man kills intruders

[rc51]

Thats becuase like the automobile the firearm in america is owned and handled by those with out the sense God gave a toad!
You must take the time and responsaility if you plan one owning a weapon.
That means taaking some firearms saftey training and taking you weapon to the range and practice with it ALOT!
And you must teach all members of the household including the kids about the does and donts of handling weapons.
The reasone so many kids are dying from accidetal shootings is because noone has taught the how to handle the gun safley!!!!!!
Insteed they all are crying how deadly guns are .
People on average a gun fires a bullet (pistol round) about 125grains in weight.
Now think of that car you drive everyday that weights 3k and dont tell me you have never been over the speed limit!!!!
Wich one do you think is more deadly?
Answer! they both are in the hands of the wrong person.
So if you own a gun or plan on owning one Please fer Gods sake take some training.
And please keep it out of reach of your kids who might be too young to understand the do's and donts of handling guns.
Ps I hade a girlfreind in high school who was in the bathtub
and had her radio next to her on the tubb.
Yup you quessed it it fell in and she died I quess we should outlaw tose dam killer radios next HUH.

[Airhead]

Originally posted by rc51
Thats becuase like the automobile the firearm in america is owned and handled by those with out the sense God gave a toad!
You must take the time and responsaility if you plan one owning a weapon.
That means taaking some firearms saftey training and taking you weapon to the range and practice with it ALOT!
And you must teach all members of the household including the kids about the does and donts of handling weapons.
The reasone so many kids are dying from accidetal shootings is because noone has taught the how to handle the gun safley!!!!!!

Then like the automobile you would be in favor of licensing for gun owners? You are a proponet of conditional firearms ownership then? Or do you have a better solution to prevent the sell of firearms to the uneducated in gun safety? LOL be careful what you say rc51 or you might be branded a gun control advocate.

[mrsid2]

I don't recall the exact percentage, but the majority of victims of break-in and entering have been killed with their own weapons.

Burglar finds the weapon or disarms the houseowner before he/she dares to use it and gets killed by his own bullets.

[beet1e]

Good for the homeowner. More power to his elbow. I don't have a problem with HIM having a gun. Unfortunately, the relaxed gun laws which are supposed to reduce crime made it possible for the two amazinhunks who broke in to commit an armed crime. I wonder if those amazinhunks would have attempted the crime in the first place if they had not been able to arm themselves.  Probably not.

Im glad i live in a country that has no gun culture and does not believe in arming criminals purely because they happen to be citizens. Thank God for England.

BTW - are there ANY other countries that have a policy of weapons proliferation akin to that of the US?

[SaburoS]

LOL, the intruders were already armed, no? Usually in those cases where armed intruders breaking into someone else's home usually indicate premeditated violent intentions. One caught with a loaded weapon usually means serious jail time. Most burglers do not carry firearms as they can usually get out of being sentenced for any serious time. No, my money is on these intruders doing their crime and not leaving any survivors behind. Good thing in this case a law abiding citizen legally had his own firearm to protect his family and himself.
LOL, I know, the criminals must be bleeding heart liberals. They were only going to show the gun to scare off anyone actually woken up by their break-in. They really weren't going to shoot it. The bullets loaded into their firearm was mearly an accident as they forgot to unload their weapon before doing their break-in.
Hmm or maybe the burglars were arming themselves in self defense against those crazy armed homeowners! One really doesn't want to get shot while burglarizing someone elses home. Getting shot just puts a damper on one's night.

[SaburoS]

Originally posted by Airhead
Don't go too crazy here fellas. As much as I respect the rights of law abiding citizens to own firearms don't site cases such as this as a compelling argument for 2nd Amendment rights because statistics show that your firearm is much more likely to be used against you or a member of your family than it is to be used against an assailant. For every paragraph in the column known as "The Armed Citizen" in the American Rifleman magazine there's several articles in newspapers around the country about twelve year old kids accidentally shooting a playmate or a wife accidentally shooting a husband at 2 AM.

Airhead,
How many crimes are prevented on a daily basis where no shots were fired? Those statistics usually won't get reported. Unfortunetly, there is a certain percentage of people that have no remorse in killing/harming others no matter the weapon available. Let's say for the sake of argument that firearms no longer exist outside of the military and police forces. Would I feel safer at night against a break-in? I can't speak for you but I have no chance with my knife, baseball bat, etc. against some 250lb ex-convict with his knife, baseball bat, etc. Criminals would feel safer breaking into homes, mugging people, etc as long as they were bigger and stronger.
Sorry, but I'll take the laws as they are now, thank you very much. I am a good shot in both pistol and rifle. The odds are definitely in my favor if it comes down to me with my firearm vs a criminal breaking into my home with his firearm. I happen to like these odds.
Remember, using one's firearm does not mean shooting another person. It very well could be used to prevent crimes as well. I've personal experience of using my firearm to prevent violence from happening. I know quite a few others with the same type of prevention as well. I've yet to experience someone taking my firearm and using it against me. I don't know anyone personally that's been shot. Although I've seen stories of kids playing with firearms and shooting another kid accidently, it is a very rare occurance.
I've also seen stories where someone was trapped in their own home (without a firearm) while waiting on the phone with 911 for the police to arrive. They end up getting killed. Yup, also rare for that to happen.
The bottom line is this:
As a US citizen, I have the legal, Constitutional right to own a firearm for which I exercise. You can choose not to own a firearm for that is what this country is ultimately about....the freedom to choose.

[aztec]

Jeesh beetle your country isn't big enough to shoot a gun in is it? Are'nt most shooting ranges larger than England?

Disclaimer; J/K, I have nothing against the UK, Beetle or anything or anybody anywhere. Seriously, no really.

[mrsid2]

Just recently there was a case in my country where a gas station owner stoped a couple of burglars and he shot a couple warning shots with his weapon to make them stop.

The burglars got caught, but later sued the station owner and the court ordered him to pay the burglars for 'causing mental distress' by unlawful use of a firearm.

Here the criminals are more protected than normal citizens. Thank god they finally decided to change the law so that citizens can use force when they make a citizens arrest.

The law applied above is still, though, in action here untill they pass the new one.

[beet1e]

Originally posted by aztec
Jeesh beetle your country isn't big enough to shoot a gun in is it? Are'nt most shooting ranges larger than England?

LOL Aztec!  Well, they allow guns in Oregon, America's 10th largest state, and the UK is the size of that, and larger than Maine (America's 39th largest state - one of the tiddlers) where I assume guns are also allowed. But you make a good point. If all the handguns in America were actually used at shooting ranges as some people like to claim, then yes - you'd need a shooting range the size of England. LOL!  

[beet1e]

I don't suppose the two intruders described by rc51 will be missed. However, the outcome can be different. In today's Telegraph on page 3, I read an article about a woman who was killed by a burglar who had no gun of his own, but seized the woman's gun - one of several that she kept at the house to defend herself against just such an attack. Indeed, as our resident BBS gun expert, Lazs goes to pains to point out that being armed is even more important for the elderly and frail. He used these words in this thread.

"If I lived in london I would want to oppose force with equal or greater force.. As I grow older and more frail... It becomes more important. "

I think you would agree that the old and frail lady had taken appropriate precautions in accordance with gun-lobby doctrine...

Too bad it did her no good.  

[Sixpence]

Beetle the argument you make reminds of a girl I knew. I told her smoking 2 packs of menthols a day was not a good thing. She said "my grandmother lived to be 100 and she smoked".  Get where I'm going with this? She didn't live as long as her grandmother. And neither will you if a burglar has a gun and you don't.

[Dune]

Originally posted by mrsid2
I don't recall the exact percentage, but the majority of victims of break-in and entering have been killed with their own weapons.

Burglar finds the weapon or disarms the houseowner before he/she dares to use it and gets killed by his own bullets.

So many incorrect ideas, so little time to refute them  

Is My Own Gun More Likely to be Used Against Me or My Family?

Introduction
Some papers in the medical literature have written a homeowner's gun is more likely to kill its owner or family member than kill a criminal, and therefore "the advisability of keeping firearms in the home for protection must be questioned." (Kellermann Arthur & Reay Don, "Protection or peril? An analysis of firearms related deaths in the home," New Engl J Med 1986. 314: 1557-60.)

The oft quoted Kellermann paper claims a homeowner's gun is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than an intruder. Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck appropriately terms this the "nonsense ratio." Kellermann states, "for every case of self-protection homicide involving a firearm kept in the home, there were 1.3 accidental deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides, and 37 suicides involving firearms."

Although this study was published in 1986 its findings continue to be uncritically cited in medical journals, government publications, and non-technical periodicals such as health newsletters, general interest magazines, op-ed pieces, letters-to-the editor, etc.

Not only is Kellermann's methodology flawed, but using the same approach for violent deaths in the home not involving a firearm, the risk factor more than doubles from 43 to 1, to 99 to 1. Let's see why this 43 to 1 ratio is a meaningless indicator of gun ownership risk.
 
Refutation
First we need to understand how the ratio was derived.

Kellermann tabulated gunshot deaths occurring in King County, Washington, from 1978 to 1983. Table 1 below is taken from Kellermann's paper (Table 3 on p. 1559).


Table 1. Classification of 398 Gunshot Deaths involving a Firearm Kept in the Home
Type of Death No.
Unintentional deaths 12
Criminal homicide 41
Suicide 333
Unknown 3
 
Total 389
Self-protection homicide 9


As we see from Table 1, a ratio of 389 violent deaths to 9 justifiable homicides gives us the famous 43 to 1 ratio.

Let's apply the same methodology to non-gun deaths and non-gun self-protection homicides in the home, for King County, Washington.


Table 2. Estimation of Violent Deaths in the Home Not Involving a Firearm
Type of Death No.
Unintentional deaths 0
Criminal homicide1 50
Suicide2 347
Unknown 0
 
Total 397
Self-protection homicide3 4


This ratio of 397 non-gun violent deaths to 4 justifiable homicides reduces to 99 to 1.

So having applied Kellermann's methodology to non-firearm violent death, the risk factor more than doubles from 43 to 1, to 99 to 1.

Please note, the purpose of this exercise is not to show that using a gun in the home is better than not using one. This exercise does no such thing. It is merely to show how deeply flawed Kellermann's study really is. Further, a number of tremendously important factors are left unaccounted.

For example, another way of looking at it is, more martial artists are probably murdered by non-gun methods than they kill in self-defense. Would we conclude that it is best to avoid learning a martial art for self-defense based on such a "nonsense ratio?" Regardless of how the number crunching had turned-out between gun and non-gun violent deaths in the home, we should be able to see that Kellermann's approach contributes nothing towards establishing a general or personal risk factor for a gun in the home.

What is truly sad about the nonsense-ratio is how often it is cited and uncritically accepted.

To decide whether or not to own a gun for self-defense based solely on a "kill" ratio is folly. To estimate the risks and benefits of gun ownership many more factors need to be considered. An example is defensive gun use, which outnumbers homicides, suicides, and accidents, and is ignored in most of the medical research. (See How often are guns used in self-defense?)

For a different approach in critique of Kellermann's study see The 43: 1 Fallacy by Dave Kopel.

For Further Reading

A criticism of Kellermann's subsequent research, and the bias of the Center for Disease Control's firearm related research: Kates, Schaffer, and Waters, Public Health Pot Shots: How the CDC Succumbed to the Gun "Epidemic", Reason Magazine, April 1997.

Scroll down to part part XV:"Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home": Kates, Schafer, et. al, Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda?. Originally published as 61 Tenn. L. Rev. 513-596 (1994).

Letters to the New England Journal of Medicine regarding Kellerman's paper titled: "Guns and Homicide in the Home".

Kellermann responds.

Kleck, Gary, What Are the Risks and Benefits of Keeping a Gun in the Home?, JAMA, August 5, 1998.

A differing view from Kleck's: Peter Cummings; Thomas D. Koepsell, Does Owning a Firearm Increase or Decrease the Risk of Death?, JAMA, August 5, 1998.

Letter to the editor and a response from Kleck, JAMA, July 14, 1999.

Defensive Gun Uses

There is considerable debate regarding the number of times firearms are used each year to fend off violent criminals.  Much of the uncertainty is due to the fact that defensive gun uses are often limited to the would-be victim displaying a firearm which scares away the perpetrator.  Such incidents are seldom reported to government agencies, which explains the lower estimates by such agencies.  The annual estimates are as follows:

No. of Defensive Uses     Source
2.1 million                        Point Blank: Guns & Violence in America, Gary Kleck
700,000                             Mauser study
650,000                             Hart study
108,000                             1993 National Crime Victim Survey
76,000                               1996 National Crime Victim Survey

Significantly, even using the lowest estimate, 76,000 violent crimes are prevented by armed citizens each year.  Thus, the number of violent crimes thwarted by armed citizens is about four times the annual murder rate.

Note this is the annual murder rate for the entire country.  Not just how many people are killed with their own firearms.  A number which would be far, far less.

Debunking the Kellermann Study

The Truth About the Kellermann Study claiming firearms increase your chances of being murdered by a factor of 43.  Arthur L. Kellermann is an anti-self defense lobbyist with an axe to grind. The "study" was designed to produce a pre-determined result. The "study" is pure "junk science."  

Specifically, Kellermann claimed that "for every case of self-protection homicide involving a firearm kept in the home, there were 1.3 accidental deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides and 37 suicides involving firearms." (That adds up to 43.) Did you spot the gimmick?

At the end of his report, Kellermann stated his study did "not include cases in which burglars or intruders are wounded or frightened away by the use or display of a firearm." Kellermann considered only homicides. The "study" conveniently ignored all instances of home defense in which an intruder was not killed. If a would-be victim scared the intruder away with a firearm, that did not count. If the would-be victim wounded the criminal, that did not count, either. To count, someone had to be killed. This is dangerously misleading because if the victims were disarmed and unable to scare off intruders, most or all of the violent crimes would be completed, drastically increasing the incidence of rape, robbery and murder.

Further, 37 of the 43 deaths noted in the "study" were suicides. As the data above show (regarding the suicide rate in Japan, where firearms are virtually non-existent), a person who is intent on killing him- or herself will do it, with or without firearms.

Kellermann also admitted his study did not look at situations in which intruders "purposely avoided a home known to be armed."

In short, Kellermann ignored the vast majority of situations in which legally armed citizens frightened away intruders simply by displaying a firearm.

[Source: "Protected or Peril? An Analysis of Firearm-Related Deaths in the Home" by Arthur L. Kellermann and Donald T. Reay]

When one is attacked, passive behavior is the safest approach.

The Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey reports that the probability of serious injury from an attack is 2.5 times greater for women offering no resistance than for women resisting with a gun. Men also benefit from using a gun, but the benefits are smaller: offering no resistance is 1.4 times more likely to result in serious injury than resisting with a gun.

By John R. Lott, Jr.

A link that talks about how oftenguns are used in self-defense.

There's so many more, but I do have to work sometime this morning.  

[lazs2]

airhead... consider that 9 out of ten murders are perpetuated by family members or friends...  Ask the cops who they suspect first...

as for children and accidental gun death.... I believe that they are more likely to be killed by drowning in a 5 gallon bucket of rain water in the back yard than to be "accidentaly killed by a firearm.   You couldn't find a dozen a year much less a dozen a month.  In no way will you ever find the amount of "accidental" gun deaths coming close to deaths/violence prevented by guns... still... a moot point when it is you that is being attacked.  

beetle... I have allways said that it does no good to have a gun and probly does harm if.... you are unwilling or unable to use it.   I would also point out that if he shot her then he would seem to be a.... murderer..  One who murders.  He happened to use her gun in this case.  So what?   Are we arguing about what is the best way to die?

We have gone through all this before but... more guns does equal less crime in the U.S.   This story is just one of the reasons why we don't have 50% or more of our burglaries "hot" like in limeyland.  Crooks can be crazy but they are seldom brave.
lazs

[H. Godwineson]

Beetle,

All your story proves is that, although the elderly lady had a firearm, she was not prepared to used it.  Police and firearms instructors tell those applying for training or carry permits that it is
dangerous to pull a gun on a felon if you are not prepared, psychologically, to use it.

I can cite incidences of 80 year old men and women who used firearms to frighten off intruders, or stop them "dead" in their tracks if they failed to cease their attacks.  

If you do not have the proper mind-set a gun will do you no good.

As for the argument cited in another post, that statistics "prove" that guns are more likely to be used against a family member, I say that is bunk.  I assume you are a reasonable man, who loves his family and treats most of relations with respect.  Do you really believe that the presence of a gun in your home would cause you to commit an act of violence against one of your loved ones during the heat of an argument?

There have been numerous cases in my area over the years in which women have had to use deadly force to protect themselves and their children against attack by estranged husbands.  There was one case where a woman's father had to use deadly force to stop an attack by his doper ex-son-in-law.  The attackers in these situations were members of a dysfunctional family situation who used knives, guns, vehicles, and fists to carry out their assaults.  They were predisposed to violence.  The presence of a firearm had very little to do with the onset of the attack.

One of the reasons O.J. was a suspect in Nicole's murder was related to the fact that police had already been called to his house on at least 5 occassions to intervene in violent disputes and physical abuse between he and Nicole.  The murders of two people were carried out with a knife, and in such a fashion that it led investigators to conclude they were committed by an acquaintance in a fit of jealous rage.

Statistics can be skewed to distort the facts.  I don't take these statistics literally.

Shuckins

[lazs2]

oops... dune beat me to it.

you might also find that while enjoying your new NRA memberships and reading the magazine that.... in the "armed citizen" column.... most of the thwarted attack stories end in either the perpetrator being chased off or... being caught when he sought medical aid at the hospital.

I will be glad to send a copy of the "American Rifleman" to any anti gun guy on this board who thinks that it is a poorly writen peice of propoganda.   I think he will find it to be an interesting and well written magazine.   It is condemned by people who have never read one copy of it.

An example of this is that when Lott wrote his book it was condemed out of hand by liberal gun haters (how can you be "liberal" and ban toejam?) most.... had not even accepted his offer to read the book... they made up their reviews without any possibility of having read it.   Not one has ever refuted any real data in the book....

Continueing in this vein of liberal fairness.... beliells book on "the arming of America" was universally praised by the libs as a masterpiece of research and he was showered with awards and good reviews.... his books theory was that there were no guns in America and that our forefathers simply didn't use em...The "gun culture" was manufactured.... They wanted to believe so much that they didn't even check the simplest facts in the book.   His award has since been taken away and he is disgraced.   I would say that anyone who agreed with him should be disgraced also.
lazs