Word: guns
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...week survey by TIME found a similar ratio on a national basis: only 14 of the 464 gun deaths resulted from defensive firing. An alarming 216 were suicides, 22 were accidental, and many of the rest involved homicides among people who knew each other well rather than citizens gunned down by strangers...
There is far more research on the question of who is most likely to get killed when someone keeps a gun at home. In a 1986 study called "Protection or Peril?," Dr. Arthur Kellermann, a University of Tennessee professor of medicine, and Dr. Donald Reay, chief medical examiner of King County in Washington, concluded that for each defensive, justifiable homicide there were 43 murders, suicides or accidental deaths. Out of 398 gunshot fatalities in homes in King County between 1978 and 1983, only nine were motivated by self- defense...
Such statistics do not refute the argument that a gun, even if not fired, can save a life by discouraging a murderous attacker. Still, Tulane sociologist James Wright points out that guns have limited usefulness in preventing crimes. About 90% of crimes in homes occur when the resident is away, he notes, while violent crimes often take place on the streets. Says Wright: "Unless you make a habit of walking around with your gun at all times, you're not going to stop that either...
...relatively balanced view of the gun question comes, surprisingly, from Kleck. "The vast majority of the population lives in low-crime neighborhoods and has virtually no need for a gun for defensive reasons," he says. "A tiny fraction has a great deal of reason to get anything it can get that might help reduce its victimization...
Even the American Rifleman accounts of how helpful a gun can be in saving a life may not always tell the full story. In the case of cabdriver Bolton, the N.R.A. magazine failed to report how chance, rather than her pistol, saved her life. Bolton told the Arizona Republic that after she wounded her assailant, he grabbed her gun, pushed the barrel against her neck and pulled the trigger several times. What really saved Bolton was that she had emptied the chamber. Said she: "I kept thinking that maybe there was a bullet still in it and it would...