"The Science of Guns Proves Arming Untrained Citizens Is a Bad Idea"

[applegrove]

The Science of Guns Proves Arming Untrained Citizens Is a Bad Idea

By Michael Shermer at Scientific American

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gun-science-proves-arming-untrained-citizens-bad-idea&WT.mc_id=SA_CAT_BS_20130510

"SNIP...........................


According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 31,672 people died by guns in 2010 (the most recent year for which U.S. figures are available), a staggering number that is orders of magnitude higher than that of comparable Western democracies. What can we do about it? National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre believes he knows: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” If LaPierre means professionally trained police and military who routinely practice shooting at ranges, this observation would at least be partially true. If he means armed private citizens with little to no training, he could not be more wrong.

Consider a 1998 study in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery that found that “every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides.” Pistol owners' fantasy of blowing away home-invading bad guys or street toughs holding up liquor stores is a myth debunked by the data showing that a gun is 22 times more likely to be used in a criminal assault, an accidental death or injury, a suicide attempt or a homicide than it is for self-defense. I harbored this belief for the 20 years I owned a Ruger .357 Magnum with hollow-point bullets designed to shred the body of anyone who dared to break into my home, but when I learned about these statistics, I got rid of the gun.

More insights can be found in a 2013 book from Johns Hopkins University Press entitled Reducing Gun Violence in America: Informing Policy with Evidence and Analysis, edited by Daniel W. Webster and Jon S. Vernick, both professors in health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In addition to the 31,672 people killed by guns in 2010, another 73,505 were treated in hospital emergency rooms for nonfatal bullet wounds, and 337,960 nonfatal violent crimes were committed with guns. Of those 31,672 dead, 61 percent were suicides, and the vast majority of the rest were homicides by people who knew one another.

For example, of the 1,082 women and 267 men killed in 2010 by their intimate partners, 54 percent were shot by guns. Over the past quarter of a century, guns were involved in greater number of intimate partner homicides than all other causes combined. When a woman is murdered, it is most likely by her intimate partner with a gun. Regardless of what really caused Olympic track star Oscar Pistorius to shoot his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp (whether he mistook her for an intruder or he snapped in a lover's quarrel), her death is only the latest such headline. Recall, too, the fate of Nancy Lanza, killed by her own gun in her own home in Connecticut by her son, Adam Lanza, before he went to Sandy Hook Elementary School to murder some two dozen children and adults. As an alternative to arming women against violent men, legislation can help: data show that in states that prohibit gun ownership by men who have received a domestic violence restraining order, gun-caused homicides of intimate female partners have been reduced by 25 percent.

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[billh58]

1. K & R!

And cue the NRA apologists and Gungeoneers in 5, 4, 3, 2, ...

[freshwest]

2. They will be picked off one by one like clay targets. Let's all go skeet hunting, LOL.

[defacto7]

3. K&R

Excellent article! Thanks.

[jimmy the one]

4. the blade runner gunnut

link: I harbored this {armed fantasy} belief for the 20 years I owned a Ruger .357 Magnum with hollow-point bullets designed to shred the body of anyone who dared to break into my home, but when I learned about these statistics, I got rid of the gun.

There must be hundreds of thousands of ex-gunowners who have evolved thusly, should be some kinda club formed. Former Gun Owners of America.. nah too close to GOA, maybe just XGO, or FFOA.

link: Regardless of what really caused Olympic track star Oscar Pistorius to shoot his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp (whether he mistook her for an intruder or he snapped in a lover's quarrel), her death is only the latest such headline.

This is a no brainer that saffer pistorius created an intruder boogeyman to cover his a** for shooting her in cold blood (from behind bathroom door). Oscar (olympian with no feet bionic legs) was a GUNNUT.

JOHANNESBURG South Africa — In his Olympic year, Oscar Pistorius steadily became an avid firearms collector, joining a gun-collecting club and purchasing a collection of firearms that included a .500 Magnum pistol dubbed by its manufacturer as “the most powerful production revolver in the world” and a civilian version of a military assault rifle.
At the end of 2012, in the first blush of his romance with Reeva Steenkamp, the model he later shot and killed, Pistorius got deeper into his hobby. It was known that Pistorius liked guns but only now, from Associated Press interviews with other collectors, is it becoming clear the extent to which he became a dedicated firearms aficionado in the 12 months before he shot Steenkamp.
A Smith & Wesson model 500. With a caliber of .500 Magnum, it is called “the most powerful production revolver in the world” by its manufacturer in Springfield, Massachusetts. “A hunting handgun for any game animal walking,” the company’s website says. Pistorius was “quite fascinated” with that particular weapon, Beare said. A Smith & Wesson .38-caliber revolver.Three shotguns: A Mossberg, a Maverick and a Winchester, all American makes. A Vektor .223-caliber rifle.
Not included on this list: the 9mm pistol Pistorious used to kill Reeva Steenkamp. Which would bring his firearms “collection” to a total of seven firearms.http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/03/robert-farago/omg-oscar-pistorious-owned-six-guns-an-assault-rifle-omg/

Seven firearms, eh I guess that would make him a 'beginner' in nra lingo, but we mustn't apply american standards to other countries where gunnuttery is more controllable, 7 would put oscar in the 'advanced' class for ROW, 'rest of world'.

UK daily mail, no link: The four shots to Miss Steenkamp’s head, chest and arms came from a 9mm handgun. Was it, as some suggested, a surprise Valentine’s Day visit by his girlfriend that went tragically wrong when Pistorius mistook her for an intruder and reached for one of those guns? Or did this complex man, by turns both charming and brittle, know precisely what he was doing?