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“One of these days, these people keep robbing people, they’re going to run into a person legally carrying a gun and we won’t need to go to court. They’ll end it.” – Saginaw, Michigan Police Chief Bob Ruth in Gun owners say they buy for protection, but harm is more likely [via mlive.com]

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35 COMMENTS

  1. The statistics may be questionable but there’s no question that the foolish, ignorant, and sometimes downright insane do a lot of damage to the firearms rights of the law-abiding. Far too often Pogo’s dictum applies: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Every instance of recklessness with a firearm is something which will be used against us and that is why it behooves each and every firearms owner to know what the laws are concerning self-defense and the common-sense rules for handling and storing a firearm safely and abide by them scrupulously.

    • As Carlin said “You know how stupid the average person is? Remember that half of them are even dumber.” There are people who do unbelievably stupid stuff with everything from turkey fryers, to lawnmowers, to toasters. I guess my point is the are numerically a lot of chuckle-heads when your sample set is 330MM. Guns are no different than any other tool in the respect that morons will misuse it, and kill themselves or someone else in the process.

      • Speaking of Carlin, he also spoke on the notion of “dangerous fun.” Guns, like just about anything else that is “fun” are never going to be 100% safe, be it the physical gun or it’s human operation. So when anti’s speak about more gun safety laws, they know what they’re doing. It’s just a codeword for restrictions and/or confiscation. Firearms, in and of themselves, are already as safe as they can be. All the machinery at my plant is “dangerous” and cannot be made completely safe either. It’s all about how they are handled and used.

      • So true. I bought a new hammer from a big box store for donation to a non-profit. There is a warning label stamped on the side of the head. I am sure some attorney made it happen.

    • So true, it physically pains me every time you see one of those dumbass instructors having a perfectly preventable ND, or the drunk hill billy who fired warning shots at people trespassing.

      • Dan –
        I don’t mean to be argumentative, but look at it from this perspective. Does it “physically pain” you when you hear about someone being murdered with a car? Or a hammer? or Knife? Do you fear for your ability to go to home depot and buy a hammer because some nutball in North Dakota went on a murder spree with a ball peen hammer? I doubt it, don’t be as emotional as the gun grabbers, because if we start succumbing to emotional arguments, we will lose. We have facts and evidence on our side, we don’t need to worry about “What if this” and “What if that”

        Hope this helped you see another point of view.

        • The only problem that gun enthusiasts fail to recognize, and antis tend to focus on, is that firearms only have one purpose: to kill or destroy whatever you fire them at. As my dad always said, use the right tool for the job. A car is a tool for transportation and CAN be used as a weapon; a hammer, depending on the type, is a tool that serves many purposes, killing only being the intended function of the warhammer. A knife is an incredibly versatile tool that you probably shouldn’t have brought up, because knives are arguably much more heavily regulated than firearms (most states have laws restricting carry size and even how they open). The backlash against firearms alone is because from the very beginning, firearms were designed as a killing tool.

    • That’s a lot of conjecture. I’m not saying people shouldn’t be responsible with their guns, but the misuse by others is hardly degrading the rights of the law abiding. They wouldn’t be rights then, they would be privileges.

      The statists will always call for civilian disarmament, they don’t need a reason, constitution be damned. They will fight for their utopia, and we must fight for ours.. together.

      Either we hang together or we shall hang separately.

    • Up here in Canada, we have legally mandated safety training since the mid 90s. Before the training was mandatory, we had low rates of negligent discharge and injury due to careless handling. After the training was made mandatory, we had low rates. We’ve seen a steady decline since the 1950s (before the laws were implemented).

      So what do the anti-gunners in Canada do? Well, they make stuff up. They conflate criminal acts with the acts of the ordinary gun owners. They sensationalize the tiny number of careless handling to make it sound like a giant problem. They try to scare people by showing gun owners safely having fun with their sport, especially when using “scary” looking guns. They promote a paranoia that legal gun owners will suddenly go nuts and start shooting people. Then they ban all manner of firearms in response.

      Meanwhile, in Canada, licensed gun owners have one of the lowest rates of violent crime among all the demographics.

      I understand where you are coming from, and improving the culture of safe firearms handling is vital. Having said that, you must understand that there is nothing you can do to stop the anti gunners from folding, spindling and mutilating the facts. If even one person does something stupid, it will be used to malign millions.

      • This times 100

        People are always screaming for “more gun safety” requirements…..classes, licensing, etc.
        Listen, I believe training is important. But let’s be honest, firearms are very simple things to use. 99.999% of deaths aren’t due to “safety” or “poor training”.

        So here’s the problem with this line of thinking. According to a CDC reporthttp://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf page 57 there were 33,636 firearm deaths in 2013 in the United States.
        21,175 were suicides. Training would not prevent any of those. So right of the bat, having all gun owners being certified and trained will do nothing to prevent the majority of gun deaths. Killing yourself has nothing to do with accurate shooting or safety as by definition if you are going to kill yourself you aren’t concerned about safety.
        11,208 deaths were homicide. Again, people murdering other people isn’t a result of not being accurate with a gun or being safe with one. By definition murderers want to be dangerous with their weapons not safe. Also, by definition criminals ignore laws so having laws limiting gun ownership to those who were “highly trained” would have no affect on these deaths as criminals would just ignore those laws.
        467 were legal intervention/war(ie self defense) so those people obviously were accurate with their weapons and safely employed them to protect themselves.
        281 were undetermined.
        The final 505 were accidental. Now these are really the ONLY ones where safety training, etc might have saved some lives. But I would argue that many of these deaths happened to people who went through the training and still ignored the rules(just like police who are supposed to be so highly trained yet shoot themselves cleaning their guns, or hunters who went through hunter’s safety course, etc). And I would also argue that many of these people even if required to go through rigorous training would still ignore the rules or just be human and make mistakes. So let’s be generous and say half of these people could have been saved through better training. That would mean that implementing very tough laws putting all gun owners through rigorous courses, etc ensuring they were “highly trained” would cut the gun deaths in this country by .0074%. A number so small as to be statistically insignificant.

      • “we have legally mandated safety training since the mid 90s.”

        Generally speaking in the US, such training is mandatory in the attempt to minimize firearm ownership. Let’s test what you are talking about. “Mandated safety training”, huh? Mandated for everyone? You know, just anyone, any time, might run across a loaded firearm, discarded by a fleeing criminal, forgotten by a cop, whatever, so shouldn’t everyone in the country be required to take this “safety” training? And, always a favorite, who is paying for this training? Seems like, if the public at large is supposedly benefitting somehow from government mandated training, then the public at large, thru the government, should be paying for that training. See how well that flies. In the US, I know the answers, the training has zero to do with safety, is 100% about abuse of authority in the name of control.

        “in Canada, licensed gun owners have one of the lowest rates of violent crime among all the demographics”

        Likewise in the US, regardless of training. By FAR the lowest.

    • The anti-freedom tyrant wanna be’s can always point out the rare situation when an individual is careless, unaware or just plain evil in how they mis-use a gun.

      But in the end, the facts can’t be denied. According to the CDC web site, the least likely way that a true child, (14 Y/O and younger) can die by accident is by a gun. Every other method; drowning in buckets, bathtubs and pools; drinking chemicals from under the sink, falls, automotive accidents, are all much higher in overall body count.

      The same way that reputable studies show that the use of a gun in self defense is hundreds of thousands up to millions per year, and that those using a gun are the least likely to be injured, unlike those that simply give in without a fight, or use a bat, knife or hand to hand to defend oneself. One of the latest was ordered by Obama. Little did he realize what they would find. The CDC and the National Academy of Sciences, “Priorities for research to Reduce The Threat of Fire-Arm Related Violence”. The report showed all of the real facts about how much guns are used successfully for self defense, and how it leads to less injury . Read it and weep, for all those that hate freedom, personal responsibility and self-determination.

      • Actually tens of thousands, not hundreds. That statistician from Harvard (whose name escapes me at the moment) who works for Bloomie says 50,000 to 80,000 per year. Which is really not that small a number, being 136 to 219 DGUs per day.

    • Mike Betts,

      “It behooves each and every firearms owner to know what the laws are concerning self-defense and the common-sense rules for handling and storing a firearm safely and abide by them scrupulously.”

      That statement stands alone. The other silliness about negligent people providing metaphorical ammunition to gun-grabbers is a distraction. Why? Gun grabbers want us disarmed and will use anything, everything, and nothing if they so much as think it will further their cause. Whatever we do or do not do, they will try to use it against us.

      Just be responsible and trustworthy and encourage everyone else to be responsible and trustworthy … simply because it is the right thing to do.

  2. I don’t want to have to be the person to “end it” for a criminal, it will be a nightmare from a legal, financial and emotional perspective. BUT I’M STILL PREPARED TO DO IT.

    • Agreed. Bankruptcy, wasted time, and even jail is far better than watching helplessly as a criminal murders a loved one or you.

  3. The rural resident overreacted.
    Most yard and garage junk is simply not worth the expense of lawyers and trials, much less the risk of incarceration. If someone is stealing my lawnmower or drill, they can have it, I’ll go buy another.
    That being said, if it was a very rural area, he should have buried the evidence and mummed up.

    • You are certainly entitled to your opinion, and to an extent I agree with it.

      However there are states that let you defend your property. More relevantly, if I come across someone doing something illegal on my land, especially if it’s “out there” I need to weigh the totality of circumstances … starting with the fact that this is a criminal.

      I wasn’t there, and I’m glad I didn’t need to make the call; but I won’t say it was the wrong one without more information.

  4. So this is journalism now? This reads like a press release from some anti-gun org.

    But here’s the kicker..the author had no problem quoting anti-gun statistics from “studies” etc…

    BUT to get his data for defensive gun uses he doesn’t go from any studies..or ask for data from NRA, etc..nope..he does this:
    To help determine the instances of private citizens using guns to thwart criminals, MLive surveyed prosecutor’s and sheriff’s offices as well as the largest police department in Michigan’s 15 most-populated counties.

    Thirty-one officials responded, including at least one agency from each county. Among the findings:

    Twenty officials said the cases are rare, or could not locate one in the past year;
    Six would not speculate on the frequency;
    Two said it doesn’t happen often;
    Three recalled at least one incident in the past year.
    Okay…first there are more than 83..83! Counties in Michigan. For each there is a Sheriff and a Prosecutor. So that’s 166 right there. Add in large police depts(he gives no def of large) so we’ll add another 15. so That’s 181.

    So he only gets responses from 31 of those…he’s basing defensive gun use data on responses from only 17% of the depts.

    Also..he states “Thirty-one officials responded, including at least one agency from each county”…um that’s not possible. There are 83 counties….NOT 31..so either he is an idiot or he is lying.

    Second…asking a Sheriff of Prosecutor if the are “aware” of any cases is bullshit. A Prosecutor would only be aware if a person was CHARGED with using a gun to defend themselves. Why would that person be charged? Perhaps he could be made aware if in a case of prosecuting a criminal it came up a person with a gun used it to defend themselves.

    Same with a Sheriff…..how many are aware of cases where the person using the gun wasn’t charged?

    Also….is a Sheriff aware of every single case…every single arrest? That’s laughable. Same with a prosectuor…they have a team of people working for them..they don’t know of every case.

    • It’s a typical anti statistic. He uses real stats for some thins BUT basicaly makes one up for DGU. Now I will give the writer the caveat that the frequency of DGUs is a hard number to know BUT there are studies. The worst academic study says around 65k nationally per year, which would make them slightly less frequent than gun crimes. The best numbers are Gary Kleck at 2.5 million per year. I can honestly say I believe kleck and the national victim survey to both be wrong
      But even if Kleck is off by a factor of TEN , DGUs would still be 250k a year. That is hardly rare .

      The

  5. In Michigan, 79 percent of gun homicide victims between 2010 and 2014 were killed by a family member, friend or acquaintance, based on an MLive analysis of FBI statistics in cases where the relationship between the shooter and victim was recorded.

    “People assume all this violence is over gang warfare and drugs, which is not the case at all,” said Greg Mathis, a retired Wayne County district court judge and star of the syndicated courtroom show “Judge Mathis.”

    “It’s primarily the result of people resolving conflict by using guns,” he said. “Much of what we need to do is get guns off the street so people can go back to fist-fighting.”

    This is the stupidest thing ever. What percentage were known? I bet very few. Look at Chicago, they haven’t even charged anyone for about 90% of the homicides this year per heyjackass.com.

    Last I checked the reason gang members shoot each other is a form of conflict resolution.

  6. “By nature’s law, every man has a right to seize and retake by force his own property taken from him by another by force or fraud. Nor is this natural right among the first which is taken into the hands of regular government after it is instituted. It was long retained by our ancestors. It was a part of their common law, laid down in their books, recognized by all the authorities, and regulated as to circumstances of practice.” –Thomas Jefferson: Batture at New Orleans, 1812. ME 18:104

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