths by discharge of firearm with undetermined intent, 281. That is 11,489 which could conceivably have been the result of an unsuccessful defensive firearm use. There is no way to determine if every one of these deaths by firearm was the result of an unsuccessful defensive gun use. It is likely that a good many of these people were shot and had no firearm to defend themselves with. Even so, I will take the extreme case that every one of these deaths occurred in an unsuccessful defensive gun use situation. 47,140 minus 11,489 is 35,651.

That means, even with taking the worst case scenario and assuming that every firearms death of 2013 occurred in an unsuccessful defensive gun use, 35,651 people engaged in a successful defensive gun use. So I put it to you again; How many additional deaths per year of people unable to defend themselves would you be willing to accept as the price for getting rid of the people's right to keep and bear arms?

[jmg257]

27. "How many additional deaths per year of people unable to defend themselves would you be willing to

accept as the price for getting rid of the people's right to keep and bear arms?"


I think you are asking the wrong person. I have little support for giving up the right/ability to arms, especially when there are more effective measures available.

[needledriver]

29. Sorry- that was not for you.

I thought I had hit the reply button to a different poster.

[SCantiGOP]

13. All Guns Matter

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.