BCA stats show self-defense shootings rare for MN permit holders, criminal activity more common

[Bjorn Against]

BCA stats show self-defense shootings rare for Minnesota permit holders
Illegal discharge by permit holders outnumbers allowed use.

Article by: BRANDON STAHL , Star Tribune
Updated: February 26, 2013 - 5:09 PM

Even though a record number of Minnesotans have permits to carry firearms, only a tiny number ever have pulled the trigger in self-defense.

Five instances of justifiable use of a firearm by a permit holder have been reported to the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) since 2003, although some recent self-defense shootings haven’t been counted.

Still, the low number of justifiable uses of firearms serves as a Rorschach test for those involved in the gun control debate, with rights supporters saying that guns don’t have to be fired to provide protection.

snip

The annual BCA gun reports also show that permit holders have been convicted of 124 crimes using a firearm since 2003. Gun control advocates say the rarity of justifiable uses points to a need to more tightly restrict access to firearms.

http://www.startribune.com/local/192919031.html

[Duckhunter935]

1. how many

never had to pull the trigger? 124 in ten years. How many permit holders were there during that time to figure percentage?

[Bjorn Against]

3. I don't know an exact number, but I do know 124 is a larger number than 5

How many criminal acts were never prosecuted? How many of those who as you put it "never had to pull the trigger" truly faced an imminent danger and how many did it to be macho? There are lots of unanswered questions but one fact remains, more permit holders shot a gun illegally than shot a gun in self defense.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. How many were never caught for their crimes?

We can both play that game. The data is what it is.

[Oneka]

17. " The data is what it is."

yes it is.. it's incomplete, and makes this statement unsupportable.

self-defense shootings rare for Minnesota permit holders
Illegal discharge by permit holders outnumbers allowed use.

[nonoyes]

2. 5 Justifiable uses by permit-holders versus 124 convictions ?

That's a ratio of about 25 convictions for non-justified use for any one justifiable use.

Interesting, no startling and revealing statistic from the data collected.

[Jenoch]

5. The story must actually be read to get the whole story.

The stats in the headline are useless. The Minneapolis Police Department never submitted data to the BCA when a CCW holder used their gun successfully in a defensive engagement. They said they didn't know they were supposed to. I would be surprised if there were not more LEO agencies who also did not report the data to the BCA.

[jimmy the one]

6. non gun owners can get dgu's, too

The stats in the headline are useless. The Minneapolis Police Department never submitted data to the BCA when a CCW holder used their gun successfully in a defensive engagement.

Examples from the article you cite: A justifiable use occurred in Wabasha County in 2005 involving a man who drew complaints about target shooting near someone’s property but wasn’t charged.

Huh? somebody explain that one to me please.

Evanovich pistol-whipped a woman and stole her purse. A witness pursued Evanovich and asked for the woman’s purse back. Evanovich responded by pointing his gun at the witness, who aimed his own gun and shot the robber dead.

Wow, Zimmerman lived in minnesota? did this guy also get a darwin award?

Briggs said he was pumping gas 2012 about 4 a.m. in when he saw four people drive up in a car with the headlights off. Briggs said he made eye contact with the driver and that the two stared at each other for three minutes until the group slowly drove away. Briggs said he never pulled out his Wilson Combat .45 pistol. “I think they were going to carjack me, Briggs said his gun gave him confidence to confront the group if need be. “My self-confidence, my eye contact, my body language. I was ready. And I think they figured that.”

Gee, ya really get a defensive gun use for that, gary kleck? a 'special category' of dgu, 'Phantom Defensive Gun Use'. Maybe they were taking hits of something or checkin' a map. If it were me, f- the dgu, I'm gettin' outta there & lockin' myself in, pump your own gas. Pumpin' gas at 4am by yourself? darwin award takeII.

Bellows said he believes that justifiable-use incidents are so low because the majority of permit holders often leave their guns at home. He said the permit renewal rate in his county has dropped steadily since 2009 and sits at about 40%.

Dang, I guess some gun owners are sorta smart in a sense, eh?

Gun guru gary kleck contended in his dgu study that 54% (yes fifty four) of defensive gun uses involved merely saying 'go away or I'll get a gun' (or similar, tho events could escalate further to actual gun use); in other words, perhaps 33% of all dgus do not involve a gun at all, a 'defensive gun use but no gun'.
I guess next time I get accosted I'll just shout out 'go away or I'll get a gun!', and if it works, my big problem will be whose gun should I give credit to? maybe my next door neighbor I think, his hunting rifle will get the credit, yeah. I'll report it to the cops that I meant 'go away or I'll get my neighbors hunting rifle!'. So who should REALLY get the dgu, me or my neighbor?

Just think everybody, you too could get a defensive gun use, AND NOT EVEN OWN A GUN!

[holdencaufield]

18. You could put your hand in your pocket and pretend to have a gun ...

... that ALWAYS works in the movies.

No one would EVER call your bluff on that.

[Oneka]

19. Darwin award?

http://www.darwinawards.com/rules/


Nominees significantly improve the gene pool by eliminating themselves from the human race in an obviously stupid way.

The Darwin Awards commemorate individuals who protect our gene pool by making the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives:

Neither one of these two guys died, right?

Most of your posts involve some mental gymnastics, this one , well ,,, yeah:

[Remmah2]

7. What about avoided confrontations where no shots are fired?

Several years ago my sister-in-law was having a substance abuse problem coupled with a mental health condition. On several occasions she threatened to go after my wife and in one episode she was in her car heading to our house. (In spite of restraining orders.) She admitted she had second thoughts because firearms are present in our house.

No shots have ever been fired, no firearm has ever left storage. The thought of it is what avoided the physical confrontation.

Defensive shootings are one statistic that can be quantified, confrontation avoidance is a statistic that can not.

[sarisataka]

8. Under reporting and...

The form used by law enforcement to provide information about gun permits has a field to report justifiable uses. However, in some cases, well-publicized justifiable shootings weren’t reported to the BCA.

The BCA recorded no such cases in 2010 and 2011, but permit-holders in Minneapolis shot three people during that period in cases ruled justifiable.

... and again narrowing the field to slant the numbers. Usually the tactic is to compare justifiable homicide to criminal homicide and accidents; this comparison is justifiable shooting to a crime when a person has a gun, whether relevant/used in the offense or not.

Even with the padded numbers, the average is 12.4 convictions per year. With an estimated 119,574 permits http://madfi.org/permitcount.asp that is a rate of 1 conviction per 964 holders or .1%. What other group, including police, clergy or MAIG members can compete with that rate?

[kudzu22]

9. Misleading

The report only counted incidents of shooting in self-defense. One need not necessarily pull the trigger to "use" a firearm in self-defense. If you pull the gun on an attacker and he runs away, that counts as a successful self-defense, and is likely not counted in any crime statistics anywhere.

[jimmy the one]

10. pendulum swings both ways

remmah: Defensive shootings are one statistic that can be quantified, confrontation avoidance is a statistic that can not.

kudzu: One need not necessarily pull the trigger to "use" a firearm in self-defense

True to both, but the pendulum swings both ways, for there are thousands of illicit gun misuses DAILY in america which also go unreported.
Shooting out street lamps & vacant bldg windows, bullets in road signs, poaching; inconsequential accidents not reported by parents or gunowners who prefer to 'absorb' any damage done rather than admit the accident (or gun abuse).
Illegal brandishing a firearm happens sometimes from law abiding creeps, or flashing a gun to others who seem 'suspicious' to the law abiding creep - who reports this to the cops outside a few? Malicious brandishing is a more severe offense, exposing pointing &/or pretending to fire for no real reason, not always reported.
Misfires at the hunting range generally are inconsequential & unreported.
Gunnut gone mad shooting his pistol 'for fun' while drinking some jack daniels & just wanting to let off steam at his place in the boondocks, happens all the time with no consequence.

I'd say unreported illicit gun misuses are way out ahead of even underreported dgus, by a couple orders of magnitude.

[Straw Man]

11. Huh?

Shooting out street lamps & vacant bldg windows, bullets in road signs, poaching; inconsequential accidents not reported by parents or gunowners who prefer to 'absorb' any damage done rather than admit the accident (or gun abuse).

There's no way to determine if these incidents are done by permit holders. That's the population being discussed.

Illegal brandishing a firearm happens sometimes from law abiding creeps, or flashing a gun to others who seem 'suspicious' to the law abiding creep - who reports this to the cops outside a few? Malicious brandishing is a more severe offense, exposing pointing &/or pretending to fire for no real reason, not always reported.

Certainly should be reported by the victim.

Misfires at the hunting range generally are inconsequential & unreported.

A misfire is when the gun doesn't go "bang." And what is a "hunting range"?

Gunnut gone mad shooting his pistol 'for fun' while drinking some jack daniels & just wanting to let off steam at his place in the boondocks, happens all the time with no consequence.

If said gun nut is not legally intoxicated, and the gun is fired into a safe backstop, there is nothing "illicit" about this and there are no "consequences."

[kudzu22]

12. The point of the article was to say that DGUs are extremely rare

and thereby implying that allowing citizens to carry serves no purpose. I was pointing out that they are using the wrong statistic for measuring DGUs -- only counting when the gun was fired in self-defense. A better measure would be to determine the outcomes of criminal encounters -- what % of unarmed people are hurt or killed in such encounters vs. what % of armed people are?

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." -- Mark Twain

[Callisto32]

13. Importance of methodology is lost on the antis.

[Bjorn Against]

14. The point is that not everyone who pulls a gun on someone is doing so in self defense

You say that the article is misleading because it does not count the number of times no shots were fired, if you had actually read the excerpt I posted however this very point was made in the third paragraph so I don't know how you can say it is misleading when it included the very point you said needed to be included.

The fact is however that there is very little data on people who pull guns on others without shooting for any reason. If you pull a gun on someone who poses no imminent threat that is a criminal act rather than an act of self defense so if we had good data on who was pointing guns at people and for what reasons they did so you would almost certainly find that many who pulled a gun were not truly in danger and were therefore committing a crime.

[slackmaster]

15. That's commonly called the "body count fallacy"

The false notion that the only way that a firearm can be used defensively is to shoot someone.

[Bjorn Against]

16. The article points out that argument, but it goes both ways

Not only can a gun be used for self defense without firing a shot, a gun can also be used to commit a crime without firing a shot. Pointing a gun in a threatening manner at anyone who does not pose an imminent threat is a criminal act, if there were good data on the reasons why people pulled guns on others the data would not only show more acts of self defense, it would also show far more criminal acts as well.

[jpak]

20. Does this mean someone has been lying to us?

Why yes it does.

YUP

[AtheistCrusader]

22. Apparently the entire US Department of Justice...

[jimmy the one]

21. hunting ranges

oneka: The Darwin Awards commemorate individuals who protect our gene pool by making the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives: Neither one of these two guys died, right?

wiki: The {darwin awards} website also recognizes individuals, who survive their misadventures with their reproductive capacity intact, with Honorable Mentions. One example of this is Lawnchair Larry, who attached helium filled weather balloons to a lawn chair and floated far above Long Beach, California, in July 1982. He reached an altitude of 16,000 feet (4,900 m) and was later fined for crossing controlled airspace

oneka: Most of your posts involve some mental gymnastics, this one , well ,,, yeah:

Thanks for the compliment. I think.
______________________________

me: Misfires at the hunting range generally are inconsequential & unreported.
straw man: A misfire is when the gun doesn't go "bang." And what is a "hunting range"?

A hunting range is where dick cheney goes to shoot quail... er, transparent tapdance jimmy; I first started to write 'when hunting' then switched to 'target range' & the thoughts ended up a cleft palate. You get a point tho, 9 more & you get a merit badge.
As far as misfire, I didn't, the author of the word is the final arbiter of how he intended it's use:
misfire: noun an occasion when a gun or an engine does not work in the right waymore...
.. a plan or activity that does not develop as you wanted (at a shooting range)

me: Gunnut gone mad shooting his pistol 'for fun' while drinking some jack..; strawman: If said gun nut is not legally intoxicated, and the gun is fired into a safe backstop, there is nothing "illicit" about this and there are no "consequences

That's a big 'if'. AND, I thought guns & alcohol don't mix? You say it's OK?

kudzu: A better measure would be to determine the outcomes of criminal encounters -- what % of unarmed people are hurt or killed in such encounters vs. what % of armed people are?

I can tell you that, roughly, without looking it up, since that study has been done before at least for robbery; .. comparing resisting with a gun to compliance - pulling out a gun during a robbery results in a slightly less chance of being injured (mildly or seriously), something like 12% chance of injury when a dgu, to 16% when compliance. But when a gun is drawn & there is injury, the injury tends to be more serious than compliance injury, like 10% are more severe, & slightly greater risk of dying to gun Puller - big surprise.