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[W:2270] Does a Gun Make Your Home Safer?

Somerville

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Some 'interesting' articles out there, articles that contradict the claims of many gun advocates.

NJM guns in the home.jpg

The 'statistics' in this meme seem a bit high but research does show that guns in the house are more likely to harm a resident than an intruder.

Does a Gun Make Your Home Safer?

The debate surrounding the right to own a gun in the United States is a controversial one, but answering the question about whether having a gun in the house will make you and your family safer is pretty straightforward. Our best bet is to look at the statistics surrounding gun ownership vs. gun violence and draw conclusions based on the research.

Do guns make us safer?

Before diving into the statistics about having a gun in the home, it’s important to point out that until recently, unbiased research about gun violence was hard to come by. A 1996 law called the Dickey Amendment restricted how government funding could be used for research on gun violence. For several decades, many of the privately funded studies on using guns for self-defense were either sponsored by the National Rifle Association or conversely, organizations dedicated to gun control.

Reconsidering Risks of Gun Ownership and Suicide in Unprecedented Times

Guns in Home, Greater Odds of Family Homicide

Living in a house with a gun increases your odds of death

 
How does it make a home safer? I will use 2nd amendment folks own words here. How does an inanimate object that just sits around doing nothing help? Remember, guns don't kill people. So if guns don't kill people what's the sense in owning a firearm to feel safer?
 
Safe and safer are relative to the individual and can be different from person to person, so it’s up to each individual to determine what is safe for themselves.
 
How does it make a home safer? I will use 2nd amendment folks own words here. How does an inanimate object that just sits around doing nothing help? Remember, guns don't kill people. So if guns don't kill people what's the sense in owning a firearm to feel safer?

You're right.

I'd feel much safer with trusting the criminal who breaks into my home holding a firearm.
 
The problem with statistics like that is that they are not fine grained enough. Sure the risk to a person who goes out buys a gun and keeps it loaded and unsecured in a house overrun with children probably has a high risk of an accident.

The problem with your statistic is that that isn’t everyone.
 
Usually, the gun owners do just fine and are safe. It's others that are shot dead by homicide, suicide and accident by the owner's gun whom are unsafe. So, the gun owner, thinking only for oneself as is the typical mindset: What, Me Worry? If the other guy can't practice good gun safety, that's their problem. (ex post facto SNARK warning)
 
The problem with statistics like that is that they are not fine grained enough. Sure the risk to a person who goes out buys a gun and keeps it loaded and unsecured in a house overrun with children probably has a high risk of an accident.

The problem with your statistic is that that isn’t everyone.


Correct. It's just the ones that are killed more often than any advanced country on the planet.
 
Some 'interesting' articles out there, articles that contradict the claims of many gun advocates.


The 'statistics' in this meme seem a bit high but research does show that guns in the house are more likely to harm a resident than an intruder.



Reconsidering Risks of Gun Ownership and Suicide in Unprecedented Times

Guns in Home, Greater Odds of Family Homicide

Living in a house with a gun increases your odds of death


I'm pretty sure that a fight with an intruder 30 years ago would have been relatively fair.

Today? Not so much.

I'm only trying to even the odds a bit.
 
I'm pretty sure that a fight with an intruder 30 years ago would have been relatively fair.

Today? Not so much.

I'm only trying to even the odds a bit.

But you actually made them worse. Statistically.

When you wake up naked in bed to discover an intruder in the room in the middle of the night, having a gun can only make things worse.
 
Correct. It's just the ones that are killed more often than any advanced country on the planet.
Then deal with that problem and stop misusing statistics.

You might start with something like “You can drastically reduce the chance of accidents by securing your firearms if there children or mentally handicapped people in your home. Or maybe you should consider not owning one at all in those cases”

And maybe advocate for good firearms safety training for everyone instead of mouthing scare factor statistics.
 
But you actually made them worse. Statistically.

When you wake up naked in bed to discover an intruder in the room in the middle of the night, having a gun can only make things worse.
How so? If there’s an intruder in your bedroom at night the odds are pretty good he means to kill you anyway.
 
You're right.

I'd feel much safer with trusting the criminal who breaks into my home holding a firearm.

Yeah, it's better to run for your gun so that the intruder will be forced to start firing. Great logic!

Like I always say, all a gun is gonna do is make a bad situation worse.
 
When you have to build your memes based on lies and 'studies' that have been proven to be fraudulent, then you have already demonstrated just how weak your case is.

"Defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence... Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million...in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008... On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey...”


Even if you went with the LOWEST estimate of defensive use of firearms cited by anti-gun groups, the total is 108,000 annual defensive uses of firearms. To believe the study cited in the OP's meme, you would have to believe that there were 2,376,000 times a family member was shot in the home with a firearm.

Which is of course...lunacy...and fits perfect with the lefts anti-gun rhetoric.
 
Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals

do you honestly believe this nonsense?

Do you understand how surveys ask questions to arrive at this desired result?

Trumpism is a curse.
 
How does it make a home safer? I will use 2nd amendment folks own words here. How does an inanimate object that just sits around doing nothing help? Remember, guns don't kill people. So if guns don't kill people what's the sense in owning a firearm to feel safer?
Do you keep a fire extinguisher in your home? If so, why? Do you wear seatblets when you drive? Again...if so...why?
 
How so? If there’s an intruder in your bedroom at night the odds are pretty good he means to kill you anyway.

If you keep your gun safely, there's no way to get to it, and even if you live dangerously, they kill you for trying. Your gun hasn't protected you.
 
Some 'interesting' articles out there, articles that contradict the claims of many gun advocates.


The 'statistics' in this meme seem a bit high but research does show that guns in the house are more likely to harm a resident than an intruder.



Reconsidering Risks of Gun Ownership and Suicide in Unprecedented Times

Guns in Home, Greater Odds of Family Homicide

Living in a house with a gun increases your odds of death


Whether or not a given family is safer with gun around depends on a lot of factors. None of the studies I've seen claiming that they are not safer with a gun around actually account for them.

Wake us up when you find a study that excludes from its data set families that:
-have a member regularly involved in criminal or gang activity
-are experiencing domestic violence
-don't have proper safes for their guns
-haven't received firearm safety training
-have a member that purchased a gun specifically for the purpose of committing murder or suicide
-had a member with diagnosed depression or other mental illness at the time they acquired their firearm
 
Some 'interesting' articles out there, articles that contradict the claims of many gun advocates.


The 'statistics' in this meme seem a bit high but research does show that guns in the house are more likely to harm a resident than an intruder.
Gee, you think?

Like most of these propaganda pieces, the statistics are fudged. I don't own a gun with the intent of killing an intruder. Most encounters with intruders end with the intruder fleeing or being detained for police because of the presence of a gun. This majority of incidents count for nothing in the "statistics" provided.
 
Whether or not a given family is safer with gun around depends on a lot of factors. None of the studies I've seen claiming that they are not safer with a gun around actually account for them.

Wake us up when you find a study that excludes from its data set families that:,
-have a member regularly involved in criminal or gang activity
-are experiencing domestic violence
-don't have proper safes for their guns
-haven't received firearm safety training
-have a member that purchased a gun specifically for the purpose of committing murder or suicide
-had a member with diagnosed depression or other mental illness at the time they acquired their firearm

Yep. The "gun makes you less safe" idea depends on those being included, and then assuming everyone shares the same risk. This is like taking the overall stats for auto accidents and assuming that someone who has no traffic violations and a long history of no accidents, has exactly the same risk as a driver who is perpetually one point away from having his license revoked, has a history of several accidents, and likes to drive home drunk every Friday night. Insurance companies would disagree that those two drivers share the same risk.
 
Gee, you think?

Like most of these propaganda pieces, the statistics are fudged. I don't own a gun with the intent of killing an intruder. Most encounters with intruders end with the intruder fleeing or being detained for police because of the presence of a gun. This majority of incidents count for nothing in the "statistics" provided.
The study that the NEJM cites was long ago shown to be just more leftist garbage. An anti-gun group created a very narrow set of criteria that did not include defensive uses of firearms where shots were not fired and it was conducted in 3 high crime areas in 3 cities. They often also cite the Bangalor/Messerli study that selected data from 27 handpicked countries. Their data indicated that there wa s apositive correlation between total gun ownership and gun violence (while not delineating from the criminal ownership of firearms and legal ownership of firearms). They convieniently ignore the other finding from that study...that there was only a borderline correlative indicator when it came to mental illness (which debunks the next part of their claims...which is...)

Of course the anti gun left doubles down by including suicide rates as they repeat the same ridiculous studies that claim that if you remove firearms you remove the total number of suicides. They cite this while ignoring the FACT that the suicide rates in Japan went UP after firearms were banned, the suicide rates in Australia and England had no change. Huh...turns out that people committed to kill themselves manage to pull it off, whether it is by shooting themselves or it is by hanging themselves in a closet....the UKs preferred method, or by poisoning, jumping from tall buildings, or stepping in front of fast moving trains...all utilized in Japan. Thats why when Harvard and Standford and other researchers begin talking suicide and firearms, they keep that research based solely on US figures.

This has all been done to death. Numbers dont lie...researchers and statisticians do.
 
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