[shaw8700@outlook.com]

A few years ago, I had a nail technician tell me an interesting story. He was from Vietnam and he was telling me about some police officers harassing somebody. I asked why did the local village people allow that to happen? He replied “ there was nothing they could do. The police took all their guns years before.”

I think about that whenever someone tries to take guns away. Thankfully our forefathers were smart enough to put them in the Constitution.

[Byte1]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

You mean like the sheriff's deputy at Parkland, that good guy with the gun, who protected the kids from the bad guy with the gun?

Or any of the people who have guns who were good people at the mass shooting in Baltimore recently? Those 30 people who were shot, might have a thought about the good guy with the gun protecting them from the bad guy with a gun.

That is SUCH a tired cliche, it isn't true, it makes no sense, and it's dangerous thinking. Good guys with guns can be ineffective. They can be there - and not use their guns. They can be there and wait until they've already failed to protect some people, and then use their guns. They can use their guns and miss. They can THINK they're shooting a bad guy with a gun, but actually they're shooting someone who didn't have any gun at all.

Good guys are not infallible. And in some cases - they can cause more harm than they can prevent.

When the problem is "people with guns," then giving more guns to more people is not the answer.

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. "

[ThirdOfFive]

Originally Posted by shaw8700@outlook.com

A few years ago, I had a nail technician tell me an interesting story. He was from Vietnam and he was telling me about some police officers harassing somebody. I asked why did the local village people allow that to happen? He replied “ there was nothing they could do. The police took all their guns years before.”

I think about that whenever someone tries to take guns away. Thankfully our forefathers were smart enough to put them in the Constitution.

PRECISELY the point.

Every right enumerated in the Bill of Rights is there to protect the citizens from the government. It is ridiculous to believe that only one, the 2nd, is not there for the exact same reason.

[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by shaw8700@outlook.com

A few years ago, I had a nail technician tell me an interesting story. He was from Vietnam and he was telling me about some police officers harassing somebody. I asked why did the local village people allow that to happen? He replied “ there was nothing they could do. The police took all their guns years before.”

I think about that whenever someone tries to take guns away. Thankfully our forefathers were smart enough to put them in the Constitution.

Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive

PRECISELY the point.

Every right enumerated in the Bill of Rights is there to protect the citizens from the government. It is ridiculous to believe that only one, the 2nd, is not there for the exact same reason.

Do you honestly picture yourself pulling a gun on a police officer and having it work out well for you?

[Papa_lecki]

Originally Posted by Bill14564

Do you honestly picture yourself pulling a gun on a police officer and having it work out well for you?

Probably not,
but 247 years ago, a number of people chose to pull a gun on the most powerful military the world had seen to that point, and overall, it worked out well.

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

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. "

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

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.

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.

[Trayderjoe]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

You mean like the sheriff's deputy at Parkland, that good guy with the gun, who protected the kids from the bad guy with the gun?

Actually the fact that a trained professional did not enter the building to protect the kids (I am by no means saying he was right or wrong as I did not listen to the testimony and there is another thread discussing that issue) is PROOF that the ONLY person you can count on to protect you and your family is YOURSELF. Add in the average response time for a police officer to arrive in response to an emergency call, and a lot of harm can happen in that time frame if unchecked.

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

Or any of the people who have guns who were good people at the mass shooting in Baltimore recently? Those 30 people who were shot, might have a thought about the good guy with the gun protecting them from the bad guy with a gun. That is SUCH a tired cliche, it isn't true, it makes no sense, and it's dangerous thinking.

Here are just three examples that proves the statement above false:

Las Vegas Turnberry Towers Shooting (June 2023) Who here has honestly heard about this shooting prior to this post?

Indiana Mall Shooting July 2022

West Virginia Graduation Party Shooting May 2022

I won't bother to list the many more examples of a good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun.

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

Good guys with guns can be ineffective. They can be there - and not use their guns. They can be there and wait until they've already failed to protect some people, and then use their guns. They can use their guns and miss. They can THINK they're shooting a bad guy with a gun, but actually they're shooting someone who didn't have any gun at all.

Good guys are not infallible. And in some cases - they can cause more harm than they can prevent.

True for a change. NO ONE knows how they will react in a shooting situation until it happens to them. You also don't know the circumstances until you are there. Do you use your gun to protect someone else if your family would be in danger? What if the shooter is holding a child and you did not fire because you were concerned that you would hit the child? Even trained patrol officers who practice regularly might not take that shot.

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

When the problem is "people with guns," then giving more guns to more people is not the answer.

How about enforcing laws and keeping the bad guys off the streets? How about doing something to help the people with mental illness and not let them roam the streets without help they need?

Owning and carrying a gun is a huge responsibility, and yes, there can be "bad" gun owners who don't take a training class or practice at the range, but then they take a chance that they don't end up in jail. Given that trained professionals don't always (for whatever reason) immediately intercede in a shooting situation, or they are willing to intercede but arrive on scene AFTER a shooting has already occurred it still falls on someone doing what they need to do to protect themselves and their families.

[Trayderjoe]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

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


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.

Actually, the CDC used to report the defensive gun incidents as previously cited. Since they moved away from that due to pressure from anti-gun lobbyists, their website has been "cleansed". Forbes, which is not a conservative site, published an article in April 2018 entitled "That Time The CDC Asked About Defensive Guns Uses". The article makes references to earlier surveys conducted by the CDC about defensive gun use.

It is difficult to prove that the CDC reported data they scrubbed from their website, but it is not unreasonable to believe that they did report such data given the references in such earlier publications.

[Number 10 GI]

I spent a couple of hours one night on the internet watching local television station's broadcasts on shootings in their cities where a legally armed citizen saved themselves or another because they were carrying. I stopped after two hours because it got late. With the anti-gun bias in our major media outlets, do you think really think they want to give this national attention?

As far as the sheriff's deputy in Parkland, my understanding is that the sheriff's department's policy was to wait for backup. If it was me, I would like to think I would have disregarded policy and acted. Some organizations are so rigid in their policies that not toeing the line can have serious consequences. No one is able to get into his mind to see what he was thinking. I believe the policy has been changed from waiting for backup to one of immediate response by whatever LEO is at the scene. Picking out one example like this proves nothing.

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Originally Posted by Trayderjoe

Actually, the CDC used to report the defensive gun incidents as previously cited. Since they moved away from that due to pressure from anti-gun lobbyists, their website has been "cleansed". Forbes, which is not a conservative site, published an article in April 2018 entitled "That Time The CDC Asked About Defensive Guns Uses". The article makes references to earlier surveys conducted by the CDC about defensive gun use.

It is difficult to prove that the CDC reported data they scrubbed from their website, but it is not unreasonable to believe that they did report such data given the references in such earlier publications.

Aha. So now we know where the data came from. It came from a study conducted in 2013. That's a decade ago. The data no longer applies, it has no relevance to the world we live in today.

[Trayderjoe]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

Aha. So now we know where the data came from. It came from a study conducted in 2013. That's a decade ago. The data no longer applies, it has no relevance to the world we live in today.

The POINT of that part of my post was to show that, using a non conservative website, the CDC did in fact post data on defensive gun incidents. My post was not suggesting that the data shown in the article was the most current. The absence of the more current data does not prove that the data as quoted by the poster was not accurate. While it doesn't fit the narrative, there are multiple websites that make the same data references. One would think that the CDC would have challenged the reporting of the data as inaccurate at the time of those reports. Where can we find those documented reported challenges?

Should your position be that you can't find the cited data on the CDC website so it should be dismissed, then PROVE that the cited data was never on the CDC website.

[MrFlorida]

A "good guy with a gun" is not a police officer. And is not sworn to protect the public. A smart : good guy with a gun" will look for an escape route before confronting an armed individual...just because he or she carries a gun, doesn't mean they have to use it.

[Trayderjoe]

Originally Posted by MrFlorida

A "good guy with a gun" is not a police officer. And is not sworn to protect the public. A smart : good guy with a gun" will look for an escape route before confronting an armed individual...just because he or she carries a gun, doesn't mean they have to use it.

Spot on!

[Byte1]

"The NCVS identifies far fewer instances of defensive gun use. According to the most recent firearms violence report, published in April, 2 percent of victims of nonfatal violent crime — that includes rape, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault — and 1 percent of property crime victims use guns in self-defense. According to the survey, firearms were used defensively in 166,900 nonfatal violent crimes between 2014 and 2018, which works out to an average of 33,380 per year. Over the same period, defensive gun use was reported in 183,300 property crimes, or an average of 36,660 per year.

Taken together, that’s 70,040 instances of defensive gun use per year.The NCVS identifies far fewer instances of defensive gun use. According to the most recent firearms violence report, published in April, 2 percent of victims of nonfatal violent crime — that includes rape, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault — and 1 percent of property crime victims use guns in self-defense. According to the survey, firearms were used defensively in 166,900 nonfatal violent crimes between 2014 and 2018, which works out to an average of 33,380 per year. Over the same period, defensive gun use was reported in 183,300 property crimes, or an average of 36,660 per year.

Taken together, that’s 70,040 instances of defensive gun use per year."

I can gather references for defensive use of firearms all over the Internet. Those that are so anti-gun will never find any of them to be valid in their OPINION, so it's useless to argue with them. The fact IS that firearms are used for defense more than once per year, and if one life is saved then that person owning a gun was a good thing. You don't have to own a firearm. No one is forcing you to own one. If you don't like guns, that's your problem. I just hope that you won't hold it against someone that happens to be carrying and decided to act defensively FOR you and saves your life when the time comes that you need saving. I was once told by a police officer that on average EVERYONE is involved in a violent crime at least twice in a lifetime. I am sure that there is "one" person on here that will attempt to prove that statement to be erroneous. Some of us take life seriously and do not condone criminal behavior. The reason crimes are reported and murders occur is because the second that someone needs a COP, he/she is only minutes away. But, he/she will be there to take witness statements after the fact. I hope that if my unarmed family members are victims, that there is someone there carrying a firearm and has the guts to render assistance.
Whether there are a thousand or more instances of defensive use of a firearm in America per year, more or less the good guy with a gun is better than only bad guys having guns, in my opinion. This has nothing to do with the person's experience and proficiency with the firearm. Most folks that own guns will learn how they operate.
Argue all you wish, but guns, like knives, bats, hammers, axes, sticks, etc. can be used offensively to harm folks. So, you might as well make it easier for a good guy to own and carry than a bad guy.

[Cybersprings]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

But they will see much more severe consequences for breaking it now. They're more likely to spend more time in jail, because now more charges can be laid against them.

Really??? The penalty for the crime of multiple murders wouldn't put them away for long enough, but the penalty for illegal possession of a firearm is what will put them away for a long time?? Am I the only one to whom that this sounds completely ridiculous???