Only a citizen with a gun can stop a shooting spree …

[politicus]

Only a citizen with a bazooka can stop a tank spree.

[dead0man]

Sure, those tales make better headlines, but do we (can we?) know for certain that the actual numbers lean that way?

You've got to be kidding me.  About one-third of female murder victims and 4% of male murder victims are dead because of domestic violence  (link)  Applying those figures to the rates of firearm homicides (link) one gets roughly 1,000 people killed by a gun in domestic disputes each year.  (Roughly 600 females and 400 males).  These incidents happen daily and since it's usually only a single death each time (save when the children also get killed) they aren't newsworthy on the national level.

And you know how often a gun saves a life in America?  I'd bet dollars to donuts that it happens daily and a good chunk of the time the only ones that know it happened are the ones involved in the situation.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Sure, those tales make better headlines, but do we (can we?) know for certain that the actual numbers lean that way?

You've got to be kidding me.  About one-third of female murder victims and 4% of male murder victims are dead because of domestic violence  (link)  Applying those figures to the rates of firearm homicides (link) one gets roughly 1,000 people killed by a gun in domestic disputes each year.  (Roughly 600 females and 400 males).  These incidents happen daily and since it's usually only a single death each time (save when the children also get killed) they aren't newsworthy on the national level.

And you know how often a gun saves a life in America?  I'd bet dollars to donuts that it happens daily and a good chunk of the time the only ones that know it happened are the ones involved in the situation.

If you're going to add that sort of vagueness, don't forget to add all the times that one partner threatens the other with a gun, but doesn't actually kill them on the other side of the ledger.  Dead0man, there really is no disputing that America would overall be a safer society with a lot fewer guns floating around.  What can be disputed is what sorts of measures could be reasonably be taken to get to that goal.

[dead0man]

But there are more guns now than ever (thanks Obama!) yet there is less violent crime now than in the past.  I'm not saying it's just because there are more guns, there are a bunch of likely reasons, but it is down.  No matter how much the news and the gun control people would have you to believe otherwise.

[AkSaber]

[And you know how often a gun saves a life in America?  I'd bet dollars to donuts that it happens daily and a good chunk of the time the only ones that know it happened are the ones involved in the situation.

http://americangunfacts.com/

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

[And you know how often a gun saves a life in America?  I'd bet dollars to donuts that it happens daily and a good chunk of the time the only ones that know it happened are the ones involved in the situation.

http://americangunfacts.com/

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Well it appears that as a whole the brave citizen defenders of 'Murica are awful shots. That site selectively compares gun defenses vs. gun deaths to get its 80:1 figure. If one used all firearm crimes instead of just deaths, it wouldn't be anywhere so lopsided.   Looking at the study used to support the 80 side, it seems that among those surveyed 15.6% said they had fired with the intent of hitting the target.  Even assuming every single firearm injury came from a shot being fired from a defender's gun that means very few of those shots hit their target, assuming the numbers from that survey are accurate.  Frankly, given the nature of some of our brave citizen defenders, we probably ought to be grateful they're generally poor shots.