Guns Prevent Thousands of Crimes Every Day, Research Shows | Lawrence W. Reed fee.org/articles/guns-… via @feeonline
Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year, or 6,849 every day. Most often, the gun is never fired, and no blood (including the criminal’s) is shed.
Every year, 400,000 life-threatening violent crimes are prevented using firearms.
60 percent of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed.
Forty percent of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they thought the victim might be armed.
Felons report that they avoid entering houses where people are at home because they fear being shot.
Fewer than 1 percent of firearms are used in the commission of a crime.
It’s worth pointing out that the Center for Disease Control, in a report ordered by Obama in 2012 following the Sandy Hook Massacre, estimated that the number of crimes prevented by guns could be even higher—as many as 3 million annually, or some 8,200 every day.
“By 66% to 32%, economists and criminologists answer that gun-free zones are “more likely to attract criminals than they are to deter them.” A 60% to 40% margin thinks that guns in the home do not increase suicides.
And a 62% to 35% spread says that guns are used in self-defense to stop crime more often than in the commission of crime.
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