The Infamous "43 to 1" Statistic
A gun in the home is 43 times more likely to kill you, a friend or family member than an intruder, or so the story goes. The "43 to 1" figure is the product of a study by Arthur L. Kellerman and Donald T. Reay that was published in the June 1986 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The way the statistic is presented, it implies criminals are either disarming homeowners and killing them with their own guns, or that the gun owners are using their guns to slay family members or friends 43 times for every instance where the owner uses a firearm to successfully defend against a criminal intruder. The shootings that make up the actual composition of the "43 to 1" figure however, are actually quite different than this. To quote from the study: "For every time a gun in the home was involved in a 'self-protection' homicide, we noted 1.3 accidental gunshot deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides, and 37 firearms-related suicides." You read that correctly, out of these 43 deaths, 37 of them (or 87%) were SUICIDES. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what is going on here. This is a study purporting to be measuring instances of self defense, not suicides. However, the anti-gun crowd aren't above throwing any figure into the mix in order to make their numbers look better. It apparently doesn't bother them that this information has no relevance to the topic they are purporting to "study".
It has also been established by experience and studies that those determined to commit suicide will do so whether or not a firearm is available. In Japan for example, where firearms ownership is virtually nonexistent, their suicide rate is more than double that of the U.S. per capita. Canada, after imposing severe restrictions on private ownership of handguns, experienced a decrease in gun suicides , but an increase in leaping suicides, with no change in the overall number of suicides in general. So, by removing suicides from the picture (37 of the "43"), our "43 to 1" ratio suddenly drops to 6 to 1. However, this is still not a complete picture of the issue.
First of all, those who quote this "study" don't ever bother to mention that in the cases considered, anyone who was an acquaintance of the shooter, was considered a "friend". In other words, if a person and a next door neighbor get together to complete a drug transaction, which then turns violent and someone is killed, this "study" classifies the incident as a friend killing a friend because they knew each other. It doesn't matter that it was over a drug deal. In addition, the study compares only the number of times a firearm in the home was used to kill an intruder. It ignores instances where firearms are used to wound, scare away or take an intruder into custody without discharging the firearm. In other words, if you shot some lunatic who broke into your house and was about to kill you and your family, but he didn't die -- according to this study, your gun didn't just save your life.
To quote this "study" once again: "Mortality studies such as ours do not include cases where burglars or intruders are wounded or frightened away by the use or display or a firearm. Cases in which would-be intruders may have purposely avoided a house known to be armed are also not identified." The authors go on to admit that the study "did not report the total number or extent of non-lethal firearm injures involving guns kept in the home. A complete determination of firearms risks versus benefits would require that these figures be known." When you consider that 98% of all defensive encounters with firearms end without a shot ever being fired, this seems like a rather large omission. What kind of person publishes a "study" which excludes 98% of all cases, and bases its results on 2%? Apparently, the kind that have a specific agenda that can only be met with some pretty fancy manipulation of the facts.
Based upon data compiled by scholars such as the Florida State University's Gary Kleck, it can be estimated that for every defensive use of a firearm that kills the attacker, 500 or more instances of nonfatal defense occur. This data, combined with the facts surrounding the number of suicides involved, effectively reverses the 43 to 1 ratio to a 6 to 500+ ratio, or about 1 to 83. In other words, a gun in the home is 83 times more likely to save your life, than be used against you. On top of this, Kellerman has recently revised his ludicrous 43 to 1 figure down to a still ridiculous 2.7 to 1, after taking heat from responsible researchers all over the United States. However, even having Kellerman himself retract his ridiculous assertions, has not kept anti-gun organizations from continuing to use the bogus 43 to 1 statistic. Big surprise.
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Safer With a Doctor or Safer With a Gun?
A recent article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer concerning accidental deaths caused by physicians from research of Laura Key USA
Number of physicians in the US 700,000
Accidental deaths caused /year 120,000
Accidental deaths/physician = 0.171
Number of gun owners in the US 80,000,000
Number of accidental gun deaths/year (all age groups) 1,500
Accidental deaths/gun owner = 0.0000188
Therefore, Doctors are approximately 9000 times more dangerous than gun owners.
Taken From:
http://www.code7cafe.com/
