The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with
a gun.
It's a common refrain touted by gun rights advocates, who
argue that using guns in self-defense can help save lives. But what is the
actual number of defensive gun uses?
According to the Pew Research Center, 48
percent of gun owners say they own a gun mainly for protection. But
for years, experts have been divided over how often people actually use guns in
self-defense. The numbers range from the millions to hundreds of thousands,
depending on whom you ask.
The latest data show that people use guns for self-defense
only rarely. According to a Harvard
University analysis of figures from the National Crime Victimization
Survey, people defended themselves with a gun in nearly 0.9 percent of
crimes from 2007 to 2011, reported NPR.
David Hemenway, who led the Harvard research, argues that
the risks of owning a gun outweigh the benefits of having one in the rare case
where you might need to defend yourself.
"The average person ... has basically no chance in
their lifetime ever to use a gun in self-defense," he
tells Here & Now's Robin Young. "But ... every day, they have
a chance to use the gun inappropriately. They have a chance, they get angry.
They get scared."
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