Search Results for: "firearm deaths"

Negligent Discharge and CCWs

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A Gun Facts fan asked what we know about concealed carry licencees and negligent discharges (accidental discharges). Frankly, there isn’t much out there. I wish there were concise statistics on this subject, but such events are rare enough that nobody in government, criminology or epidemiology finds it worth the trouble to investigate. The best we can do is triangulate some other numbers.  a) According to the CDC, in the most recent reporting year, there were 606 accidental firearm deaths. Not all of these were really accidents and not all were negligent discharges. There is no breakdown, but Gary Kleck’s Targeting Guns cites one set of studies (investigative reports by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company) that note most accidental gun deaths were due to dumb behavior (not negligent discharge) – people drunk, playing with guns, walking into a hunter’s line of fire, etc. b) There are about 11 million CCW holders in the … Continue reading →

Guns in Other Countries

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Myth: Countries with strict gun control have less crime Fact: In America, we can demonstrate that private ownership of guns reduces crime, but from country to country there is no correlation between gun availability and the violent crime rate. Consider this: Crime Rate High Low Gun Availability High United States Switzerland Low Mexico Japan Or, to use detailed data, we can contrast the per capita homicide rate with the per capita gun ownership rate between different industrialized countries (see graph below). Contrasting the data shows zero correlation between the availability of guns and the overall homicide rate. Fact: Countries with the strictest gun-control laws also tended to have the highest homicide rates. Fact: According to the U.N., as of 2005, Scotland was the most violent country in the developed world, with people three times more likely to be assaulted than in America. Violent crime there has doubled over the last … Continue reading →

Guns and Crime Prevention

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Myth: Private ownership of guns is not effective in preventing crime Fact: “Victims who have and use guns have both lower losses and lesser injury rates from violent crime.” Fact: Every year, people in the United States use guns to defend themselves against criminals an estimated 2,500,000 times – more than 6,500 people a day, or once every 13 seconds.  Of these instances, 15.7% of the people using firearms defensively stated that they “almost certainly” saved their lives by doing so. Fact: Even the government’s estimate, which has a major methodology problem, estimates people defend themselves 235,700 times each year with guns. Fact: Victims with guns “would reduce … the criminals’ incentives to commit violent crimes and to be armed.” Fact: The number of times per year an American uses a firearm to deter a home invasion alone is 498,000. Fact: In 83.5% (2,087,500) of these successful gun defenses, the attacker either threatened … Continue reading →

Assorted Gun Insights

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Myth: 30,000 people are killed with guns every year. Fact: 61% of these deaths are suicides (80% in Canada). Numerous studies have shown that the presence or absence of a firearm does not change the overall (i.e., gun plus non-gun) suicide rate. This 30,000 number also includes justifiable homicides (self-defense) and accidents. Myth: Gun ownership is falling in the United States   Poll Gun Ownership Trend Registered Voter Isolation ABC/Post Steady Yes Gallup Steady Yes Pew Declining No GSS Declining No Fact: All three of the long-term tracking polls show show a consistent or slightly rising household firearm ownership rate. A forth poll, after changing their methodology, fell into alignment with the other three. Myth: The Brady Campaign has a good ranking system of state gun control laws. Fact: Two surveys (ABC and Gallup) consis­tently showed house­hold owner­ship rates remaining steady over multiple decades. Two others (Pew and GSS) showed ownership dropping. The … Continue reading →

Gun Facts

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Gun FactsTM Returning honesty to the gun control debate Gun Facts™ debunks common myths about guns, violence and gun control policy. It is intended as a reference guide for journalists, politicians and anyone interested in learning about guns policy and restoring honesty to the debate. The menu links above provide detailed information with full citations. Divided into chapters based on gun control topics (assault weapons, ballistic finger printing, firearm availability, etc.), Gun Facts makes finding information about gun control policy quick and easy. Each chapter lists common gun myths (both pro- and anti-gun), then lists a number of documented and cited facts from high quality, independent sources including government databases, peer reviewed studies, and more. Thus when a neighbor, pundit or politician repeats some sound bite about gun policy, you can quickly find that myth then rebuke with accurate information. Gun control facts in Gun Facts include (but are in … Continue reading →

Children and Guns

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Myth: Guns are the leading cause of death for children Fact: There are criminology and health care definitions for “child” (prepubescent) and “teens”. The national Gang Center notes that street gang recruitment begins at age 14. This the principle reason why gun deaths are nearly nonexistent for children, but steadily rise for teens. Myth: There have been 96 school shootings since Sandy Hook Fact: This analysis of news reports was created by the gun control group Everytown. This study included: College campuses (47% of cases) Suicides attempts (18%) Cases where nobody was hurt (27%) Some other analysts note that many of the cases are unrelated to school activity or actually occurred near campus, not on it. All in all, it is a poor study with no relevance to child endangerment. Myth: 240 schools had a school related shooting in 2015-16 (also “over 100 schools reported a school-related homicide”) Fact: This Education Department … Continue reading →

Violence Project Policy Problem

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When a friend makes a mistake, you kindly nudge them back into a more rational mode. That is what I am doing now for the Violence Project. The Violence Project, Before and Now Gun Facts has been both a fan and a friend to the Violence Project. In their beginning, they were like us: data butlers who did not make policy recommendations. Their resources (much more than the Gun Facts project has or will ever likely receive) allowed them to gather an incredible amount of detailed information about mass public shooting (MPS) events and perpetrators. We also have helped the Violence Project. During a periodic update of the Gun Facts Mass Public Shooting database, we identified three such events in our database that were missing in theirs. So, we sent emails with pertinent details, and they responded with kindness and gratitude. But in recent times, we have noticed that they … Continue reading →

K–12 Shooting Stats

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School shootings are reasonably rare, though you would never know if from reading stories in the mainstream media or listening to people who maintain databases of questionable quality. Fortunately, the federal government did a deep dive into the subject, and from that we come to some interesting conclusions about who is actually in danger at K–12 schools and why it only reinforces what we know about gun violence in general. TAKEAWAYS The most commonly media-cited K–12 school shooting database is overstated by 40%. Most K–12 shootings are over disputes that align with inner-city and street gang subcultures. School-targeted shootings (which include mass shootings) occur at about half the rate of “nominal” dispute/gang shootings. Targeted shootings, because they are planned, come from generalized grievances, and use “cattle pen scenarios,” have a higher body count than the more common one-victim dispute shootings, though the latter occurs twice as often. What is a … Continue reading →

Issues Under Debate

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Issues under debate and what is known Below we list some issues within the public debate about guns and violence and some notes about what to watch out for. Leading cause of death for “children” Both the criminology and epidemiology fields maintain separate classifications for “children” and “teens” (the former typically divides at 12/13 years of age and the latter at 13/14). They do so for obvious and not-so-obvious reasons. The main factor on the criminology/sociology side is that the teen years involve increasing degrees of away-from-home independence and associated risk taking. Because of this (and some complex social aspects to street gang life) firearm death rates among “children” are nearly zero and steadily increase among teens. Thus, any advocacy organization amalgamating the two is making a serious data quality error. If offered a study or data that amalgamates both children and teens, ask for the data to be segregated … Continue reading →

Mass Public Shootings (MPS)

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Sorting out definitions Regrettably, people have devised many different definitions for words describing mass murder. This has created great confusion. Below is a list of commonly used terms with notes about which ones you might want to use or avoid: TERM Definition Includes Source of Definition Used By Notes Mass Public Shooting 4+ killed Not including the perp One public location Not part of another crime Only killed Criminologists ·  Most criminologists ·  Gun Facts ·  Mother Jones ·  Violence Project A 2012 definition created by Congress uses 3+ victims as their definition. But this definition is not widely used or respected. Mass Shooting v1 4+ shot, not necessarily killed Not including the perp One or multiple locations Public or private locations Killed or wounded Everytown   Gun Violence Archive Everytown   Gun Violence Archive Everytown admits on their web site that they adopted a new and unique definition, discarding … Continue reading →