by Elliott Morss, Morss Global Finance
Introduction
Once again, the US is involved in a gun debate with many issues at play. And most certainly, there are uninformed “crazies” on both sides of this issue. The debate involves who should be allowed to buy and carry around rapid fire guns with large magazines? And while school shootings are the hot topic of the moment, in reality there are relatively few mass shootings in the US. But the current debate is making many think about buying guns for protection. So in what follows, the research on guns used for protection is reviewed.
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Anecdotes to support one or another gun position proliferate. And the NRA has used its power to block almost all meaningful government research on gun use, outcomes and the reasons for it. But there is some research on the subject that I recently summarized here. The key research findings on using guns for protection follow:
- Guns in the home are used more often to frighten intimates than to thwart crime; other weapons are far more commonly used against intruders than are guns. Citation
- Firearms are used far more often to frighten and intimidate than they are used in self-defense. Citation
- By a margin of more than 3 to 1, Americans would feel less safe, not safer, as others in their community acquire guns. Citation
- Among women, but not among men, those who have been threatened with a gun are particularly likely to feel less safe. Citation
- Owners of semi-automatic weapons are more likely than other gun owners to be male, own a gun for protection, and report binge drinking. Citation
- To believe fully the claims of millions of self-defense gun uses each year would mean believing that decent law-abiding citizens shot hundreds of thousands of criminals. In actual fact, few criminals are shot by law abiding citizens. Using data from surveys of detainees in six jails from around the nation, it was found that very few criminals were shot by citizens. Citation
- For adolescents, most of the reported self-defense gun uses were hostile interactions between armed adolescents. Males, smokers, binge drinkers, those who threatened others and whose parents were less likely to know their whereabouts were more likely both to be threatened with a gun and to use a gun in self-defense. Citation
- Adolescents who commit suicide with a gun use the family gun. The vast majority of adolescent suicide guns come from parents of other family members. Citation
These are the research findings I have been able to uncover on US citizens using guns for self-defense.
It does not present a pretty picture on what will happen as more citizens arm themselves for “defense.”
