Study Finds Guns Do Not Increase Personal Safety
By Rowan Lee
Though concealed carry crusaders and NRA flag-waivers would have you believe otherwise – a new study from The Journal of Preventative Medicine finds no advantages to using a firearm for self defense.
Led
by David Hemenway, Ph.D., of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public
Health, this study utilizes data from the National Crime Victimization
Survey. It is an annual survey of 90,000 households which has
revealed data that shows “defensive gun use” not only rarely protects a
person from harm, but also increases the personal danger.
The study found
that in incidents where a victim used a gun in self-defense, the likelihood of
suffering an injury was 10.9 percent. Had the victim taken no action at all,
the risk of injury was virtually identical: 11 percent.
Having a gun also
didn’t reduce the likelihood of losing property: 38.5 percent of those who used
a gun in self-defense had property taken from them, compared to 34.9 percent of
victims who used another type of weapon, such as a knife or baseball bat.
What’s more, the study found that while the likelihood of injuryafter brandishing a firearm was reduced to 4.1 percent, the injury rate after those defensive gun uses was similar to using any other weapon (5.3 percent), and was still greater than if the person had run away or hid (2.4 percent) or called the police (2.2 percent).
These
results were similar to previous research on older NCVS data which showed that,
while using a firearm in self-defense did lower a person’s risk of subsequent
injury, it was less effective than using any weapon other than
a gun. – The Trace
Further
data showed that when someone uses a gun in self defense it is commonly part of
escalating hostilities where both parties are likely responsible for the event
that prompts the hostile outcome.
Some example responses of this type
of defensive gun use include: “I was watching a movie and he
interrupted me. I yelled at him that I was going to shoot him and he ran to his
car,” or “I was on my porch and this man threw a beer in my face so I got
my gun.”
The data also revealed that defensive gun use is far
less common than believed by the public, with “DGUs” showing up in less than
one percent of attempted or completed crimes.
Opponents claim that the numbers
do not represent a large enough percentage of DGUs, or that many DGUs go unreported.
However, the study does represent one of the most grounded arguments that the
firearm does not increase safety when a victim is subjected to a crime. The safest
possible responses in threatening situations continue to be hiding or
fleeing.
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