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Opinion

Gun Grabbers: Are Their Usual Arguments ‘Fact or Fiction’?

There are a number of lies floating around the gun-control argument. The people who want you disarmed have done a great job at spreading these catchy phrases across our culture. They changed their branding from gun registration to gun control to commonsense gun safety. In the age of 144-character news, you have to read below the headlines. Let’s dig a little deeper and separate fact from fiction.

“You’re more likely to be the victim of violent crime if there is a gun in your home.”
This claim implies that a legal gun owner puts their family at risk. The implication is that criminals will use your gun against you and your family, or that you will shoot your family by accident. That isn’t the what this claim says at all.

We have to ask ourselves this question. Whose gun was it and what were the circumstances? This false claim blames you if an armed criminal brings a gun into your home and attacks you. After all, there is “a gun in your home” when you were attacked. You’re also blamed if you bought a gun because you live in a high crime area. The claim completely ignores who started the attack.

The most serious error is that the claim includes data from both criminal activity along with justifiable self-defense by legal gun owners. The criminal brought a gun to commit violence. The legal gun owner brought a gun to stop it. Both are called “being the victim of a violent crime”. The claim hides more than it reveals.

Guns make us less safe.
This claim implies that guns are always dangerous and people are always safe. We have to ask a more detailed question. Whose guns are dangerous to whom?

Most deaths from a firearm are suicide. People who want to kill themselves don’t care about laws.

The vast majority of homicides are gang-on-gang violence. Your local policeman knows the gunshot victim as a repeat criminal.

The number of licensed gun owners who use a gun to commit a violent crime is vanishingly small. (I use the category “licensed gun owners” in my example because we keep such good crime statistics on people who have their concealed carry license.)

There are a few tragic accidents with firearms. Most involve a “non-permitted” gun owner. Criminals don’t put their guns in their gun safe. They stuff their illegal gun between the couch cushions. That is how kids find guns and have accidents.

Legal gun owners don’t do that. We have a great safety record. Keep it up and make your children gun-safe.

A criminal is more likely to take your gun from you than you are likely to hurt the criminal and stop your assault.

The claim is that you’re more likely to be hurt with your own gun. If that were true, then the police would be busy giving guns to criminals and the criminals would be quickly throwing the guns back. It is just wrong. There is zero evidence of this claim, and strong evidence to the contrary.

According to both the US Department of Justice and other published studies, when a victim used a gun to resist “stranger” rape the probability of completing the rape was 0.1% and other injury to the victim was 0%. In comparison, unarmed victims suffered the rape act 31% of the time it was attempted. The victim had other violent injuries 40% of the time.

Look at those numbers again. That sounds “safe and effective” to me. A gun can’t stop a rapist from trying to attack you. An armed victim stops the rapist from succeeding.

Gun laws stop criminals from getting guns.
I left that incredible claim for last. Criminals illegally transport drugs, people and guns. Criminals rob, assault, steal, intimidate, and blackmail for a living. The claim is that criminals who break the law every day will suddenly change their behavior and become boy scouts when it comes to gun laws. There is no evidence to support that claim.

Criminals get their guns illegally…and easily. Criminals certainly don’t submit to an FBI background check. They don’t stand around for a two week “mandatory waiting period” to pick up their crime guns. On average, it takes eleven years from when a gun is stolen from its legal owner until the gun is recovered in a crime.

We’ve separated fact from fiction, but there are many lies out there. Tell me what you’ve seen, and please share this with a friend.

Image: (CC by-SA 2.0) Excerpted from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/perspective/8429272122/

Share if you agree the FACTS are important in the gun control debate.

Rob Morse

Rob Morse works and writes in Southwest Louisiana. He writes at Ammoland, at his Slowfacts blog, and here at Clash Daily. Rob co-hosts the Polite Society Podcast, and hosts the Self-Defense Gun Stories Podcast each week.

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