Aux Armes, citoyens!

 Imagine my surprise seeing this headline in Le Figaro after listening to gun nuts extol how the US is the beacon of "gun rights" and gun ownership. Here's the link, but you need to:

1. Be a subscriber to Le Figaro and
2. be able to understand French

to be able to read the article.

https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/face-a-l-insecurite-de-plus-en-plus-de-francais-s-arment-20220109

Yes, the French aren't "victims" to use the Gun Culture paradigm since they can get a firearm for protection. Sure, they have to undergo some form of serious background check before they can get permission to own them, but France is in 24th place for armed citizenry in the world with a ratio of 19.6 guns per 100 inhabitants. Or 12 million weapons in civilian hands in France.

Anyway, it was amusing to see an article like this in a French newspaper since the gun nuts like to claim that the US is somehow "unique" in the ability to own firearms. This article could have come from a US newspaper, which is the source of my amusement. Here are a few excerpts:

"Stop hoplophobia", chanted the activists of the Association for the Restoration of Citizen Carry of Arms (Arpac). Hoplophobia? "The irrational fear felt by some people at the mere mention of a weapon, where a normal person distrusts the one who carries it," they say. On Facebook, their page has more than 45,000 subscribers - three times as many as five years ago - who promote self-defence and the carrying of weapons for "responsible citizens". With a firearm, "you are no longer a victim, but an actor in your own safety", they insist...

Does he see himself shooting a potential burglar? I'm going to take all the necessary measures to prevent that from happening," he says. I'm going to install an armoured door and close the shutters every night. But I can imagine myself taking the gun out of the window and firing it into the air to scare the attacker. What is not possible is to stand by and do nothing...

Marie-Hélène, who lives alone in her house in the heart of a small town in the Hérault region, has the same desire to be safe. During the lockdown, "in the middle of the night, the municipal police rang my doorbell: they had seen a man loitering near my gate", reports this 60-year-old widow.

I think the "uniqueness" is less in the ability to own firearms and more in the irresponsible manner that they are owned in the United States. Or as the police advice mentioned in the article says:

Don't shoot if the man happens to be passing through your garden. You would be in more trouble than the offender.

Reality versus gun rights

It's really fun watching people defend the rioters and looters in the current situation. I'm going to use Pennsylvania law, but there is Title 18, Article F, Chapter 55: Riot, Disorderly Conduct and Related Offenses, which means that the destruction and looting caused by the rioters is illegal.

No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Trashing stores and stealing the contents is not a political act, but a criminal one.

Let's add in that not only is it a criminal act, but it is actual violence. As I said to one person being able to understand the rioters would also mean that you understand why people are protesting the Covid-19 lockdowns with guns. As they say, they may not agree with the method, but they understand the frustration.

Actually, I find the armed protesters less of a threat than I do an out of control mob who are actually engaged in violent acts. Arson is a major cause of loss of life and injury in commercial properties. Strangely, the people who somehow find that the rioting and looting are justified have an issue with people exercising their right to self-defence.

Rioting, looting, arson, and the other illegal acts mentioned in Title 18, the crimes code, and specifically Title 18, Article F, Chapter 55, are just that crimes and illegal. On the other hand someone does have the right to self-defence if they have a reasonable belief that are in danger of death or serious bodily injury. Which happens to be a very real threat if you are in the sights of rioters.

One person said, "couldn't you get out of their way, or leave town?" Is that a fair question if you get the lockdown order and AREN'T allowed to leave? Someone in that situation is pretty much stuck.

Which gets to the gun rights type's question: "shouldn't the person be allowed to defend themselves?" To which "Fuck, yeah!" seems to be the most sensible answer. And if the best weapon happens to be something semi-auto that can accept a large capacity magazine: then they should indeed be allowed to have such a weapon.

Which is why I titled this the way I did.

The person who somehow feels that the violence is "justified" or "understandable" should also be able to accept that people have a right to protect themselves. And the right which is lawful is the one of self-protection.

Not rioting.

Or as Donald Trump said: “when the looting starts, the shooting starts."

While I don't like Trump or the underlying events which led to the protests, the movement to violence has changed the game to a no win situation. And the people who are going to be the big losers are the ones the protests were supposed to help.

Likewise, I have made it clear that I don't support "gun rights" or believe it to be a real thing, but if people are going to condone violence, then they need to accept that the cycle of violence will continue.

And isn't ending the violence what the protests were trying to do?

 You can condemn the violence, yet still support the underlying cause. If anything, it makes far more sense to condemn the violence instead of allowing the cycle of violence to keep rolling on.

Grasping at Straws (or the Pro-gun side really has a problem)

I was trying to find the study that demonstrated using a gun for self-defence is usually counterproductive. Instead of finding that data, I was bombarded with this "Secret CDC Study" that "confirms" The 2-3 Million annual DGU number. It doesn't which is why I am publishing it in full.

Defensive Use of Guns

Defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence, although the exact number remains disputed (Cook and Ludwig, 1996; Kleck, 2001a). Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010). On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey (Cook et al., 1997). The variation in these numbers remains a controversy in the field. The estimate of 3 million defensive uses per year is based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys. The former estimate of 108,000 is difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.

A different issue is whether defensive uses of guns, however numerous or rare they may be, are effective in preventing injury to the gun-wielding crime victim. Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was “used” by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies (Kleck, 1988; Kleck and DeLone, 1993; Southwick, 2000; Tark and Kleck, 2004). Effectiveness of defensive tactics, however, is likely to vary across types of victims, types of offenders, and circumstances of the crime, so further research is needed both to explore these contingencies and to confirm or discount earlier findings.

Even when defensive use of guns is effective in averting death or injury for the gun user in cases of crime, it is still possible that keeping a gun in the home or carrying a gun in public—concealed or open carry—may have a different net effect on the rate of injury. For example, if gun ownership raises the risk of suicide, homicide, or the use of weapons by those who invade the homes of gun owners, this could cancel or outweigh the beneficial effects of defensive gun use (Kellermann et al., 1992, 1993, 1995). Although some early studies were published that relate to this issue, they were not conclusive, and this is a sufficiently important question that it merits additional, careful exploration.

Odd that most of the people who want to use this fail to quote the title: Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence

The reason I call this post what I do is that any person who says this somehow "confirms" the 2-3 million annual DGUs is either dishonest as fuck or illiterate.

This doesn't confirm anything other than gun violence research is not being properly carried out. The fact that the progun side is using this to back up their claims shows that they are really desperate to prove their claim.

Which this doesn't do.

Sorry, but the reason for the research ban was that the facts were against the "pro-gun" side. And it doesn't seem that is going to change looking at how they are using something like this to back up their claims.

The progunners would be better off letting the research happen and let if fall where it may

See also:

• How Often Do People Use Guns In Self-Defense?
• Gun deaths rising among white kids as more families own handguns