They Are Both Right

[chris_gerrib]

A few days ago, John Scalzi posted an article detailing the difficulties of using a gun in self-defense. In it, he posted of people who carry a gun his opinion that (of the gun-carrier) "here’s a dude who’s afraid of every fucking thing in the world."

This particular statement, the post in total, and another Internet slap-fest going on about rape, provoked a lot of responses. The most cogent I've see was by Mike Z. Willamson. In the post, Mike defined three approaches which should be used in conjunction for (specifically) rape prevention and self-defense in general. They are:
Prevention - reducing actual criminal activity
Avoidance - reducing an individual's risk of becoming a victim of crime
Response - responding to a crime in progress

Williamson, in his post, took a few swipes at Scalzi, but here's the thing. Both men are correct.

Williamson correctly points out that guns can and are used in self-defense, while Scalzi correctly points out that guns are not pixie dust - things can go wrong. Williamson doesn't address the "afraid of everything" remark, but in this case Scalzi has a statistically-valid point. Per the NRA, there are about 8 million active concealed-carry permits in the US. That's out of 317 million people, so only about 2.5% of Americans carry a gun. By definition, people who carry a gun are "extreme."

Comments

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

"Per the NRA, there are about 8 million active concealed-carry permits in the US. That's out of 317 million people, so only about 2.5% of Americans carry a gun. By definition, people who carry a gun are "extreme.""

Just to nitpick, this statement assumes that all Americans who carry a gun also have an active concealed-carry permit.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

well, I know some who have a permit and rarely if ever carry, and some states (New Hampshire) don't require a permit. I suspect that the real number of people who routinely carry a gun washes out around 10 million - still a small number.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I've had versions of this argument with people who argue about the 'explosion' in gun crime in the UK since the handgun ban. Prior to the ban, something like 10,000 people had a handgun license, out of 60m... so something like 0.01% of the population.

To suggest that that 0.01% had any impact on crime rates is nonsensical, likewise, while by some metrics the rate did indeed double, it doubled from very very very low to very very low and most of it involved drug related crime and very little 'personal' crime.

Of course, such comparisons are made harder by differences in how different countries collate crime stats, but still, guns had and still have almost no real impact on crime in the UK.

The idea that 2.5% of the population in the US is actually having a statistical impact is marginally more valid, but not a lot more.