2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
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A couple of breakdowns of how many lives are saved each year, on average, by armed Americans, and how much money is saved because Americans can use guns to stop criminals....in response to the bullshit from anti-gun extremists on how much criminals cost us because they shoot each other....
Lives saved....based on research? By law abiding gun owners using guns to stop criminals?
Case Closed: Kleck Is Still Correct
There are roughly 100,000 people shot in the United States yearly, and something over 30,000 die. If this 1/3 vs. 2/3 ratio of deaths to injuries in actual shootings pertains in these DGUs, that makes for at least 176,000 lives saved—less some attackers who lost their lives to defenders. This enormous benefit dwarfs, both in human and economic terms, the losses trumpeted by hoplophobes who only choose to see the risk side of the equation.
Money saved from people not being beaten, raped, murdered, robbed?.......
So figuring that the average DGU saves one half of a person’s life—as “gun violence” predominantly affects younger demographics—that gives us $3.465 million per half life.
Putting this all together, we find that the monetary benefit of guns (by way of DGUs) is roughly $1.02 trillion per year. That’s trillion. With a ‘T’.
I was going to go on and calculate the costs of incarceration ($50K/year) saved by people killing 1527 criminals annually, and then look at the lifetime cost to society of an average criminal (something in excess of $1 million). But all of that would be a drop in the bucket compared to the $1,000,000,000,000 ($1T) annual benefit of gun ownership.
When compared to the (inflation adjusted from 2002) $127.5 billion ‘cost’ of gun violence calculated by by our Ludwig-Cook buddies, guns save a little more than eight times what they “cost.”
Which, I might add, is completely irrelevant since “the freedom to own and carry the weapon of your choice is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right — subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility.”
So even taking Motherboard’s own total and multiplying it by 100, the benefits to society of civilian gun ownership dwarf the associated costs.
Annual Defensive Gun Use Savings Dwarf Study's "Gun Violence" Costs - The Truth About Guns
Lives saved....based on research? By law abiding gun owners using guns to stop criminals?
Case Closed: Kleck Is Still Correct
There are roughly 100,000 people shot in the United States yearly, and something over 30,000 die. If this 1/3 vs. 2/3 ratio of deaths to injuries in actual shootings pertains in these DGUs, that makes for at least 176,000 lives saved—less some attackers who lost their lives to defenders. This enormous benefit dwarfs, both in human and economic terms, the losses trumpeted by hoplophobes who only choose to see the risk side of the equation.
Money saved from people not being beaten, raped, murdered, robbed?.......
So figuring that the average DGU saves one half of a person’s life—as “gun violence” predominantly affects younger demographics—that gives us $3.465 million per half life.
Putting this all together, we find that the monetary benefit of guns (by way of DGUs) is roughly $1.02 trillion per year. That’s trillion. With a ‘T’.
I was going to go on and calculate the costs of incarceration ($50K/year) saved by people killing 1527 criminals annually, and then look at the lifetime cost to society of an average criminal (something in excess of $1 million). But all of that would be a drop in the bucket compared to the $1,000,000,000,000 ($1T) annual benefit of gun ownership.
When compared to the (inflation adjusted from 2002) $127.5 billion ‘cost’ of gun violence calculated by by our Ludwig-Cook buddies, guns save a little more than eight times what they “cost.”
Which, I might add, is completely irrelevant since “the freedom to own and carry the weapon of your choice is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right — subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility.”
So even taking Motherboard’s own total and multiplying it by 100, the benefits to society of civilian gun ownership dwarf the associated costs.
Annual Defensive Gun Use Savings Dwarf Study's "Gun Violence" Costs - The Truth About Guns
