There Are Far More Defensive Gun Uses Than Murders in America. Here's Why You Rarely Hear of Them.
While Americans know that guns take many innocent lives every year, many don’t know that firearms also save them. On May 15, an attacker at an apartment complex in Fort Smith, Ark., fatally
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While Americans know that guns take many innocent lives every year, many don’t know that firearms also save them.
On May 15, an attacker at an apartment complex in
Fort Smith, Ark., fatally shot a woman and then fired 93 rounds at other people before a man killed him with a bolt-action rifle. Police said he “likely saved a number of lives in the process.”
On June 30,
a 12-year-old Louisiana boy used a hunting rifle to stop an armed burglar who was threatening his mother’s life during a home invasion.
On July 4, a Chicago gunman shot into a crowd of people, killing one and wounding two others before a concealed handgun permit holder shot and wounded the attacker. Police praised him for stepping in.
These are just a few of the nearly 1,000 instances reported by the media so far this year in which gun owners have stopped mass shootings and other murderous acts, saving countless lives. And crime experts say such high-profile cases represent only a small fraction of the instances in which guns are used defensively. But the data are unclear, for a number of reasons, and this has political ramifications because it seems to undercut the claims of gun rights advocates that they need to possess firearms for personal protection -- an issue
now before the Supreme Court.
Americans who look only at the daily headlines would be surprised to learn that, according to academic estimates, defensive gun uses — including instances when guns are simply shown to deter a crime — are four to five times more common than gun crimes, and far more frequent than the
fewer than 20,000 murders each year, with or without a gun. But even when they prevent mass public shootings, defensive uses rarely get national news coverage. Those living in major news markets such as New York City, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles are unlikely to hear of such stories.
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Take the fatal shooting of two at the West Freeway Church of Christ near Fort Worth, Texas, in December 2019, for example. The media covered this attack, but repeatedly described the parishioners who stopped further bloodshed as “
security guards.” “These were not security professionals, just members of the church designated as security personnel as a kind of honorary title,” Jack Wilson, the church member credited with stopping the attack, told RCI. Wilson said that 19 to 20 members of the congregation were armed, but that neither he nor the church monitored who was carrying.
Comment:
You would think that the American people would prefer to hear/see stories like these. That is just not the case. They want to see hatred. They want to see the worst of human interaction. We have been so indoctrinated into violence (video games and TV) that we come to expect it like it was our evening meal.
Typically the Media say's 'If it bleeds it reads'. So why would they ever give the public the truth? Rather they would go along with Socialist power grabbing ideology.
