Got it. Thanks. I will admit I am biased against firearms in general, largely based on what I've seen and read over the years. The NRA still sends me mail directed to my brother who passed away a few years ago. I usually just pitch it, but occasionally, I read the letters, and they're appalling. Edit: Just to add that my opinion is not just formed based on NRA propaganda.
That's internal remarketing designed to drum up donations from those already sympathetic. It's not intended to sway you.
I would be interested in some impartial data on the subject, if you can point me to it. While I definitely have opinions on the subject, I'm also a big fan of data and information, and my opinions have been known to change over the years.
I'm not sure what information you're interested in. I'll try hard not to step over the "no politics" line for this forum.
I'll try to keep this short without writing a book. The empirical evidence seems to support the notion that firearms are used far more often for defensive purposes, "good," than for criminal misuse, "bad." Over the years, there have been dozens of DGU (Defensive Gun Use) studies, including several different U.S. Government bodies (specifically the annual FBI "Crime and Victimization" and a little known Centers for Disease Control study). These studies attempt to track the number of DGU's per year but due to reporting standards either admit to under-reporting the number of DGU's or having to extrapolate (both the Kleck study and the CDC study). Every year, the FBI/DOJ publishes the National Crime & Victimization Report (CVR). This report, they admit, captures the lowest number of DGU's and they miss a lot which are never reported to Law Enforcement. DGU's per year range from a low of 76,000 per year back in the mid-90's to 235,700 for more recent (~2011). The Hart study, found 650,000 DGU's per year. The Mauser study found 700,000 DGU's per year. Gary Kleck, famously reported 2.1 million DGU's per year and was roundly ridiculed for his extrapolation methods and questioned about how his number could be so much greater than the DOJ CVR numbers. Those complaints lost a lot of wind from their sails when it was found that the (unreported and apparently hidden and not released to the public until 2018) 1998 Centers for Disease Control study found an estimated 2.46 DGU's per year.
Significantly, even using the lowest estimate, 76,000 violent crimes are prevented by armed citizens each year. Currently, the annual murder rate in the U.S., by any method, is 15,498 per year. Thus, the number of violent crimes thwarted by armed citizens is about five times the annual murder rate by any means. If we use the DGU number from the CDC study, then people in the U.S. use firearms for self defense around 159 times more often then people are murdered, by any means, in the U.S.
The 2013, Obama directed, CDC study, titled "Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence," also found that guns are used for self defense frequently and effectively, far outstripping their criminal misuse and, further, that mass shootings are rare.
(It is worth nothing that the CDC is not prevented from studying "gun violence" and they have published several studies. The CDC is prevented from using public funds to push an agenda. The Dickey Amendment was passed in 1996 and the CDC has published studies in 1996, 1997, 1998, 2013, and 2015, that I could find - there might be more.)
It seems pretty clear, from just the straight numbers, that negative and criminal uses of firearms in the U.S. are vastly over-represented in the psyche while the justified Defensive uses of guns are, for whatever reason, vastly underrepresented or under reported to the average U.S. Citizen.
I've collected most of the links you need at the end of an article I wrote in 2018. Here's the link:
Let The CDC Study Gun Violence
Again, as soon as this thread veers into politics, it will get shut down, so I am trying to keep it strictly to the facts and all nice & polite.
Peace favor your sword,
Kirk