by Mark E. Howerter, posted May 18, 1996
"a gun in the home is 43 times more likely to kill you or a friend
than a criminal intruder."
This 'factoid' comes from a study published in the New England Journal
of Medicine (which is anti-gun, as you know).
The statistic is true, kind of, but you have to work at it. Here's how
they did it:
First, they counted suicides. Of those 43 gun deaths in the home,
37 are suicides. This is bogus, unless you believe that buying a
gun makes you more likely to become suicidal (a very questionable
proposition). There will always be other means available to a
suicidal individual.
Second, "you or a friend" actually means "you or anybody known to
you". If the shooter knew the shootee in ANY WAY, they counted it
within the 43 -- even if it was a drug dealer shooting another
drug dealer over a deal gone bad. Or even a woman shooting a
violent ex-boyfriend who was stalking her in her home. Many
justifiable self-defense homicides are counted among the 43. The 1
only counts total strangers.
Third, they count homicides in all households with guns -- even if
the household gun wasn't involved in the shooting. In other words:
a criminal enters a house, bringing his own gun, and shoots the
homeowner. The homeowner's gun is locked securely in his safe the
entire time. Regardless, this is counted among the 43, since a
gun-owning homeowner was killed with a gun.
Finally, it assumes that the proper measure of a gun's defensive
value is the number of dead intruders it generates. 98% of the
time, defensive use of a gun involves NO SHOOTING. The criminal
surrenders or flees. The value of a defensive gun doesn't hinge on
the criminal body count outside your front door, but rather in
crimes prevented, innocent lives saved, and the continued good
health of your family.
The 43:1 statistic is a classic case of prejudice in research. They
decided beforehand that they wanted to make guns look as bad as
possible, and slanted all their numbers toward that end. The final
result is meaningless.