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Looking for Self Defense Statistics

T Vance

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2009
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2,482
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Not on this website, USA
I've been looking but can't find the most up to date self defense stats of citizens using firearms, preferably handguns.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks
 

PDinDetroit

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Jun 20, 2009
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SE, Michigan, USA
TVance - good to see you here even though you are "not in this website" :uhoh:

Try here, I find this info at least though provoking for further research...

http://www.gunfacts.info/

Is there any specific stats you are looking for? Display Only, Actual Use, Citizens Charged With Crimes Associated, Citizens Found Acting in Self-Defense, Type of Firearm Used, etc?
 
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T Vance

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2009
Messages
2,482
Location
Not on this website, USA
TVance - good to see you here even though you are "not in this website" :uhoh:

Try here, I find this info at least though provoking for further research...

http://www.gunfacts.info/

Is there any specific stats you are looking for? Display Only, Actual Use, Citizens Charged With Crimes Associated, Citizens Found Acting in Self-Defense, Type of Firearm Used, etc?

Thank you sir. I'll see if I can find what I'm looking for here. Looks like there is a TON of information to go over.
 

T Vance

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2009
Messages
2,482
Location
Not on this website, USA
So far I've found the following... (I'll add more as I have time to go through more)

- Only 0.1% (1 in a thousand) of the defensive uses of guns results in the death of the
predator.150 This means you are much more likely to prevent a crime without bloodshed
than hurt a family member.

- Every year, people in the United States use guns to defend themselves against
criminals an estimated 2,500,000 times – more than 6,500 people a day, or once every 13
seconds.151 Of these instances, 15.6% of the people using firearms defensively stated that
they "almost certainly" saved their lives by doing so.

- Firearms are used 60 times more often to protect lives than to take lives.

- In 83.5% (2,087,500) of these successful gun defenses, the attacker either
threatened or used force first, proving that guns are very well suited for self-defense.

- The rate of defensive gun use (SGU) is six times that of criminal gun use.

- Of the 2,500,000 times citizens use guns to defend themselves, 92% merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers.

- Less than 8% of the time does a citizen wound his or her attacker, and in less than one in a thousand instances is the attacker killed.

- Of all forms of firearm homicide, 13% are civilian legal defensive homicides.

- For every accidental death, suicide, or homicide with a firearm, 10 lives are saved through defensive use.

- When using guns in self-defense, 91.1% of the time not a single shot is fired.

- You are far more likely to survive a violent assault if you defend yourself with a gun. In episodes where a robbery victim was injured, the injury/defense rates were:
Resisting with a gun 6%
Did nothing at all 25%
Resisted with a knife 40%
Non-violent resistance 45%

- Every day, 550 rapes, 1,100 murders, and 5,200 other violent crimes are prevented just by showing a gun. In less than 0.9% of these instances is the gun ever actually fired.

- 60% of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed. 40% of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they thought the victim might be armed.
 

Super Trucker

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Joined
Dec 8, 2010
Messages
263
Location
Wayne County, MI.
Thanks for sharing, hope you are able to find what you are looking for.

What I find interesting is that "brandishing" a firearm is possibly part of self-defense, yet a MI Legislator introduced a bill to make the MI Brandishing Crime a stiffer penalty.

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2011-2012/billintroduced/House/pdf/2011-HIB-4012.pdf

If i am not mistaken isn't brandishing a crime that is not really defined in the law books? So this bill would basically make a stiffer penalty for a crime that has no definition?
 
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jeremy05

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May 18, 2009
Messages
426
Location
Arizona, ,
I would imagine that most uses of a firearm were its not fired is never reported. So a lot of self-defense STATS are going to be lacking.
 

PDinDetroit

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Jun 20, 2009
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Location
SE, Michigan, USA

Bronson

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Jul 14, 2008
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Location
Battle Creek, Michigan, USA
For items not defined/codified within the law, they rely on a dictionary...

According to the lawyers that post on MGO the dictionary is the last place they look. First they go to appellate court decisions then other laws. If neither of those can provide a definition then the dictionary is used.

Bronson
 

TheQ

Regular Member
Joined
Aug 2, 2010
Messages
3,379
Location
Lansing, Michigan
According to the lawyers that post on MGO the dictionary is the last place they look. First they go to appellate court decisions then other laws. If neither of those can provide a definition then the dictionary is used.

Bronson

This is correct, says Jenny Granholm and Steve Dulan. They can also make a definition up if none exist.
 

PDinDetroit

Regular Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2009
Messages
2,328
Location
SE, Michigan, USA
That AG opinion says reserve officers, how does that apply to those of us that are not in the elite group of LEO's?


Applicable Parts of the Opinion:

Thus, a reserve police officer with limited law enforcement authority would not qualify as a "peace officer" under subsection 2 of section 234e of the Michigan Penal Code. A reserve police officer with general law enforcement authority who is regularly employed would qualify as a "peace officer" under subsection (2) of section 234e.

Applying these definitions to your question, it is clear that a reserve police officer, regardless whether he or she qualifies as a "peace officer," when carrying a handgun in a holster in plain view, is not waving or displaying the firearm in a threatening manner. Thus, such conduct does not constitute brandishing a firearm in violation of section 234e of the Michigan Penal Code.

It is my opinion, therefore, that a reserve police officer, by carrying a handgun in a holster that is in plain view, does not violate section 234e of the Michigan Penal Code, which prohibits brandishing a firearm in public.

If a Reserve Police Officer does not qualify as a "Peace Officer", then they are the same as you and I under the law (assuming neither of us are "Peace Officers"). The opinion states it does not matter if the person qualifies as a "Peace Officer", carrying a handgun in a holster in plain view is not brandishing.
 

ken243

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2010
Messages
140
Location
Clio, MI
Believe it or not the CDC tracks many of the statistics you may be looking for....
 
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