It seems as though each month there is another incident in which a gunman goes into a school, shopping mall or church, and tries to kill a score of people. These tragic events are then overplayed on television, and the gun control experts come out and encourage drastic federal gun control: i.e. take away the guns of all the law-abiding citizens. Guns are used five times more frequently to prevent crimes than to commit them. Florida State University Professor Gary Kleck (and see biography here) recently estimated that Americans use firearms at least 2.5 million times a year for self-defense.
Guns save many more lives than are taken away by deranged killers.
The purpose of this web page is to show that
every year guns in the hands of ordinary citizens save lives.
Fact Sheet: Guns Save Lives
Guns Save Lives, Scott Bach
The Testimony of Susan Gonzales
An Archive of Many Stories of How Guns Saved Lives
Guns Save Lives, M. Ryan Clark
Guns Save Lives, Thomas Sowell
True Stories of Americans Defending Their Lives With Firearms
110 Incidents from 1998 in which Guns Saved Lives
Students limit death toll in campus shooting with their firearms
Guns Stop Crime - Guns Save Lives
A policeman carries a gun to protect himself and other citizens. Guns are safety/rescue tools - not significantly different from your cell phone, your spare tire, your flashlight, your fire extinguisher or your first aid kit. Any of these tools can be used for good or evil. A policeman will carry all of the above in his patrol car; so will a first-responder; so will any self-sufficient responsible citizen.
Crimes are stopped with guns about five times as frequently as crimes are committed with guns. (John Lott -Gun Laws Can Be Dangerous, Too- Wall Street Journal, May 12, 1999 http://www.tsra.com/Lott22.htm)
Analyzing county-level data for the entire United States from 1977 to 2000, we find annual reductions in murder rates between 1.5 and 2.3 percent for each additional year that a right-to-carry law is in effect. For the first five years that such a law is in effect, the total benefit from reduced crimes usually ranges between about $2 billion and $3 billion per year. (Lott, John R., Plassmann, Florenz and Whitley, John E., Confirming More Guns, Less Crime, December 9, 2002 http://ssrn.com/abstract=372361)
A gun is the most effective defense against rape. When women are armed with a gun or knife an attempted rape is 10 times less likely to be completed. (U.S. Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, Rape Victimization in 26 American Cities (1979), p. 31. http://www.gunowners.org/sk0802.htm)