It’s One Thing for Gun Grabbers to Throw Out Statistics. It’s Another to Use the Wrong Stats

One issue with a lot of gun research is that it’s clearly biased. The fact that there are so few results that even hint at a benefit to gun rights flies in the face of the laws of probability.

Statistics, on the other hand, tend to be a bit more neutral, but not universally so. Some statistics are easy to understand and extremely difficult to manipulate. Others can be.

That’s especially true when the person using them is trying to justify something and doesn’t understand what they’re talking about or, perhaps more accurately, is hoping you don’t.

That came up with an op-ed from a Tucson publication, where the writer tried to do just that.

I was hopeful to hear the Department of Justice was finally looking at limiting gun ownership until I saw it was only trans people being targeted based on the one Minneapolis shooter. If the DOJ truly cared about public safety, it would set aside its prejudices and use the FBI database to make policy decisions regarding guns. Per the FBI 2024 database:

74.2% of homicides were caused by guns.

87.6% of the known murder offenders were men; only 12.3% were women.

69% of homicides are caused by men under 40 years old

76% of homicide victims were male

74.1% of homicide victims died by gun

Of the 19,000+ gun deaths, only 726 were justified; 344 by law officers and 382 by private parties. A success rate of 3.7% is not a strong indicator that owning a gun provides protection. When compared to 25,000+ suicides in the home, guns offer no protection from families losing a loved one.

Now, this seems to be mostly about the transgender gun ban proposal, which doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, but as someone who opposes that, too, it’s worth noting what may have prompted this.

However, we start to get into the statistics, and the first few stats are fine. They’re true as far as they go.

What’s hilarious is the last one that I quoted.

The fact that more people aren’t killed by armed citizens is somehow proof that a gun doesn’t provide protection? What kind of ghoul thinks that the goal is to kill the other person in a defensive gun use rather than to just end the threat?

That can, of course, result in the bad guy getting killed. In fact, with some bad guys, that’s preferable to any other outcome, if we’re being honest.

However, it can also include wounding them to the point that they don’t die, but decide they either can’t fight anymore or simply don’t want to. It can result in scaring the bad guy away, either with a gunshot or without.

Plus, defensive gun uses aren’t limited to two-legged predators. Plenty of people have dealt with vicious dogs or other four-legged threats with the use of a firearm. Again, not all of them result in a fatality, either. Just firing a round could scare a feral animal away.

The estimates range from 2.5 million on the upper end to 100,000 on the low end.

That’s a whole lot more than any 3.7 percent success rate that only counts 382 defensive gun deaths. It’s also more than the suicides at home, too, which shouldn’t matter since those who want to take their own life are just as likely to use whatever else is available. Yes, some of them are just as “effective” as a gun.

Now, the question is whether the author is lying or just dumb. Does she know that this statistic is irrelevant and simply uses it because she thinks the people who might read her are stupid, or is she just so stupid that she thinks it’s somehow relevant? I honestly don’t know, and I don’t care.

Anti-gunners have used this particular metric a lot over the years to try and claim a gun isn’t useful for self-defense, but the truth is that it’s the wrong statistic to look at. It’s always been the wrong stat, and whether it’s idiocy or malevolence that drove her to use it, it’s still just as wrong.

Editor’s Note: This is just another example of how the mainstream media continues to lie about gun owners and the Second Amendment. 

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