Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Having a Gun in the House Doesn't Make a Woman Safer


A father takes his 14-year-old daughter shopping at a gun show in Houston. (Reuters)

The Atlantic

Another large case-control study compared women who were murdered by their intimate partner with a control group of battered women. Only 16 percent of the women who had been abused, but not murdered, had guns in their homes, whereas 51 percent of the murder victims did. In fact, not a single study to date has shown that the risk of any crime including burglary, robbery, home invasion, or spousal abuse against a female is decreased through gun ownership. Though there are examples of women using a gun to defend themselves, they are few and far between, and not statistically significant.

These facts should be as chilling to men as they are to women. A 2005 studyexamining mortality data from 1998-2000 found that when a female was shot by her intimate partner, the perpetrator subsequently killed himself in two thirds of the cases. This statistic not only shows necessity of getting mental help for at-risk men. It also further suggests that owning a firearm may make a household more vulnerable than ever.  

22 comments:

  1. Though there are examples of women using a gun to defend themselves, they are few and far between, and not statistically significant.

    Tell that to the "insignificant" women who have used a gun to defend themselves. Tell them that you would prefer they be raped and/or killed, because "statistically," that's a better outcome than women having guns.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No one is denying that there are examples of guns saving lives. The only problem is that overall guns do more harm than good, as I continually show. You would take one example of a truly legitimate DGU and use that for the argument against any and all gun control laws. Meanwhile, gun misuse outruns those legitimate DGU maybe 100 to 1, maybe 1,000 to 1.

      Delete
    2. More numbers with nothing to back them but your word and wild speculation while you talk down any attempts at scientific studies, whether done by pro gun people or not.

      Delete
    3. False, as you well know, Mikeb.

      Delete
    4. You guys are the ones denying facts and statistics. Guns stolen each year and guns used in crime each year add up to a million plus incidents. And that's certainly not the only examples of the misuse of guns. Only your most exaggerated DGU estimates add up to more.

      Delete
    5. I can make up stuff to exaggerate my number, but it's very bad if I think You are doing it.

      Delete
    6. Mikeb, citing numbers from the CDC and the National Academies of Science doesn't constitute exaggeration. The ratio is actually something like 1:1, and that's if you discount the good that hunting, target shooting, and collecting are.

      Delete
    7. Hahahahaha, now we've got you down to 1:1. Hahahahahaha.

      Of course the 1 that represents DGUs includes made up incidents by self-aggrandizing gun nuts on the telephone, people who brandished their weapons unnecessarily and called it defensive and all those who fired at snakes and coyotes. While the other 1 is comprised only of stolen guns and those used in criminal acts, two hard numbers. And of course it DOES NOT include all the wrongful and unnecessary brandishings, all the dropped guns, all those carried into airports and post offices and other gun free zones, all those sold on the internet to disqualified people, etc., etc., etc.

      Guns do more harm than good, by a long shot.

      Delete
    8. More discounting of Hunting (after all, it's a sick, psychotic behavior), discounting of people defending themselves from animal attack, discounting of defensive uses where there's no body, etc. And then under harm we get things listed that harm nobody such as an unknown number of guns carried into and then out of gun free zones.

      Delete
    9. I don't discount DGUs where there's no body, I just say they're a lot rarer than you guys say they are. And that's the point. The estimates are not based on evidence or proof, but rather on what people SAY over the telephone when called for a survey.

      Why is it that you guys are so into facts, proof, evidence and all that good shit, EXCEPT when it comes to DGU estimates?

      Delete
  2. With 100,000,000 or more gun owners in this country, we'd all be dead if things were as dangerous as you make them out to be. Fortunately, your side exaggerates the risk.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, you wouldn't all be dead. You're the one exaggerating, as usual. But, what we do have is over 30,000 deaths, a couple hundred thousand injuries, countless incidents of negligence, half-a-million gun crimes and half-a-million stolen guns EACH YEAR.

      Delete
    2. Of those dead, two-thirds choose to kill themselves. Of the deaths and injuries, if you don't choose to participate in criminal activities, your odds are very good that you won't get shot.

      Delete
    3. Oh, so IF you don't involve yourself in crime, and IF you don't get depressed, and IF you don't overdo the alcohol and drugs, and IF you're really careful all the time, "your odds are very good that you won't get shot?"

      Delete
    4. Exactly. And since most people don't do those things or don't do them to the extent that the action becomes enough of a problem, our chances are very low.

      Delete
    5. Not most, Greg, only about half. The other half suffer from all the human ailments and failings as everyone else among the general population.

      Delete
    6. A free society must be such a burden to you, Mikeb, given your view of humanity.

      Delete
  3. "Mental help for at risk men"--at risk for being abusers? So now we're going to start looking at wife beaters as poor victims who weren't hugged enough rather than degenerates in need of severe punishment?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. First they need to be disarmed. Arming the women who live with them is counter-productive and just adds to the problem.

      Delete
    2. Yeah, let's lower the bar even further. Put guns in as many unqualified and inadequately-trained hands as possible. It's a recipe for disaster. No wonder it's been proposed in such a backwards state as Kentucky.

      Delete
    3. Yeah, let's lower the bar even further.

      Actually, I have no desire to "lower the bar." I want to smash the bar into little pieces, melt those pieces down, and cast them into the frame for a gun, to give to a poor woman who can't afford to buy lifesaving firepower for herself.

      Delete