Good read.

I just refuse to be "food" for the idiots of the world. We have rights to protect ourselves, why not utilize them.

 

There is something to be said for statistics.. and I will concede that stats are a generous part of profile development and security/risk assessments. That said, I don't prepare for the statistical norm, I prepare for the crap storm. If a person wants to intentionally diminish their SD capabilities simply to save themselves 10oz in their pocket, they can... but I wont.

 

How many 'not shootings' and 'not crimes' were a result of an armed citizen?

I don't know of any shooting defenses, on a personal level, but I know of a number of non shootings where a gun stopped a crime. And had there not been an armed citizen, a crime was going to happen.

 

That's all part of it. A lot of times just producing your gun alleviates the threat. In those stats, any time a gun was used to defend yourself or stop the threat, they included it. Actual shootings are far less. I think in 2012 something like 258. The old adage better to avoid completely (like just driving away if possible), producing or showing the gun causing the perp to rapidly change his mind and haul ass out of there and then, if no other choice, stopping the threat with as many rounds as would be required.

 

The statistics in your thread are interesting, as well as informative, and have served as the rational for my CC gun decision for a number of years. With the introduction of relatively new phenomena such as BLM and increased Muslim immigration, along with each groups propensity for ultra violence, I have changed my CC options to higher capacity handguns. As well, I have been carrying weapons that offer an increased sight radius over my old favorite S&W 442 to include a Glock 32. I plan to add an RMR to it in the near future. My point is, I expect statistics to change in the coming years to reflect the more violent culture America seems to be devolving into. This would not be a statistical trend I would want to fall behind of. I would welcome your thoughts on my post, Themarinedoc. Apparently, you have given this issue some attention and I would like to benefit from your work.

 

o i c

 

How many people might have lived if someone among these mass shootings in the last few years was armed? In every single case someone chose to shoot in locations where they would not expect anyone to be armed and shoot back.

The stats don't reveal it's useless to be armed; they indicate more people need to be.

 

The stats show that in 100% of the cases where the mass shootings took place, they were all in gun free zones. Both while I was in law enforcement and after I gave up my commission, I have been armed (CC) when out of uniform and as a civilian. Of course, as a police officer you have different responsibilities and authority off duty than I do now as a civilian. One of the problems as I see it, is that only about 50% of the people with CC permits actually carry. And of those that do, my personal feeling is that a lot decide when they feel they need to carry and when it's "safe" and choose not to leave the house armed. The people, by the nature of this web site, are not a good cross section of gun owners in the United States. There is a bit more dedication on this site, and other similar ones, than the average person that buys a gun for self protection and then often takes the next step and gets the CC permit.

 

The statistics in your thread are interesting, as well as informative, and have served as the rational for my CC gun decision for a number of years. With the introduction of relatively new phenomena such as BLM and increased Muslim immigration, along with each groups propensity for ultra violence, I have changed my CC options to higher capacity handguns. As well, I have been carrying weapons that offer an increased sight radius over my old favorite S&W 442 to include a Glock 32. I plan to add an RMR to it in the near future. My point is, I expect statistics to change in the coming years to reflect the more violent culture America seems to be devolving into. This would not be a statistical trend I would want to fall behind of. I would welcome your thoughts on my post, Themarinedoc. Apparently, you have given this issue some attention and I would like to benefit from your work.

See my Post that I wrote prior to this one. I taught firearms for 13 years in Law Enforcement, both at the Police Academy and for several Police Departments. That doesn't make me an expert, but makes me well informed. I had to attend an enormous number of courses, both for my personal information as well as credentialing for firearms instruction in the law enforcement field. I believe that if we had an armed society where a high percentage of civilians were armed, trained and dedicated to protecting themselves and their loved ones, a lot of the one on one violence would slow down. This certainly happened in Miami when they first passed the CC laws. By admission, the scum admitted that they didn't know who would be armed and who wouldn't. Now crime didn't slow down, but personal attacks and robberies against individuals did. They just turned their attention to other ways to commit their crimes. Interviews with convicts show that they look for weak victims. If they feel you're armed and ready to meet their threat, they will likely pass you up for an easier prey. They know that they are out there. As for mass killings (shootings) they might possibly be slowed down by armed citizens, but the trend would be bombs, cars (trucks) driven into crowds and of course, the gun free zones which matter not to someone intent on taking your life and willing to die in the process. Carry as often as you can and train with serious intent. Don't just punch holes in targets, but train with authority and purpose. Take as many legitimate firearms courses as you can afford (Mas Ayoobs Mag 20 courses, Gunsite, Thunder Ranch, Sig Academy and other such self defense courses. Avoid the so called experts in the field unless you know they are legitimate. There is a lot of good instruction out there, but also some money grabbers that are peddling a brand of goods that are worthless and a waste of time and money. Hope this helps.

 

It is really hard to carry a lot of the time because of all the places you can't take a gun. If you have activities during the day that take you in gun free zones, schools, many public buildings, bars, public transportation, your only choices are to leave it at home or lock it in the car while you enter the "sterile" areas, and you can't even do that on post office or school property in California.

 

And you nailed one of the big problems. Who pays attention to those signs? Of course, the law abiding citizen. And the scum are breaking into cars parked around those places looking for guns that would be better served on the person who left it in the car.

 

How many 'not shootings' and 'not crimes' were a result of an armed citizen?

I don't know of any shooting defenses, on a personal level, but I know of a number of non shootings where a gun stopped a crime. And had there not been an armed citizen, a crime was going to happen.

Excellent question. The only time I have ever drawn my G17 was against a pit bull. Thankfully, I didn't have to shoot.

 

>> but almost 70,000 times a gun was used for personal protection

I'd bet that the justification for mandatory seatbelts saving lives was less than 70,000 per year. .

I personally used a gun in defense 3 times (no shots fired)

 

As I reminisced in another thread, I've acquired and presented my firearm three times in response to attempted armed robberies. I didn't shoot during two of those incidents since the suspects ran away after my presentation. In fact, during the second incident, the suspect broke a door in his highly-motivated desire to get away from me and avoid receiving the bullets peeking out at him from my revolver's cylinder. During the third incident, however, I fired and shot the suspect twice.

 

The problem with this is that there are really no good statistics. I don't think much is collected unless someone (perp or victim) is actually killed, and even then it's spotty (there's no FBI requirement that states report self defense deaths.) If shots are fired and no one is injured, it just won't show up. And most self defense instance, shots aren't even fired, and, likely, the police are not even notified.

 

Hard to try and arrive at anything other than randomly sampled anecdotal stories, fleshed out with a lot of supposition and conjecture (on both "sides").

Since there's no requirement for reporting at a national level, and who knows whether any particular individual would be willing to report attempted crimes where weapons were displayed, but not fired, where do you propose to gather such verifiable and accurate statistics?

It's been speculated that even those instances where deadly force is lawfully used by a non-LE citizen may not be getting accurately reported in their entirety to the FBI, for inclusion in their UCR statistics.

 

^
For a lot of reasons, some you mention, there never will be good statistics. Even the FBI doesn't require states to report lawful use of deadly force incidents. Why? Because some state and big local LE agencies (the NYPD being one) fought against that reporting requirement.

I don't want this to go into a tangent to the basic point of the thread. The only reason I brought this up is that the OP uses what little and bad statistics there are on this subject to argue that a larger ammo loadout for CCW isn't necessary. My point is that whether or not a larger loadout is useful or not, the statistics, because of their sketchiness, aren't a really useful indicator of this.