The Good Side of Guns

Editor, 

Several recent letters criticizing gun ownership were misleading. They focused only on the negative side of guns. In any debate on social policy, both sides of the issue must be examined; the positive and the negative. 

The anti-gun folks failed to consider the good side of guns. Guns are used by honest Americans to defend themselves (and prevent crime) anywhere from one to two million times each year. The results from social science surveys about defensive gun use are remarkably consistent, going all the way back to 1975. 

In contrast, based on USDOJ data, we find that over the past decade, guns are (on average) used to commit crimes about 750,000 times each year. 

We never hear about the good side of guns because journalists are generally anti-gun. They will eagerly publish a story about a mass shooter using an AR-15 rifle; but they will rarely ever tell us about the many cases where home-owners use an AR-15 to stop home invaders. 

Focusing only on total gun deaths is misleading for two reasons. First, most of these “gun deaths” are really suicides, and not “gun violence.” 

Furthermore, the total number of gun deaths could only be useful information if it could be compared to the number of lives “saved” with guns. But here is the statistical problem: It is literally impossible for us to know how many lives are actually saved with guns. This is because we can never read the mind of a criminal who was stopped, when he tried to assault a victim. We will never know for certain if he intended only to rob, or instead to commit murder. 

So let’s compare apples to apples. Guns are used more often to prevent crime than to commit crime. Therefore, guns are a net benefit to society. 

–Peter Hauer, Castro Valley