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The problem with these studies is essentially survivorship bias. In the article, a woman places her hand on her hip as to advertise she has a firearm. This caus

The problem with these studies is essentially survivorship bias. In the article, a woman places her hand on her hip as to advertise she has a firearm. This causes her attacker to back off and retreat. Does that count as "gun use"? Should we file that under "rape statistic" or "assault statistic"? If she had shot him, there definitely would be a paper trail. But if the firearm intimidates someone enough that they don't commit a crime, where's the paper trail?

ravenstine 4y ago
That and I suspect a lot of people don't even report this sort of thing because they believe that it's pointless. I think they're wrong in such cases, but I can definitely understand why; when police don't take property and trespassing crimes seriously, people lose faith. Depending on the state one lives in, it can be concerning to report that one used a gun in public even if the trigger was never pulled. I'm a gun owner, and even though I would want to give the police a report of an incident, I would feel hesitation because I live in California; do I really want to tell police in California that I was holding a gun for anything but target practice? Better leave well enough alone and not take a chance.
DoctorOW 4y ago
You're overcomplicating the methodology. Let's map out a few numbers: A: Number of crime victims armed B: Number of crime victims unarmed C: Victims of ones own gun (who don't already fall into category B) D = B-A+C means D is the number of people who were not the victim of violence and those only difference is that they were armed. This is because D is goes up as A gets smaller than B, provided guns don't simply lead to self-harm. D/(A+B) gives us a handy percentage we can use to contextualize this difference.
- ghostoftiber 4y ago
  No. But you are making my point - There exists an unaccounted group where the firearm (or really threat of a firearm) prevented the crime.
  - DoctorOW 4y ago
    It's not unaccounted.
    - viridian 4y ago
      It is unaccounted. I know two people total who have ever drawn in self defense, neither reported the incident, they just got the fuck out of the area. I myself have never actually had to draw but I have had to back up deescalate with a man aggressively demanding I tell him the time from a weak side stance with my hand in my pocket on a concealed handgun, and I doubt he was ignorant of that fact. Why would I report that?
      - DoctorOW 4y ago
        The reason you aren't reporting being the victim of a crime is because, given only what you've told me so far, you weren't. You came close sure, but altering the statistics to reflect the emotions of you and your friends would actually make them less accurate than keeping them strictly objective. As such, I stand by my previous comment.

ravenstine 4y ago

That and I suspect a lot of people don't even report this sort of thing because they believe that it's pointless. I think they're wrong in such cases, but I can definitely understand why; when police don't take property and trespassing crimes seriously, people lose faith. Depending on the state one lives in, it can be concerning to report that one used a gun in public even if the trigger was never pulled. I'm a gun owner, and even though I would want to give the police a report of an incident, I would feel hesitation because I live in California; do I really want to tell police in California that I was holding a gun for anything but target practice? Better leave well enough alone and not take a chance.

DoctorOW 4y ago

You're overcomplicating the methodology. Let's map out a few numbers: A: Number of crime victims armed B: Number of crime victims unarmed C: Victims of ones own gun (who don't already fall into category B) D = B-A+C means D is the number of people who were not the victim of violence and those only difference is that they were armed. This is because D is goes up as A gets smaller than B, provided guns don't simply lead to self-harm. D/(A+B) gives us a handy percentage we can use to contextualize this difference.

ghostoftiber 4y ago
No. But you are making my point - There exists an unaccounted group where the firearm (or really threat of a firearm) prevented the crime.
- DoctorOW 4y ago
  It's not unaccounted.
  - viridian 4y ago
    It is unaccounted. I know two people total who have ever drawn in self defense, neither reported the incident, they just got the fuck out of the area. I myself have never actually had to draw but I have had to back up deescalate with a man aggressively demanding I tell him the time from a weak side stance with my hand in my pocket on a concealed handgun, and I doubt he was ignorant of that fact. Why would I report that?
    - DoctorOW 4y ago
      The reason you aren't reporting being the victim of a crime is because, given only what you've told me so far, you weren't. You came close sure, but altering the statistics to reflect the emotions of you and your friends would actually make them less accurate than keeping them strictly objective. As such, I stand by my previous comment.