New Interactive Map Shows the Number of Times Guns Have Saved Americans

[mmckee1952]

By: Becket Adams

In the spirit of the Journal News, the New York newspaper that published a map featuring the names and addresses of legal gun owners in three counties, the Cato Institute has put together a map documenting the instances where a gun has helped innocent Americans protect themselves from criminals.

“Gun control proponents cannot deny that people use guns successfully against criminals, but they tend to play down how often such events take place,” Cato notes. “The purpose of this map is to draw more attention to this aspect of the firearms policy debate.”

Now two points need to be made about this map:

First, the map is not comprehensive. Criminals will often flee the scene when they discover that their intended target has a gun. With no shots fired, no injuries, and no suspect in custody, news organizations may report nothing at all. Thus, it is important to remember that news reports can only provide us with an imperfect picture of defensive gun use in America.

Second, when a citizen is able to shoot an attacker or hold a rapist or robber until the police arrive, it is very likely that more than one crime has been prevented because if the culprit had not been stopped, he could have targeted other citizens as well. The bottom line is that gun owners stop a lot of criminal mayhem every year.

Guns and Self Defense | Cato Institute

Final Thought: As the above map clearly illustrates, firearms ​have ​been used to save lives. Washington should be a little more mindful when comes to legislation that would make it more difficult for Americans to have access to guns.

 

[SR40c]

Check out the purple marker in Iowa. As stated on the map, that incident happened at the residence of now former Congressman Leonard Boswell (D). Boswell is also one of those gun grabbing politicians that think we do not need guns to protect our selves. Yet, as you can see, he has no problem with him or his family members doing so. Just another example of an "epitome of hypocrisy" liberal. While I am glad nothing happened to him or his family members, I am glad this career left wing shill was defeated by Tom Latham (R) in the last election.

 

[alternety]

It really needs a timeline to be effective.

 

[jfisch]

Thanks for the post! I've been looking for something like this for some time now. I like how you can select the different types of situations like the person had a carry permit or a stopped home invasion. Definatly useful against all those morons that say guns don't stop crime.

It really needs a timeline to be effective.

I don't understand your reasoning? Every event lists when it happened...

 

[alternety]

My reasoning is that anyone (at least anyone thoughtful) you show it to to convince them that guns are good, will ask what period of time the map displays. One of the selection categories should be time period (maybe just which years) and the map header should tell you what years are displayed. A favorite ploy of anti gun people trying to distort things. The map looks semi-impressive if it was for 1 year. From a few samples it covers a whole bunch more than one year. Hence no trends easily observable. I saw one date in 2007. With that kind of date spread and the number of incidents, I find it difficult to be impressed that people should have defensive guns (don't go there). I really don't think they have enough data to be able to publish this map. I think it is more of a disservice to gun owners than a help.

A lesser point. It is not obvious that clicking on little icons, that appear to be essentially the same colors, will change the display. It just looks like an inept table for interpreting what you see. And yes, I have a full color IFS technology monitor, display card, and software. A user interface needs to make it clear what things are for. Other than that, they have done a helluva job.

 

[jfisch]

My reasoning is that anyone (at least anyone thoughtful) you show it to to convince them that guns are good, will ask what period of time the map displays. One of the selection categories should be time period (maybe just which years) and the map header should tell you what years are displayed. A favorite ploy of anti gun people trying to distort things. The map looks semi-impressive if it was for 1 year. From a few samples it covers a whole bunch more than one year. Hence no trends easily observable. I saw one date in 2007. With that kind of date spread and the number of incidents, I find it difficult to be impressed that people should have defensive guns (don't go there). I really don't think they have enough data to be able to publish this map. I think it is more of a disservice to gun owners than a help.

A lesser point. It is not obvious that clicking on little icons, that appear to be essentially the same colors, will change the display. It just looks like an inept table for interpreting what you see. And yes, I have a full color IFS technology monitor, display card, and software. A user interface needs to make it clear what things are for. Other than that, they have done a helluva job.

I don't think it is a disservice at all. The people that put the map together clearly state:

First, the map is not comprehensive. Criminals will often flee the scene when they discover that their intended target has a gun. With no shots fired, no injuries, and no suspect in custody, news organizations may report nothing at all. Thus, it is important to remember that news reports can only provide us with an imperfect picture of defensive gun use in America. Second, when a citizen is able to shoot an attacker or hold a rapist or robber until the police arrive, it is very likely that more than one crime has been prevented because if the culprit had not been stopped, he could have targeted other citizens as well.

Clicking on icons on the map displays a small box that explains the event. The drop down at the top allows you to select specific categories of events as well as narrow down events like states.

They clearly state that all the info they managed to collect, which seems to be a daunting task when you think about it, came straight from news sources. If a police report wasn't filed or a news report issued then it didn't make the map. Every time a criminal sees someone like in an open carry scenario and they change their mind about the crime you have no way of tracking that.

I'm not entirely sure you read the site or really played with the map much as it's potential for providing information is great. It would be nice to have a few more parameters like date but overall I think they do a significantly better job at putting the info out there than I've seen others try to do.

Sure they're limited by the technology they chose to use (Google Maps) but I think the message is clear: This is only the tip of the iceberg. There could be hundreds or thousands of more incidents that were stopped by someone with a gun that have no official source allowing them to be cited on this map.

 

[S&W645]

Notice how many are in the Gunshine State. :biggrin:

 

[BluesStringer]

I have to agree with alternaty, it really isn't very helpful. Partly because there are really very few examples nationwide compared to what stats gun owners and 2nd Amendment advocates most often cite as a million or more legal gun uses per year, and then these events are spread over several years to boot. Alternaty said he saw one from 2007. I saw one from '05.

Then I zoomed in on my area and the first one I clicked on was in the County Seat of my county, and here's what the description said:

Athens, Alabama: On July 27, 2007, an unidentified Athens resident returned home to find Tim Maynor and Shuan Holley stealing his collection of aluminum cans. The homeowner confronted the thieves with his gun drawn, and held them for authorities. Police later determined that the men were responsible for other area robberies.

I haven't been a drinker for over 25 years now, but back when I did drink, my "collection" of aluminum cans was always kept in large trash bags outside and "stolen" by the trash truck every week. I wonder if this "unidentified Athens resident" has a new hobby yet. LOL

Blues

 

[alternety]

jfish - I maintain it is a disservice. It is also not useful. I really did not want to write more than a simple understandable post; but-

For readers like us, we already know there are many more events every year. And, at least for me, I don't think knowing that a man held a gun on someone stealing (presumed) empty beer cans provides any real improvement in an anti gun person's perception of allowing people to have guns and convince them that CC is a good thing.

I have no idea how they actually sought out incidents, but it was not effective. They have done not only a useless job but a disservice to the CC and 2nd Amendment proponents by implying there are so few good incidents. Before you go there; yes it implies. The sort of person who would profit from real knowledge will simply look at the map. May or may not figure out, or take the time to try, the way to see incidents or filter them. And once the see dates immediately dismiss it as relevant. They will probably not read the rest of the web site after seeing the map. Hence useless. Moreover, the useful viewer (anti) we want to know about legal uses will see that the millions of defensive uses are clearly NRA created BS. Cause look; here is a picture with pretty colors ON THE INTERNET. Yeah it is stupid, but it is the way far too many heads work. We are becoming a nation of illiterates and believe media and the web.

If the authors of the map were serious in doing some good, they would search news resources more carefully. In addition they would contact the many sites (including the NRA) that posts stories of lives saved from termination or great physical harm. As another category there should be the defense of property posts. Many antis do not consider lethal force to protect property as a proper excuse to have guns. They are wrong, but that is how they think (and many state lows prescribe). Ask permission of those sites to include their content (and cite the source) in a centralized database of legal defense events. And it needs to be a database; not Google maps. People should be able to select a report based on various parameters such as location, fatality, location, etc. And its' use needs to be simple and well documented.

I suspect this will take more resources than they have available. But someone should do that. Perhaps the FBI or others can yield supporting data for their annual reports on crime. If they won' give the data out; file a freedom of information request. I don't know if the NRA has anything like this, but if anyone should it is them. Although when the NRA says it there is an automatic rejection of the information by a big part of the brainwashed population.

 

[nogods]

Thanks for the link. A wealth of useful information.

But...the first one I clicked on came up with this - not really what I'd call a gun "saving an American" - perhaps justified, but luckily no one was killed:

Pennsylvania, Alabama: A 75-year-old woman was sleeping her upstairs bedroom when an intoxicated man broke in to her home. She first asked him politely to leave, but when he proceeded up the stairs she grabbed her .38 caliber revolver and shot the man in the groin. Police found that the man lived nearby and accidentally walked into the wrong house.

Maybe its just me, but the second one I clicked on didn't involve the homeowner's gun - good thing the robbers had a gun or it wouldn't have made the map:

Description: Granby, New York: On December 20, 2005, two robbers, Kyle Hunter and Donald Brown, armed with a shotgun and a machete broke into a Granby home and tied up the home's five occupants. Two of the intended victims managed to get free and turn the shotgun on their captors. One robber received a birdshot wound; both were caught by local and state law enforcement officers after fleeing. The victims' names were not released by police.

• Incident Categories:
• Home Invasion
• Gun Taken From Criminal And Used Against Him
• Assault

Date: 20-Dec-05