Guns are Rarely Used to Kill Criminals or Stop Crimes New VPC Analysis Reveals

[DanTex]

4. That's under the assumption that "defensive gun uses" are actually socially beneficial.

A lot of so-called "defensive" gun uses are actually criminal or offensive acts (think George Zimmerman, etc.). The only standard for "defensive" used in the survey is that the person who claimed to use the gun said so. Under this standard, there would be no robberies, only "borrowing of property".

Comparing the number of gun homicides with the number of "defensive gun uses" is silly, because a homicide is a life lost, whereas only a very tiny percentage of "defensive gun uses" actually save a life. In fact, there is no evidence at all that people who own or carry guns are any safer than people who don't. There is also no evidence that crime victims that resist guns are killed or hurt less often than people who resist without guns. However, there is plenty of evidence that people who are victims of gun assaults are killed much more often than people who are victims of assaults without guns.