- Higher household gun ownership correlates with higher rates of homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings. [ Homicide – Suicide – Accidents – Children and Women
- Every year there are only about 200 legally justified self-defense homicides by private citizens (FBI, Expanded Homicide Data, Table 15) compared with over 30,000 gun deaths (NCIPC) [ Crime in the United States, 2008
- A gun is 22 times more likely to be used in a completed or attempted suicide, criminal assault or homicide, or unintentional shooting death or injury than to be used in a self-defense shooting. [ Journal of Trauma, Injury, Infection, and Critical Care
- More than 90 percent of suicide attempts with a gun are fatal. In comparison, only 3 percent of attempts with drugs or cutting are fatal. [ Journal of Trauma
- There are five times as many deaths from gun assaults as from knife assaults, where the rates of assault with knives and with guns are similar. [ Crime is not the Problem: Lethal Violence in America
Finally, Hemenway and Azrael carried out a study [Hemenway, David and Deborah Azrael., “The Relative Frequency of Offensive and Defensive Gun Uses: Results From a National Survey,” Violence and Victims, 15(3) (2000): 257-272] comparing rates of offensive and defensive use of guns using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey and data from a private survey. It was found that “criminal gun use is far more common than self-defense gun use.”
I'm happy to have my shotgun for hunting ducks, geese, and pheasants, but don't feel any great need to buy or carry a handgun.
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