From: cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavares)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Gun Control generally
Date: 23 Dec 1992 02:31:42 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: rocket.sw.stratus.com

In article <1992Dec22.103812.17827@aston.ac.uk>, priceje@cs.aston.ac.uk (Jason Price) writes:

> This means you can more or less guarantee that he will have a gun, 
> so you need a gun etc etc. and you end up in a shoot-out.  On balance,
> doesn't this mean that more people will be injured in attacks on the
> home than if guns were not used in 'defence'.

No.  This turns out not to be the case.  The following figures are from
"Crime Control through the Private Use of Armed Force," Gary Kleck, 2/88
*Social Problems*:

Attack, Injury and Crime Completion Rates in Robbery Incidents

Method of           % Completed     % Attacked     % Injured    Num Times
Self Protection                                                  Used(a)

Used gun                30.9            25.2            17.4    89,009
Used Knife              35.2            55.6            40.3    59,813
Used other weapon       28.9            41.5            22.0    104,700
Used physical force     50.1            75.6            50.8    1,653,880
Tried to get help
or frighten offender    63.9            73.5            48.9    1,516,141
Threatened or reasoned
with offender           53.7            48.1            30.7    955,398
Nonviolent resistance,
including evasion       50.8            54.7            34.9    1,539,895
Other measures          48.5            47.3            26.5    284,423
Any self-protection     52.1            60.8            38.2    4,603,671
No self-protection      88.5            41.5            24.7    2,686,960

Total                   65.4            53.7            33.2    7,290,631

"Robbery and assault victims who used firearms for protection were
less likely to be attacked or injured than victims who responded in
any other manner. Only 17% of those using guns to resist attempted
robbery and 12% using guns to resist assault suffered any kind of
injuries. 25% of robbery victims and 27% of assault victims who did
not resist were injured anyway."

> I would say I've far more chance of surviving an attack by an
> intruder armed with a knife if I've gone and got a knife from the
> kitchen (or even the bedside lamp if I can't get that far), than
> trying to tackle someone with a gun 

If you know for a fact that you're better with a knife than with a
gun, go for it.  I know for a fact that I'm not, and that my wife is
not.

> - then it's a case of who 
> fires first.  If he gets me first, then I'm invariably very
> seriously injured, far more so than from a stab wound.

Whoa, cascading fallacies here.  One: that the first one to shoot 
not only always hits, but stops the other with one shot.  Two: the
wound is invariably serious.  Three: gunshot wounds are more serious
than knife wounds.

The first is obviously false when you recognize the assumption.

The second and third require statistics I haven't saved.  Maybe somebody
else has them.  I remember that knife wounds were considerably more
serious.

One statistic I do have is that handgun wounds are lethal only 9% of
the time.  (Compare this to rifle wounds, at 50%, and shotgun wounds
at 90%.  Who is more likely to be using a long gun -- you, at home,
or an intruder?)

> I would argue that (in the rare cases of violent crime in the home
> - still very small here, although they do happen) having ten injured
> victims (but alive) is surely better than 5 dead ones and 5 uninjured
> ones??

Again, the false assumption that gunshots are fatal and knives aren't.  
Charlie Manson, for one, could set you straight on this point.

> Hope that removes some of the myth over english gun laws!!

That sort of invasive government "control" over here would probably
trigger the second revolution.
-- 

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