^^ Of course not. Find me a case in a mass shooting setting where that has happened.
Well, the problem is that cases are often ambiguous (including, I’ll note, most of the cases listed as times armed bystanders stopped crimes, once you look at the details). But within your limit of mass shootings? No, I don’t think there have been any—though I’d argue that that’s mainly because the goalposts were successfully moved, not that armed bystanders can be demonstrated to be a net positive for safety.
Are you implying that innocent bystanders may have been killed or injured in the examples I found and that fact was just glossed over?
Or that the numerous occurrences of accidents with guns (aka people shooting family members they mistake for burglars and incidents like that) negates the positive effect guns in the hands of good people have in other situations?
@albert69 #1502: More that we don’t know, both in part because good studies are hard to come by and because at least most of the cases of armed bystanders intervening* don’t seem to have actually prevented additional casualties (which means the positive effect seems to be small at best, with a pretty decent potential for—likely small, as well—negatives).
- At least in the case of mass shootings, which you limited this to in #1500.
How do you know that additional casualties weren’t prevented? Do you mean that you know for 100% certain that the shooters were planning to stop shooting and that the intervention from the armed citizen was pointless?
You can open it back up to other gun incidents. My main point with that is that while there are terrible accidents, there were also times where the gun was used to stop a real home invasion or armed robberry or other such things… see the list in the last article.
I really wonder if you even compute how, in practical terms, your mantra about risk is totally useless in the real world.
The risk factor of someone who has successfully defended or even saved their lives with a gun is 100%. Therefore, your argument that the risk is so low that no one should not have a gun is short-sighted because if everyone followed your advice there would be a lot more victims of crime and a lot more dead people who were unable to effectively defend themselves. Thus, your logic falls flat when you tell people who have used a gun defensively that it would have been better off they do not have one.
But what is really missing from your argument is the constructive difference between an accident and a crime. People understand accidents and accept them as part of living; more specifically, people do not see accidents, as an encroachment or an attack on their persons. In contrast, people view crime as an encroachment and attack on their persons and being harmed by others is the most legitimate reason to defend oneself. No one compares an accident to an attack, so the stats comparing the two mean nothing to most people.
All the risk factor stats do not take away the fact that people accept the risk of an accident when they do their own cost benefit analysis of owning a gun. And why do they reach the conclusion that owning a gun is better than not? Because they do not base their lives on the stupidity of others, which is what your entire argument requires people do do.
And that is the major hole in your argument - you are asking people to not have a gun because others can be stupid with guns and have accidents. Think about that logic - really, only another stupid person decides to judge their own actions based on the stupidity of others. Thus. your argument is for people who equate themselves to other stupid people and thus decide, “Because others are stupid like me, and have accidents with guns, I better not have a gun too.” Overall, your argument requires people to see themselves as stupid people first before taking your advice. A pretty dumb way to convince anyone of something.
The reverse analytical process is this - normal people understand that even if they take the best and most precautions possible with something it is possible that an accident will occur. They get that and are willing to live with that. And this construct is much more realistic (and comforting) in viewing one’s person than thinking oneself as stupid, i.e., I am so stupid, like Joe who had an accident, that I should not have a gun either."
The main argument I am making is the super simple one, which you just implicitly pointed out. More guns, in general, does not equal more crime. Why? The population of criminals is minuscule compared to the number of guns owned by private citizens, and if the number of guns sold really equaled more crime, then we should be seeing a crime wave of epidemic proportions. Instead, it is going the other way - except on urban areas, of course.
My other more subtle, but just as important argument, is similar to the “invisible man” argument in economics, i.e., just because something is not seen or recorded, does not mean it did not occur. As the number of concealed carry permits and overall gun ownership have skyrocketed, the number of crimes stopped by a person showing a weapon has also skyrocketed.
However, just because a person is not considered a victim does not mean a crime has not been attempted. Crime-wise, if that person did not have a gun, they would have been a recorded victim, possibly dead, and the successful crime rate much higher. There is no way of getting around that basic fact.
In terms of the invisible man, even the CDC and others concede that guns are used defensively as often as they are used in crimes. And the issue with people wedded to an ideology is they often refuse to believe what does not comport to their narrative and dismiss data they do not like. Fortunately, lawmakers do not take such dismissals seriously.
Oh really. My one million was to just get an average, but may be way higher than that. The CDC and others report:
(Emphasis mine)
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cdc-study-use-firearms-self-defense-important-crime-deterrent
Well, it looks like the specific topic of San Bernardino is miles back and this is just another of many threads arguing about gun control and ownership. Closing thread, if for no other reason than it is too huge to read through for anyone, I would think.