The risk of having a gun in the home

[GreenStormCloud]

69. OK, let's look at that.

Suicides I am not concerned about. If someone wants to end their life, that is their ultimate freedom.

Illegal Homicides.
It is very rare for a law abiding person to commit murder as their first violent crime. (Please note that rare does not equal never.) Almost always a murderer will have a history of violence. Fortunately, they will usually murder either another criminal or a member of their own family or intimate partner. (Living with a violent criminal is extremely dangerous. Spouses of such are in great danger and should leave ASAP.)

Safest of all are those who have CCWs, in those states that have reasonable requirement for a CCW. Texas keep and posts online annual statistics for criminal convictions of those with Concealed Handgun Licenses. http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/rsd/chl/reports/convrates.htm If you look at the linked site you can see that it is CHLs in Texas save more innocent lives than they take.

In Texas the detailed statistics are compiled annually by the Department of Public Safety and published on the internet. It is likely that the Texas experience with Concealed Handgun Licenses would be about the same in other states. The last year for which statistics are published is 2011 for convictions. http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/rsd/chl/index.htm

In 2011 there were 512,625 people who had CHLs. Out of those people there were exactly three (3) murder convictions and three (3) manslaughter convictions. Out of the general population there were 578 convictions for murder in its various forms.

So very, very few CHL holders go bad, but some do.

The DPS also publishes an annual Crime in Texas Report. http://www.dps.texas.gov/crimereports/10/citCh3.pdf
From that report, page 15:

Statistics on murder circumstances, victims, and
victim/offender relationships on the next page
include justifiable homicides. Justifiable homicide
is the killing of a felon by a peace officer in the
line of duty or the killing (during the commission
of a felony) of a felon by a private citizen. In
2010, there were 98 justifiable homicides, of
which, 50 were felons killed by private citizens,
and 48 were felons killed by police.

In Texas all homicides, even those that are clearly self-defense, have to go before a grand jury which will rule if the killing was justified or not. So those 50 justified private citizen homicides were ones in which the defender genuinely and legitimately feared for his life. Since most shootings are merely woundings there would be a much larger number of justified woundings in which the defender genuinely feared for his life, but that number is not kept. And there would be many more cases in which the defender merely displays his gun and the criminal runs away. Obviously there are hundreds of cases each year in which a CHL holder uses their gun to save themselves from criminal violence.

Dozens of innocent lives saved versus six innocents killed shows the concealed carry is working in Texas. As already stated, there is no reason to believe that other CCW states have a different experience.

Legal concealed carry saves innocent lives.