owning a gun = more likely to be shot?

S

Shandon

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I've had several anti gun people tell me that "studies" have shown that by owning a gun, you are more likely to be shot.

Well I've googled this and the only studies(plural) I've found is on single study of 677 shootings in urban Philly. One article said that this study could be off because of percentage oh gang shootings in the area etc.

I find these so called studies hard to believe. How many studies have been done on gun carrying non shootings? How many studies have been done by the pro gun side?

Anyone have more insight on this?
 
Studies have proven that people with driver's licenses and who own automobiles are many times more likely to be seriously injured or die in an automobile accident. A study can be done to produce any result depending on who is paying for the study.
 
Yeah I got that part. That's why I don't believe this one study.

I was wondering if there are other studies done by the pro gun side to counter it. I can't find them. Not sure what to search to find them.

Thanks Navy. I see your posts and replies a lot. Good stuff.
 
Driving a car makes you more likely to have an accident. Riding in an airplane makes you more likely to die in a plane crash. Having teeth makes you more likely to have cavities. Shall I go on???
 
This is another bit of propaganda by the Brady Bunch. It holds no bearing to reality. The reality is that in today's world, you give robbers what they want, and they shoot you anyway. This, IMHO, is what happens, by the way, when robbery has the same penalty as murder, and the penalty for murder isn't harsh enough.
 
An anti-gun physician at Emery University, in Georgia, did a "so-called" study: Kellermann, Arthur M.D.
Violent Death in the Home in Relation to Gun Ownership, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control
In his "study" he concluded that if you have a gun in your house, you will be 42 times more likely to shoot a family member or acquaintance than an intruder.

But a professor of Criminal Justice at Florida State University, Gary Kleck (sp?) found that Kellerman used in his study several thousand killings in homes. What Kellerman did NOT consider, was that the killings and the homes that he used had one commonality: convicted felons, drug dealers, and domestic violence offenders. So much for objective "studies".
 
People that own pencils are more apt to misspell words study shows. Ya gotta laugh at the AG crowd, they rarely use common sense.
 
There was a killing locally last week where the victim was killed by a pen or pencil through the ear.

Oh the horror. All those kids being issued deadly weapons. They should be banned from schools. How many of those homes on the "guns increase deaths" had pencils on the premises? Maybe they are tracking the wrong things.
 
jetski said:
Driving a car makes you more likely to have an accident. Riding in an airplane makes you more likely to die in a plane crash. Having teeth makes you more likely to have cavities. Shall I go on???
Click to expand...

Maybe someone should commission a study of the number of firearm related deaths on Chicago Streets. Focusing on Law-Abiding Citizens killed that were not carrying a Firearm.

Oh Wait.. I do believe the FBI already has some stats by State and it seems I recall that in 2010 Illinois had close to or the greatest numbers of Murders per capita. Though this does not say Gun, Knife, club, pitch-fork etc..
FBI — Table 5
 
hey, I worked in fast food ... any studies there tell me I should have a .25 slug in my side from a robbery attempt?

3 robberies in 20 years ... and yes, one bullet ... but I dodged two. :)

sent from my sending device
 
If it said "among those who *LEGALLY* own a gun, and for whom carrying a gun is not a primary requirement of their job..." it would be one thing. I would wager that yes, statistically speaking across the entire population of the United States, people who own guns would be statistically more likely to be shot than those who do not.

But to be statistically significant for the general public, you'd have to take out those who are in positions where their job requires both that they carry a gun, and that the job itself carries with it danger of being shot (police, military;) as well as those illegally owning a gun (convicted felons,) because if you're barred from owning a gun yet own one anyway, you're obviously higher-risk than the rest of the gun-owning population.

Yup, it all comes back to "lies, damned lies, and statistics".

Although even excluding the above set, those who own a gun would probably STILL be statistically more likely, for the simple reason that like jetski says, you enter a group where risk of accident goes up by the mere nature of the group. Owning a car makes you more likely to get in a car accident, etc.

I'll bet the risk of getting shocked with a taser goes up significantly if you own a taser, just because you're more likely to accidentally shock yourself - and the use of a taser against you is already statistically VERY unlikely. (Lower than getting shot.)
 
There's a lot of great analogies in this thread, like the teeth and cavities, pencils and misspelled words, etc. It's important to note that these analogies illustrate a much larger point: Correlation does not equal Causation. I believe this is the most misunderstood concept in the U.S., and if everyone understood it, views on politics and scientific studies would be very different. In fact, I never learned it until I was 14 and read "The Vision of the Anointed" by Dr. Thomas Sowell. He explained that if there are actions A and B, four things could have happened:

1. A caused B
2. B caused A
3. C caused A and B
4. It's a coincidence

I'm glad so many people here understand this! I just wish everyone else did.
 
I don't know if this will help, but I remember a study that was touted by Oprah Winfrey probably around 9 or 10 years ago that stated gun owners were several times more likely to be killed by gunshot or to shoot a friend or family member than they were to use a gun to prevent a violent crime. I also remember that particular study was limited to data from only two counties in the entire U.S., included suicides by gun, and failed to take into account that the majority of murder victims either are related to or at least know their attackers. The two counties were those encompassing Seattle, WA (high suicide rate) and I think Memphis, TN (Kings County, maybe?). Sorry I don't remember more, but maybe this can help with your search.
 
A said before, you have the answer and then do the study. It is what you want the study results to say. In this case the Brady Bunch pays for the study with their answer written on the check given to the consultant (Professor Kno Itall). I can do a study for you at a cost of $25,000. What do you want the results to say? Send cash only please.
 
I cannot recall whether it was a study by John Lott or Gary Kleck (but I think it was Kleck) and in his study found that a gun is used over 2 million times a year to PREVENT crimes. Now, if this is the case, and a gunowner is 40 times more likely to be killed by a gun, that would indicate that each year there would be 80 million deaths by firearms. To me, these statistics are just as good as any that the anti's come up with.
 
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