We Fear Each Other, When Guns Themselves Are The Real Danger

[DanTex]

This article is from a while back, but in light the recent discussion about one particular self-defense shooting, it is a useful reminder that the threat of being killed during a home invasion is far lower than the threat of being killed by a gun kept in a home. The thought of a masked stranger entering your home and attacking you certainly prompts more of an emotional response than the thought of a child, friend, or acquaintance using the gun to kill themselves or someone else in the home, either on purpose or accidentally, but the latter happens far more often than the former.

This article is by Howard Pollack, co-director of the Crime Lab at UChicago.

http://www.thenation.com/article/171879/we-fear-each-other-when-guns-themselves-are-real-danger

If people made better decisions, fewer people would keep guns in their homes.

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Home protection provides a common, all-too-understandable motive to buy a gun. Few things are scarier than the possibility that some violent intruder will break in when you and your loved-ones are home. This risk happens to be especially vivid for me. My gentle disabled cousin was beaten to death by two teenage burglars in his New York apartment thirty years ago.

Yet having guns around bring risks, too. Practically speaking, it’s not the incredibly rare risk of mass homicide, but the everyday risks of injury, accident, domestic altercations, and suicide. The relative risks matter. And the fact is: lethal home invasions and burglaries are incredibly rare. You might not think so, since dramatic cases stick in your mind and tend to receive disproportionate press coverage. These cases are rare nonetheless.

How rare? I asked researchers at the Chicago Police Department and my colleague Daniel Rosenbaum at the University of Chicago Crime Lab to track down some numbers. In 2011, Chicago experienced 433 murders. Precisely one Chicago homicide that year was listed under the motive of “burglary.” Another seventeen were listed as domestic altercations. Some of these might have involved a nonresident partner entering someone’s home. You get the point. These are really unusual crimes, even in a pretty tough city.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports about 100 homicides per year across America that happen in the course of household burglaries. That’s less than 1 percent of U.S. homicides. Yeah, that’s about one-180th of the 18,735 gun suicides that occurred in America in 2009. Many people who attempt suicide can be helped—unless they have immediate access to the most efficient and lethal method of self-harm. Then of course there are gun accidents and crimes committed by legal gun owners or by others who gain access to those same guns.
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[Mojorabbit]

1. One of my good friends was killed in his own home

by an armed burglar. This happened not far from me. There was a shoot out an an intersection a couple of blocks from me not to long ago. There is a lot of gang activity in my neighborhood. We are armed but I have a big shepherd and that is my best defense. I think most people will bypass a home with a big barking dog for some place less intimidating. Everyone has their own threshold for how proactive they want to be. I try not to be judgmental for the most part though I am not fond of extremes in either direction.