...that they just didn't expect most of their supporters to actually read the whole study.

Look how often stories get posted here from a Google dump that doesn't actually support the poster's agenda -- the headline says what they want to hear, so they don't bother reading any further.

...cunnilingus or whatever, interview of the anti-drug foundation, nothing from the other side. Unbelieveable how MSM was (and to a significant degree still is) locked into a prohi- stance.

I first saw it in Bansalot, and of course, I could not reply.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are being taken to task for not killing enough people.

Very, very few, in fact, compared to our frequent non-violent use of firearms.

Yes, you heard me right, especially you anti's - non violent use of a deadly weapon.

Like when a group of baddies surrounds you in an all-night parking garage and you put your hand on the grips and they run away...

(Happened to me 3 years ago)

Kind of messes up your paradigm, doesn't it.

vpc study: Study: SELF-PROTECTIVE BEHAVIORS, BY TYPE OF CRIME, 2012-2014
"Threatened or attacked with a firearm"

dscnt: Note: This is *not* the only type of defensive gun use. Sometimes, mere display suffices
and many DGUs are not reported to police - mine wasn't, for instance

You do understand that if a gun owner is being victimized in a crime, displaying or brandishing his own firearm is considered a counter threat, do you not? that is what is meant, in simplest terms for the table; and if firearm is displayed for merely a menacing look or frivolously, it could be considered a 'threatening' overreach.
If someone 'performs' a verbal dgu, such as 'go away or I'll get my gun', that is also considered a threat. Same as threatening to punch someone is a threat.

And if a gun owner does not report his dgu, that's his fault. Some are not reported due to the crime not being reported, which fits in with the NCVS, but also in the gunnut narrative that by reporting a dgu identifies the person as a gun owner for the horrors of gun registration purposes; and ramifications of performing a dgu but not reporting the crime - unreasonable fear they could be charged with threatening with a firearm for 'no reason'.

dscntnt: Cut to the chase- how many of these 'rare' occasions happened during the period under study? 262,500 Therefore in 2013 there were 18x as many defensive gun uses (using the VPC's own restricted definiton than there were murders via gun

You obviously overlook the premise of the VPC study, & redefine & confine it to a DGU vs murder comparison. Reread the premise of the study below:
This report analyzes, on both the national and state levels, the use of firearms in justifiable homicides. It also details, using the best data available on the national level, the total number of times guns are used for self-defense by the victims of both attempted and completed violent crimes and property crimes whether or not the use of the gun by the victim resulted in a fatality...

The flaw in dscntnt's reasoning is that validly one must compare the total number of reported & unreported crimes (18 million + 52 million = 70 million over 3 years), to the quarter million defensive gun uses over that time period.
Then you get the real deal, that dgus are only used to allegedly thwart one in 280 crimes. One of ~72 violent crimes.

(note that I get 0.35% rather than vpc's 0.2%, perhaps they are confining to one or other statistic): looking at the total number of self-protective behaviors undertaken by victims of attempted or completed property crime for the three-year period 2012 through 2014, in only 0.2 percent of these instances had the intended victim in resistance to a criminal threatened or attacked with a firearm.
During this same three-year period, only 99,900 of the self-protective behaviors involved a firearm. Of this number, it is not known what type of firearm was used, whether it was fired or not, or whether the use of a gun would even be a legal response to the property crime. And as before, the number may also include off-duty law enforcement officers. In comparison, data from the Dept of Justice shows that an average of 232,400 guns were stolen each year from U.S. households from 2005 to 2010.

As typical for you dscntnt, your reporting is pretty leaky & sloppy, with biased & invalid conclusions on your part.

"total number of times guns are used for self-defense by the victims of both attempted and completed violent crimes and property crimes"

"Self-defense" while utilizing a "gun" is typically referred to as a "Defensive Gun Use".

Per the VPC the "rare" event of a DGU happens far more often than homicide by gun. Their numbers give over 200,000 DGUs per year. Only about 1 in 1000 DGUs result in death.

Those totals male lie the accusation that gun owners are simply looking for a chance to kill.

It also raises issue with VPC credibility when they talk about a "rare" event then highlight only a subset that represents .1% of the total.

"total number of times guns are used for self-defense by the victims of both attempted and completed violent crimes and property crime" to be entirely reasonable.

So does most reasonable people.
Thus the given criteria in this study.

Of those DGUs saved a life and therefore saved 20,000 people or more than double homicides.

It is hard to measure a non-event true. Using the FBI data from 2014, 1.2% of violent crimes resulted in Murder. Applying that statistic to DGUs will approximate out to 2500 lives saved. It does not fully offset the 8500 however it is not an insignificant number.

Also an important consideration is how many violent assaults and sexual assaults were prevented with those DGUs. It is likely they far exceed the number of homicides.

sari: Using the FBI data from 2014, 1.2% of violent crimes resulted in Murder. Applying that statistic to DGUs will approximate out to 2500 lives saved. It does not fully offset the 8500 however it is not an insignificant number.

Why do you think you can validly apply 1.2% to the fbi figures for total defensive gun uses? as if dgus life savers were tit for tat with murder per violent crime? non sequitur.

Also an important consideration is how many violent assaults and sexual assaults were prevented with those DGUs. It is likely they far exceed the number of homicides.

Certainly, but that's accounted for in the one of 280 I posted.

Stat makes more sense than pulling a number out of the air like 200 or twenty thousand.

"for the five-year period 2007 through 2011, the NCVS estimates that there were 29,618,300 victims of attempted or completed violent crime. During this same five-year period, only 235,700 of the self-protective behaviors involved a firearm."

"for the three-year period 2012 through 2014, the NCVS estimates that there were 18,328,600 victims of attempted or
completed violent crime. During this same three-year period, only 163,600 of the self-protective behaviors involved a firearm."

"According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, 467,321 persons were victims of a crime committed with a firearm in 2011."
"An estimated 466,110 nonfatal firearm victimizations occurred in 2014"

5.8 Mil - 6.1 Mil violent crimes annually.
with 465K firearm victimizations.

And 45,000-55,000 SDGU against violent crime annually.


"what is most striking is that in a nation of more than 300 million guns, how rarely firearms are used in self-defense."

Sounds like we need to carry more.