Quote:
Originally Posted by Byte1
You might want to do a bit of research before making such definite statements.
From Heritage.org:
"According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost every major study on defensive gun use has found that Americans use their firearms defensively between 500,000 and 3 million times each year. There’s good reason to believe that most defensive gun uses are never reported to law enforcement, much less picked up by local or national media outlets. "
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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - from the actual CDC website, not a third-party interpretation of an internet news-site's interpretation:
Fast Facts: Firearm Violence Prevention |Violence Prevention|Injury Center|CDC
Quote:
What is defensive gun use? How often does it occur?
Although definitions of defensive gun use vary, it is generally defined as the use of a firearm to protect and defend oneself, family, other people, and/or property against crime or victimization.
Estimates of defensive gun use vary depending on the questions asked, populations studied, timeframe, and other factors related to study design. Given the wide variability in estimates, additional research is necessary to understand defensive gun use prevalence, frequency, circumstances, and outcomes.
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Also, I checked the source of your quote, and it had its own source for where it got its data. That source was NOT the CDC. It was an online TV station, and the link only brought me to the main webpage. I did do a search for CNCNews, and almost all of the results pulled up the notion that this is a hard-right (not extremist) conservative site dedicated to creating holes in less conservative media, in particular CNN (though not exclusively). Turns out the organization of which they are a member, are the ones who gave the award to Sean Hannity. So yeah - not reliable, or believable, and your "article" from Heritage.org is not only factually incorrect, it bases its opinion on sources that don't exist.
Thing is, even the "claimed" data (which I can't find on the actual CDC website) doesn't indicate how many of those defensive uses of guns resulted in a positive outcome, OR whether they were justified. Some kid pranking a neighbor by ringing the doorbell - well the owner might've just recently had a burglary and felt they were being threatened. That's defensive use - but not justified because the kid was just ringing the doorbell, nothing more or less. A defensive use that ends up missing. Defensive use that results in the defensive shooter shooting himself by mistake. Defensive use resulting in shooting a bystander, etc. etc. "Defensive shooting" means NOTHING when you don't include data about the outcome, the context of the claim "defensive," or anything else.
It also doesn't include data on everyone who had immediate access to a firearm to defend themselves, could have prevented crime, and chose not to use their firearm defensively.
Being armed doesn't automatically make you a defensive shooter. It just makes you another person with a gun.