Contrary to what some would have you believe, defensive gun uses happen literally every single day. Over a million annually, preventing assaults, robberies, rapes and murders. Besides other stories we’ve already reported, here are three more DGUs that barely made the news, further discrediting the myth that guns don’t make a home safer.
One happened early yesterday in Knoxville, Tennessee. Just before 1:30 a.m., a suspect allegedly broke into a home and was subsequently shot. This is a developing story, and more details will be released soon.
On Tuesday in Pineville, North Carolina, a 29-year-old man named Donald Lee Blakney was shot and killed. The resident of an apartment in the area woke up to strange sounds, went outside, and was met by Blakney, who was in the process of breaking into the home. The two men had a confrontation in which the apartment resident fired several shots, which caused his neighbors to call the police. Police believe this was a justified self-defense homicide.
Over this past weekend in Colorado Springs, 30-year-old Houston Malachai Cookson was also shot and killed after being caught breaking into a home. The homeowner got his gun and defended himself and his property while his wife called 9-1-1.
These and other defensive gun use stories are only a small representative portion of those defensive gun uses that make the news. In the great majority of cases, guns are never fired, but are still an indispensable part of the equation, balancing the power of criminals and innocent victims.
The “good guy with a gun” narrative is a myth meant to scare people into buying guns for self-defense.
The truth? People rarely use guns for self-defense. Read more: https://t.co/JiRK3zkvkl
— Giffords (@GiffordsCourage) July 6, 2018