Comments about ‘Letters: Guns can be the answer’

But there is a BIG difference between sensible gun safety restrictions and the stance of the NRA and their followers.

Go Lucille!!! Way to not be a victim!!!

Wishing you a longer and healthy and safe life.

And how will anything that has bee proposed keep this lady from having her pistol at the ready and available to her for self-protection?

How many times are guns used in self defense, like this lady, and we never hear of it? Criminals want easy victims, and an armed person is too much trouble. Most of the time they are never fired, just the sight of one defuses the situation, and no record is kept. Estimates range from the Brady Foundation of 108,000 per year, to the NRA of millions of times per year. The truth is probably somewhere in between. But whether you estimate high or low, that's a lot of crime prevented.

No one - not even the evil Anti-Christ some think is Obama - is talking about that.

It's ASSAULT rilfes, and High Capacity clips -- MILITARY type weapons being used in massacres we are talking about.

But I must say -
I don't have a hand gun, but from all the gun-nut posts I've been reading here daily...
I'm more than half way there to going out and buying one.

Not to fight my government or boogey men hiding around every corner,
but because of all the gun-nuts running around scaring the Ba-jeebers out of everyone else!

Nothing says "safety" like a pistol-wielding octogenarian.

Demisana, how about giving us a link to the Brady Foundation "estimate" of 108,000 self defense incidents? I tried to find it and failed.

I'm guess it's because it doesn't actually exist -- or that it came from one of those emails with no author that are favorites among some folks.

As for the NRA's claim of "millions," anyone who believes anything the NRA says has to be a fool.

There are approximately two million defensive gun uses (DGU's) per year by law abiding citizens. That was one of the findings in a national survey conducted by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist in 1993. Prior to Dr. Kleck's survey, thirteen other surveys indicated a range of between 800,000 to 2.5 million DGU's annually. However these surveys each had their flaws which prompted Dr. Kleck to conduct his own study specifically tailored to estimate the number of DGU's annually.

Subsequent to Kleck's study, the Department of Justice sponsored a survey in 1994 titled, Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms (text, PDF). Using a smaller sample size than Kleck's, this survey estimated 1.5 million DGU's annually.

There is one study, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which in 1993, estimated 108,000 DGU's annually.
** this is the study once cited by the Brady Campaign. Apparently it's been taken off their website, along with all references to self defense.

A 15 year old boy in NM found his families guns and killed them.

A man in colorado purchased 6,000 rounds of ammunition and went on to kill Americans.

Gabriel Giffords was shot in the head surrounded by people with guns.

As our legislation on guns stand now, are not the answer.

Guns can be the answer, but sometimes the question is really foolish. And you can keep your .38.

Demisana -- there were MAJOR problems with Kleck's findings. First and foremost, he used a very small survey and then EXTRAPOLATED to claim that it showed a very large number. Responsible statisticians pointed out numerous obvious errors in his work.

In other words, Kleck was completely discredited shortly after he announced his findings.

Old man - that's why the reference included several different studies, including government ones showing 1.5 million to 2 million ones, as well as the 108,000 number you couldn't find.

In the detail about the government surveys - it's interesting that they ask first if they were victimized, then if they defended themselves in any way, then about gun use. Which would be illegal in many jurisdictions, giving many folks a reason to lie to the government surveyor, rather than incriminate themselves.

Kleck was "completely discredited" by one side. Maybe his findings were valid, maybe not. My point was not to promote him, he was simply the largest of a wide range of studies I listed. My point was that most surveys show at least 800,000 defensive gun uses annually. There are approximately 10,000 gun murders a year, of which a few hundred are by the "assault rifles" currently under attack. So defensive uses far outweigh the criminal.

All this rhetoric from the gun lobby and its supporters fails to grasp the fact that the issue is not about the 2nd amendment. If you want to have a gun for self-protection in your home, you can have it. No one is proposing that you not have access to your gun.

It is important to note that the extremist gun position being debated does neither support background checks, a federal database, mental health evaluations of prospective gun owners nor extensive training to ensure that people carrying guns know how to use them.

The more guns available, the more events like the shooting at the Texas community college will occur. Somewhere in the American mythology, the Gunfight at the OK Corral lives on.

Lucille guns are NEVER the answer. You may think
your gun saved you that night, but most likely what
really happened is the crooks thought your gun was
your cell phone and that you were calling 911 so they
took off running. Either that or it was dark and they
mistook your location for a gun free zone, and when
they saw your gun, not wanting to be any where near
a gun, in a gun free zone, they took off running.

Good for you, Lucille. Way to take responsibility for your own safety! Good letter.

Re: Say What?: Great sarcasm. Thanks for the laugh. Of COURSE it was the gun-free zone that scared them off.

Do we really want a society built around the daily obsession with having a gun with reach everywhere?