A Very Personal Opposition to Gun Control

 DEFENSIVE GUN USAGE

Many of the arguments presented in opposition to gun control revolve around crime and the deterrent use of firearms against criminals.  And there is that “practical-slant” argument path.  Multiple scholars / researchers have contributed to that debate about guns and crime, e.g., Gary Kleck, Don Kates, John Lott, James Wright, Peter Rossi, Joyce Lee Malcolm, David Kopel, and others  (Though if you’ll allow me the indulgence of being persnickety, as someone more than passingly-familiar with statistics it irks me when people cite Kleck’s work as showing 2.5 million DGUs per year; actually, it’s a range, from 600,000-odd to 2.something million per year.  That higher number cannot be quoted as being a proven number, merely the upper end of an estimated confidence interval.)

As it happens I know two people – civilians – who have used guns to defend themselves against criminals; one was told, explicitly, by the police that it was only their having a handgun that prevented their assault and rape.  So defensive gun uses are not fantasy.  And this is certainly a practical argument on which to rest a case: after all, while there are the visible misuses, often missing from the debate is what is not seen, i.e., the defensive uses specifically, and deterrent effect generally.