Defensive gun uses for the month.

[beevul]

There has been differences of opinion reguarding how many defensive gun uses (DGU's) happen.

For instance...

One poster said:

"Blood and gore are more newsworthy than most defensive gun uses. Only in the newspaper of a very slow town are you likely to see a story about someone scaring off a prowler with a shotgun. Nobody really knows how often that kind of thing happens."


Another posters opinion differed:

"I Have a Theory that you don't see as many defensive gun use stories because there just aren't as many defensive gun uses as the pro-gunners want us to believe."


I personally believe more than just a few DGU's make it to media, but do so after the fact, 2 days to 3 weeks after they happen.

I make the following proposal in the interest of getting to the bottom of it, and getting hard evidence one way or the other to discuss.

How about a DGU's for the month thread that we can keep kicked or perhaps get a mod to sticky for us?


Something like this:


Defensive gun uses for the month of January.

Please try to adhere to the following voluntary guidelines, in order that we can have an orderly discussion of DGU news topics:

1 - Feel free to add any CURRENT stories to this thread by replying to this message. In order to be considered current, stories should have taken place within the month in the title.

2 - Please direct your comments to the story, rather than attacking the person posting the story or any person responding to the story. In accordance with DU rules, any messages that appear to be personal attacks against another DU-er or violations of any other DU rule will be reported to the moderators.

3 - If you object to these guidelines, do everyone else a favor and go to another thread.

4 - Bear in mind that any links to extremely right-wing sites (such as Newsmax, CNS, or the Washington Times) are not considered reliable sources by many DU-ers. If at all possible, try to find a link for your story from a more mainstream source, such as a general-circulation newspaper or magazine site. If you choose to use a slanted site, be prepared for any negative feedback you may receive.
Also , multiple links may help to keep the focus on the message, rather than the messenger.



Open to suggestions on guidelines as well.


What say you mods?

What say you J/PS participants?

[alwynsw]

1. Works for me

The DGU's I find are usually buried in the sections that often don't make it to online editions anyway.

Maybe this would work. It's worth a shot. (pun intended)

[ex_jew]

2. Makes a lot of sense, but how to interpret the results ?

Doubtless gun enthusiasts will say that no one reports DGU without injuries. And of course no one reports DGU that wasn't even necessary because criminals were deterred by the possibility of DGU. Still I applaud any attempt to quantify the supposed benefits of gun ownership. Are you aware of any academic research on this issue ?

[beevul]

3. I have seen some...

research, but it might be percieved as biased. I was hopeing we could leave academic research out of this. Not that it can't be valid, but often it leads to "he said/she said" "its biased" "its funded by the gun industry" "its funded by gun grabbers" type flames.

I know we wont get them all, but I would be interested in seeing just how many can be dug up. The numbers we would have would be "at the verry least" type numbers , I think.

[Wickerman]

4. I can support this in general

I've made a note for Skinner about the pinning - Mods can't do that. Its under discussion in the Mod's Cabana. If we can get Skinner out of the hot tub and some of the other Mods away from the Mai Tai's to chime in, we'll see what happens.

Should this wash, please give very strong consideration to creating an even stronger statement for item #4:

4 - Bear in mind that any links to extremely right-wing sites (such as Newsmax, CNS, or the Washington Times) are not considered reliable sources by many DU-ers. If at all possible, try to find a link for your story from a more mainstream source, such as a general-circulation newspaper or magazine site. If you choose to use a slanted site, be prepared for any negative feedback you may receive.

[beevul]

5. Thank you for sounding off.

"I've made a note for Skinner about the pinning - Mods can't do that. Its under discussion in the Mod's Cabana. If we can get Skinner out of the hot tub and some of the other Mods away from the Mai Tai's to chime in, we'll see what happens."

I wish you the best of luck on the pinning. Its a feature that would benefit everyone greatly,and IMO, you should have that ability.


"Should this wash, please give very strong consideration to creating an even stronger statement for item #4:"

Ok, I'll see what I can do on that.

Again, Thank You.:)

[Baclava]

6. Isn't this a non-news story?

How do you report a crime that didn't happen?

[MrBenchley]

7. It will be interesting to see in how many of them

the threat they're defending themselves from in the first place is a gun.

[slackmaster]

9. And that of course invalidates them as DGUs

Since if nobody had a gun nobody would ever have to use a gun to defend himself or herself against a gun, or so the "reasoning" goes.

Naturally using a gun to defend yourself against someone armed with a lesser weapon like a knife doesn't count either, because only a sissy brings a gun to a knife fight. Hey, it just isn't FAIR to use a gun when your attacker only has a knife.

(sarcasm_off)

:freak:

[CO Liberal]

10. Tell That To "Indiana Jones"

Hey, it just isn't FAIR to use a gun when your attacker only has a knife.

:-)

[slackmaster]

12. OT - Ever heard the true story of the filming of that scene?

It was supposed to be a 2 minute 30 second choreographed fight, but Harrison Ford had a bad case of the trots and he had to go right away. Drawing the gun and shooting the knife-wielding scary dude was ad-libbed.

[MrBenchley]

16. Interesting to see

that in more than half of this month's tales the person had to defend themselves against somebody else's gun.

Even more interesting to see the RKBA crowd working themselves into towering rages over that simple fact being pointed out. Evidently that's blasphemy...

[slackmaster]

17. What you have failed to explain

Is why it matters what kind of weapon or lack thereof a person defended himself or herself against.

Evidently that's blasphemy...

No, but it was awfully rude of you.

[MrBenchley]

18. And of course it was hilarious to see

that it deteriorated from "Joe Homeowner foiling an attack or robbery attempt" to "Ol' Joe trading shots with police officers come to arrest him for HIS attack or robbery attempt" in less than 24 hours.

[alwynsw]

19. Fair, hell!

That's why most statutes that deal with self defense are written as they are. "...when there is a reasonable fear for one's life..."

I figure the perp is just stupid for bringing a knife to a gun fight. Gun, club, bat, knife, etc. - if the intruder has an item that can kill me, I'll shoot if he refuses to put it down AND advances towards me or my family. I'll shoot if he has NOTHING and advances after my warning: I don't know if he's trained in martial arts or other techniques that can cause me to end up dead. Either way, if he runs away, I let him go.

[CO Liberal]

8. Sounds Good, With One Suggested Addition to the Guidelines

5 - Since this thread is a monthly summary, posting a story in this thread that also appeared in a daily "Guns In The News" thread will NOT be considered a dupe.

[beevul]

11. opinions?

"5 - Since this thread is a monthly summary, posting a story in this thread that also appeared in a daily "Guns In The News" thread will NOT be considered a dupe."

That is a good idea.

I want to ask...LunaBush suggested something stronger for #4.

Is this better?

4 - Bear in mind that any links to extremely right-wing sites (such as Newsmax, CNS, or the Washington Times) are not considered reliable sources by many DU-ers. If at all possible, try to find a link for your story from a more mainstream source, such as a general-circulation newspaper or magazine site. If you choose to use a slanted site, be prepared for any negative feedback you may receive. You will likely recieve some. Multiple links may help to keep the focus on the message, rather than the messenger. The whole Idea is to see how many we can find at mainstream sources. If you find something from a questionable source, back it up with as many links as possible.

[beevul]

13. Ok, heres what I have:

1 - Feel free to add any CURRENT stories to this thread by replying to this message. In order to be considered current, stories should have taken place within the month in the title.

2 - Please direct your comments to the story, rather than attacking the person posting the story or any person responding to the story. In accordance with DU rules, any messages that appear to be personal attacks against another DU-er or violations of any other DU rule will be reported to the moderators.

3 - If you object to these guidelines, do everyone else a favor and go to another thread.

4 - Bear in mind that any links to extremely right-wing sites (such as Newsmax, CNS, or the Washington Times) are not considered reliable sources by many DU-ers. If at all possible, try to find a link for your story from a more mainstream source, such as a general-circulation newspaper or magazine site. If you choose to use a slanted site, be prepared for any negative feedback you may receive. You will likely recieve some. Multiple links may help to keep the focus on the message, rather than the messenger. The whole Idea is to see how many we can find at mainstream sources. If you find something from a questionable source, back it up with as many links as possible.

5 - Since this thread is a monthly summary, posting a story in this thread that also appeared in a daily "Guns In The News" thread will NOT be considered a dupe.

6 - Since this thread will be kicking around for a month, lets keep the flames and whatnot outside this thread. We are all or nearly all(with respect to teen age folks) adults and should be able to act civilized in at least 1 discussion a month with people we disagree with.

7 - Suggestions about guidelines welcome.


Credit to you Co, alot of the above is yours from in GITN.

Also, if the guidelines meet everyones okeydokey, should we start with january of december?

[Wickerman]

14. No can pin

"Pinning should be reserved for Administrative announcements."

And, as Skinner has stated so many times in ATA - pinned posts tend to get ignored anyway.

[CO Liberal]

15. Regular Postings Will Keep It Near The Top

But if it turns out that the thread gets filled with "kick" messages, it may have to be locked.