Fact: Of the 43 deaths reported in this flawed study, 37 (86%) were suicides. Other deaths involved criminal activity between the family members (drug deals gone bad).1
Fact: Of the remaining deaths, the deceased family members include felons, drug dealers, violent spouses committing assault, and other criminals.2
Fact: Only 0.1% (1 in a thousand) of the defensive uses of guns results in the death of the predator.3 This means you are much more likely to prevent a crime without bloodshed than hurt a family member.
This is an excerpt from “Gun Facts” by Guy Smith, available free from http://www.gunfacts.info
- Arthur L. Kellerman, Protection or Peril?: An Analysis of Firearm-Related Deaths in the Home, 314 New Eng. J. Med. 1557-60 1986. Kellerman admits that his study did “not include cases in which burglars or intruders are wounded or frightened away by the use or display of a firearm.” He also admitted his study did not look at situations in which intruders “purposely avoided a home known to be armed.” This is a classic case of a “study” conducted to achieve a desired result. In his critique of this “study”, Gary Kleck notes that the estimation of gun ownership rates were “inaccurate” , and that the total population came from a non-random selection of only two cities. ↩
- Ibid ↩
- Dr. Gary Kleck, “Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America.” New York: Aldine de Gruyter. 1991 ↩
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