# Guns rarely used for self defense



## BackyardCowboy (Aug 27, 2014)

Guns rarely used for self-defense in US


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## SailDesign (Jul 17, 2014)

On AN Other forum, I once asked a guy who claimed to have"carried" a .45 for over 40 years how often, exactly, he had felt it necessary to draw his weapon. He answered "Twice."

On further asking, he admitted that he had never had to pull the trigger. Since the thread was about what calibres were suitable for self-defense, and he had been touting the 45 over EVERYTHING else, I admit to prodding him by saying "So if you never had to pull the trigger, then really a 22 would have been just as effective."

He was not amused.

But twice in 40 years - with all the accompanying ammo to buy, practice to do (Oh, wait - that's the fun part - nemmind!) You see where I was going there, anyway.


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## BackyardCowboy (Aug 27, 2014)

Most of those reports include reported incidents. They don't include incidents that happened where drawing the weapon ended the situation without firing a shot. as often those type of incidents don't get reported to law enforcement. (people suddenly remembered they needed to be elsewhere when they saw a gun)
And they can't include the times where a gun carrier (concealed or otherwise) developed the situational awareness to avoid a location or situation where they might have had to use their weapon.


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## pic (Nov 14, 2009)

They didn't mention the times I pulled my handgun. I reported the incident about the dogs.
Three times it was for a charging dog. Two of the dogs were smart enough to know what a gun looks like. They stopped to charge another day,lol.

Note. a gun control advocacy group
Something about yahoo, I'm more of a googler


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## pic (Nov 14, 2009)

Real live self defense 911 call. at the end of video.


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## Cait43 (Apr 4, 2013)

Of course criminals used firearms more often than law abiding citizens....... 

Law abiding citizens do not often get into situations where they might need a firearm to defend themselves or others.........

Tell us something that is not so obvious........


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## Steve M1911A1 (Feb 6, 2008)

SailDesign said:


> On AN Other forum, I once asked a guy who claimed to have"carried" a .45 for over 40 years how often, exactly, he had felt it necessary to draw his weapon. He answered "Twice."
> 
> On further asking, he admitted that he had never had to pull the trigger. Since the thread was about what calibres were suitable for self-defense, and he had been touting the 45 over EVERYTHING else, I admit to prodding him by saying "So if you never had to pull the trigger, then really a 22 would have been just as effective."
> 
> ...


Um, and supposing that, in those two "I really needed my gun" incidents, he wasn't carrying one. What then?
Can anyone predict exactly when the pistol is going to be necessary?
Of course not. And that is why I carry a pistol 24/7/365.25.

Sail, your crystal ball obviously works much better than mine does.
Not only do you know in advance when you are going to need a defensive weapon, but also you know when you won't have to actually shoot.
How very convenient!

(Of the couple of times when I really needed a pistol, one was right here on this peaceful little island. The other was in a National Forest in Southern California. And, no, I did not know in advance that I'd be needing my gun.)


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## SteamboatWillie (Jan 24, 2013)

I know this is often heard, but an analogy is, "I've carried fire insurance for 40 years and never used it." Should I cancel it and save the money? Of course I plan to renew it for the foreseeable future. I am comforted knowing I won't lose my most valuable (monetary) asset to fire.

Learning and training in personal self defense, and carrying a firearm everywhere it's legal to do so , is the closest I can come to "insuring" my family's and my safety. I've never had to draw a sidearm in self defense, but there have been several instances where I, or my wife, was comforted knowing I was armed. That in itself is well worth the price of admission.


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## BigCityChief (Jan 2, 2013)

I'm happy that guns are rarely used for self defense. It demonstrates that firearms owners are judicious enough to avoid situations where firearms use may be necessary, suggests that they are not violent Neanderthals, and supports the proposition that, as a community, law abiding gun owners are very responsible people. Now, on to the next fairly obvious point. In the 1 in 10,000 chance that I may need to defend myself with a firearm today, I don't want to be unarmed. Cheers.


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## SailDesign (Jul 17, 2014)

Steve M1911A1 said:


> Um, and supposing that, in those two "I really needed my gun" incidents, he wasn't carrying one. What then?
> Can anyone predict exactly when the pistol is going to be necessary?
> Of course not. And that is why I carry a pistol 24/7/364.25.
> 
> ...


I'll get the cheap shot out of the way first... Which day do you not carry? 

What I was really aiming at up ^^^ there was that although he would not have been a number in anyone's statistics, because he didn't actually fire his gun, it was still of use. My poking him with a stick about the 22 being just as useful was a distraction apparently.


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## BackyardCowboy (Aug 27, 2014)

SailDesign said:


> I'll get the cheap shot out of the way first... Which day do you not carry?


Only days that don't end in "y"


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## SailDesign (Jul 17, 2014)

BackyardCowboy said:


> SailDesign said:
> 
> 
> > I'll get the cheap shot out of the way first... Which day do you not carry?
> ...


Let him wake up, Cowboy... 
He's on the Wet Coast.


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## SouthernBoy (Jun 27, 2007)

Sugarmann is once again, putting out bogus information. Remember, he is the one who borrowed the term "assault weapon and assault rifle" to be used to apply to semi-automatic rifles that looked military, or scary, after the Stockton, CA schoolyard shooting in 1989. This guy just doesn't get it.


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## shaolin (Dec 31, 2012)

In my 21 years of carry I had to pull mine 7 times in self defense.
1. 2 attempted car jackings on the same day in ATL.
2. 2 dogs tried to attacked me I shot at one and he turn and ran and the 2nd took a bullet through the spine and head
3. a botched home invasion. He knew that I had a pistol and if I still retreated out my window because he had a shotgun. I felt we both would have died as I wasn't sure my 9mm would bring an instant stop as I was aiming for center mass. The fact I had a chance at all saved me that day.
4. a burglar came in my home as I was cooking hamburgers in the backyard he entered through the front door. I came in the house and he bolted out the front.
5. A bear jumped out of the tree near me and I drew my gun but the bear ran in the other direction so I didn't have to fire a round.


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## Bisley (Aug 24, 2008)

I was perfectly content with the statistics that indicated that I would never need a gun...when it was only my life in the balance. I was always a big, strong guy who easily avoided conflict in almost every case, and could deal head-on with the conflicts that couldn't be avoided. I even felt that way for many years after marrying and having kids, because I was young and confident, and most of the people I encountered were just not that much of a problem. But, I got older, the world I live in got a little meaner, and I started having grandkids that I feared for more than I had for my own kids.

So, the decision to carry a lethal weapon is not really affected so much by those statistics, as much as it is affected by an absolute unwillingness to be helpless in the defense of something precious. The very idea that something evil could threaten my family, and of me being helpless to stop it, is unthinkable to me. My carrying of a gun harms no one, and I sincerely hope that I have the luxury of some day saying that it was unnecessary. I will just consider it to have been a cheap price to pay for another form of insurance that I never cashed in on.


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## SouthernBoy (Jun 27, 2007)

While it is certainly true that the vast majority of people who go armed, at home and when out and about, will never have to draw their firearm against another person. But pose this question to those who would see us disarmed to insure our and their safety...

*In the final seconds of your life, just before your killer is about to dispatch you to that great eternal darkness, what would you rather have in your hand? A cell phone or a gun?*

Who among us is willing to bet their life that they will never be the victim of an attack or that one of their loved ones will be such a victim? Pose this question to them, also. You will probably get some dancing around these questions as they are uncomfortable being pinned in a corner with facts. I have done this deliberately to these sorts and the results are interesting... and a bit funny. They live in a dream world where they like to view things as they would wish them to be. Not as they are.


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## pic (Nov 14, 2009)

shaolin said:


> In my 21 years of carry I had to pull mine 7 times in self defense.
> 1. 2 attempted car jackings on the same day in ATL.
> 2. 2 dogs tried to attacked me I shot at one and he turn and ran and the 2nd took a bullet through the spine and head
> 3. a botched home invasion. He knew that I had a pistol and if I still retreated out my window because he had a shotgun. I felt we both would have died as I wasn't sure my 9mm would bring an instant stop as I was aiming for center mass. The fact I had a chance at all saved me that day.
> ...


Them four legged animals , lol.:smt106:smt106


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## Shipwreck (Jan 26, 2006)

*Group Claims New Study Proves It's a 'Myth' That Guns Are Used for Self-Defense - but Expert Finds 'Serious' Flaws*



> Lott said the study's conclusions have "serious" problems.
> 
> "Firstly, the justifiable homicide rate is useless," he said, claiming that only about 1 percent of police departments report justifiable homicides by police and civilian justifiable homicides get reported even less.





> "This discussion also completely ignores the times that a defensive gun use stopped a victim from being harmed even when the criminal wasn't killed," Lott explained. "By any measure, less than one percent of defensive gun uses result in the criminal attacker being killed or wounded. This claim completely ignores all those benefits and assumes that they are zero."





> "Every single time - and not just in places like Washington or Chicago, but around the world - that you've had a complete ban on guns, murder rates have gone up," he claimed, citing analysis by the Crime Research Prevention Center.


Group Claims New Study Proves It?s a ?Myth? That Guns Are Used for Self-Defense ? but Expert Finds ?Serious? Flaws | TheBlaze.com


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## Steve M1911A1 (Feb 6, 2008)

SailDesign said:


> I'll get the cheap shot out of the way first... Which day do you not carry? ...


It's "days": Every day during which I'm visiting our family in Pawtucket, RI, where nobody any longer has the liberty that Roger Williams originally intended for them.

Irony: The Rhode Island state flag tells you to "Hope." I guess it was designed by the same guy who did Obama's logo.


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## SailDesign (Jul 17, 2014)

Steve M1911A1 said:


> It's "days": Every day during which I'm visiting our family in Pawtucket, RI, where nobody any longer has the liberty that Roger Williams originally intended for them.
> 
> Irony: The Rhode Island state flag tells you to "Hope." I guess it was designed by the same guy who did Obama's logo.


Reference was to 24/7/364.25... There being 365.25 days in a year... 

Irony noted.


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## Steve M1911A1 (Feb 6, 2008)

SailDesign said:


> Reference was to 24/7/364.25... There being 365.25 days in a year...


Yeah. I got it. And I fixed it, too.

I was just about to use my super powers to change the length of the sidereal year, but then I realized that it would screw up the entire practice of astronomy, and also the calculations which permit space exploration. After a brief consultation with Pope Gregory XIII., I decided to allow his calendar to persevere as presently constituted.
But watch out! I may someday make another mistake.


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## SailDesign (Jul 17, 2014)

Steve M1911A1 said:


> Yeah. I got it. And I fixed it, too.
> 
> I was just about to use my super powers to change the length of the sidereal year, but then I realized that it would screw up the entire practice of astronomy, and also the calculations which permit space exploration. After a brief consultation with Pope Gregory XIII., I decided to allow his calendar to persevere as presently constituted.
> But watch out! I may someday make another mistake.


We'll be watching for it..


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## pic (Nov 14, 2009)

Steve M1911A1 said:


> It's "days": Every day during which I'm visiting our family in Pawtucket, RI, where nobody any longer has the liberty that Roger Williams originally intended for them.
> 
> Irony: The Rhode Island state flag tells you to "Hope." I guess it was designed by the same guy who did Obama's logo.


Yes, I remember the word of "HOPE", I think we're still hoping.
Obama couldn't use "CHANGE" Bill Clinton had that sewn up. 
Wonder what the next campaign key word will be ? "*ONE MORE CHANCE ?"*


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## BigCityChief (Jan 2, 2013)

SailDesign said:


> We'll be watching for it..


That's ok. We're ALWAYS watching - everybody.


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