The young man told me that guns in the home are more likely to be used against a family member than an intruder. That erroneous conclusion was drawn from an article by Dr. Arthur Kellermann, which has shown to be incorrect and refuted by a number of investigators. We cited Prof. Gary Kleck's data that shows that the defensive uses of firearms by citizens amount to 2.5 million uses per year and dwarf the offensive gun uses by criminals. Between 25-75 lives are saved by a gun for every life lost to a gun. Dr. Edgar Suter, Chair of Doctors for Integrity in Policy Research, has shown that medical costs saved by guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are 15 times greater than costs incurred by criminal uses of firearms.
Guns also prevent injuries to good people and protect billions of dollars of property every year.
In the Medical Sentinel, we have also discussed these issues. Trigger locks can not only disengage but can cause the gun to misfire. And, as the case above demonstrated, it can also give parents a false sense of safety that may not be there and of security rather than a sense of responsibility. Loaded chamber indicators are hazardous because they skip the basic safety rule of looking directly in the chamber. When I tried to further enlighten the young man in your office, he was unable to stay on the phone because of the influx of calls on the day of the general strike because of the Eli n Gonzalez raid.