Interesting piece in "Men's Health" (June 2008)

[Snake Doctor]

I know it's tough to read the article, but I'm sure it's big enough to see who was the 8th worst for gun crime in the US with a whopping D-. That's right, folks, it's Washington, DC, where law-abiding citizens aren't allowed to bear arms. And my mom still doesn't understand why I wouldn't take that internship in DC this summer...

Also, for those unable to see the small text, Texas cities were ranked as follows: Dallas, D; Houston, D+; Fort Worth, C+; San Antonio, B-; Arlington, B+; Austin/Corpus Christi/Lubbock, A; and El Paso, A+.

[Skiprr]

Marking Men's Health off my list of potentially interesting magazines.

And how the heck did El Paso in the great State of Texas get an A+ for "Least Armed and Dangerous"?

I am embarrassed any Texas city would be on that side of the ledger.

[G.C.Montgomery]

Well, you got me curious since I've never bothered to read this magazine so I did a quick search on their website using the the word "gun" as my search term. This article was the first thing that popped up on the list. I'm not saying it doesn't speak to an obvious bias but, I noticed a pretty honest caption under the Glocks at the top...."A gun wil protect you from the bad guys, but not from yourself." Having been in at least one class where a student shot himself, I can't disagree with that statement.

If my link doesn't work...Copy the following URL to your browser...http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.d ... 00cfe793cd____

And for those not willing to visit the site...

Special Report: Men and Guns
Men buy 90 percent of all firearms sold. We're also the ones most likely to be hit when one goes off. Is it time to reevaluate this explosive relationship?
Reported by: Bill Gifford, Photographs by: Davies + Starr

The Castle Doctrine
A few months ago, I went shopping for a pistol. First, I had to fill out a form. The federal government wanted to know my name and address, my Social Security number, and whether I was an illegal alien, addicted to marijuana or other drugs, or a convicted felon. The form didn't ask if I'd ever wanted to kill somebody. (Or myself, for that matter.)

"This model really has a nice balance to it," said the bushy-browed store clerk, Steve, as I aimed the unloaded .22-caliber at a stuffed deer on display at the local branch of Gander Mountain, a massive outdoor-sports department store outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He was right: The ergonomic rubber grip fit my hand better than any golf club ever had.

"I'll take it." I nodded, drawing a bead on the deer's neck, and Steve made a call to complete the required instant federal background check. A few minutes later, he swiped my credit card and walked me out to the parking lot. "Congratulations on your purchase," Steve said, and I drove off into the night with my brand-new gun and a box of bullets.

In its own cold, hard way, the pistol was a thing of beauty: form wedded lethally to function. It weighed about 2 pounds, solid but not heavy, and the matte-black, flat-sided, 5-inch steel barrel was stamped with the name of its maker: Browning, Morgan, Utah. Founded in 1878 in what was then the Utah Territory, Browning made the guns that won America's wars. I was holding a piece of history, a link to the frontier. I was thrilled, and I drove home a little bit faster than I should have.

I wasn't the first guy to fall in love with a gun. At this very moment, they can be found in roughly 30 percent of American households, according to a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. And 90 percent of them are bought by men, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Their primary motivation: self-defense. I myself like the thought of dishing out hot lead to any unwanted visitors in my home.

But by purchasing that gun, I'd vastly worsened my own odds of survival. I live in the country, and I'm not (yet) sleeping with any of my neighbors' wives, so I'm not at great risk of becoming a victim of homicide, the sixth-leading cause of death for men in my age group, 35 to 44. No, the person I had to fear most was me. Because 30 times a day, American men between the ages of 18 and 65 reach for a firearm and shoot themselves to death. That makes the notion of "self-defense" a lot trickier.

Before I ever walked into a gun shop, I signed up for a "personal protection" course offered by a local affiliate of the National Rifle Association (NRA). On a rainy spring morning, I showed up at the Carlisle Gun Club, a chilly cinder-block building located beside Interstate 81 in central Pennsylvania. Like me, most of my classmates had taken an earlier course on basic pistol safety, in which we learned the essential rules of firearm handling: Always point the gun in a safe direction; keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot; never load the gun until you're ready to use it; and keep the ammunition in a room separate from the gun.

Now, 3 weeks later, we proceeded to unlearn most of those same rules. For self-defense purposes, a gun must be kept loaded, accessible, and ready to use; more important, we had to be prepared to shoot another human being, multiple times, if necessary. To illustrate this point, we watched an NRA-produced video in which a woman -- left home alone by her husband--plugs an intruder with two sure shots. A happy ending.

Our attention thus commanded, we reviewed the rules of engagement. First and foremost, a county prosecutor informed us, you can't just shoot somebody who's bothering you in a public place. Even if you're being threatened, you have a "duty to retreat" from the threat, if possible. But there's one place where different rules apply: your house. Under the "castle doctrine," a principle of common law, you are allowed to protect yourself against anybody who enters your home without permission, and that includes shooting him if he is threatening you with grave bodily harm. (What that means is up to a jury to decide.) In April, the State of Florida expanded its castle doctrine to include any place a person "has the right to be."

Self-defense may be all the rage, but nobody knows exactly how often guns are used that way. One well-publicized review of 15 surveys from the early 1990s claimed that Americans used handguns in self-defense some 2.5 million times per year--a number that's cited continually by the gun lobby. The person who came up with that figure, Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck, says the number has probably declined -- along with the crime rate -- in recent years. But, he says, guns are used for self-defense "well over a million times a year."

But even that number is far greater than what's indicated by data from the Department of Justice's (DOJ) own annual National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), according to David McDowall, a professor of criminology at the State University of New York at Albany. Using NCVS data from actual crime victims, McDowall estimates an average of 55,000 defensive gun uses per year between 1997 and 2001.

[Snake Doctor]

You folks should probably visit the website as GC only post page 2 of the 3 page article. No big deal, GC, it took me like five minutes of searching to find a page #.

[solaritx]

Man, I so love statistics:

Here is one that is in the article: "But even that number is far greater than what's indicated by data from the Department of Justice's (DOJ) own annual National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), according to David McDowall, a professor of criminology at the State University of New York at Albany. Using NCVS data from actual crime victims, McDowall estimates an average of 55,000 defensive gun uses per year between 1997 and 2001."

55,000 times a gun was used in a defensive manner in four years. OH MY GOSH, that's 13750 times a year. Divide that by 50 states, that means that guns were discharged at a rate of 275 times a year per state or 23 times a month per state !!!!!

One would think that normal people that have CHL use their guns 55,000 times during this period. What has America come to? We are back in the wild west again with gunfights in the streets almost daily!!!!

What is NOT SAID is that these statistics INCLUDE the discharge of a weapon by Law Enforcement. Any and all times a Law Enforcement officier discharges his weapon, it is for (or hopefully for) defensive purposes.

WHAT would really be good to see, is subtract the number of Law Enforcement discharges from this number to get a "civilian" number, then divide that by the number of individuals that legally own and have CHL's over the same period......oh yea, that would not help the article and it's point of blood and gunfire in the streets of the wild west america.

[LarryH]

Here is one that is in the article: "But even that number is far greater than what's indicated by data from the Department of Justice's (DOJ) own annual National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), according to David McDowall, a professor of criminology at the State University of New York at Albany. Using NCVS data from actual crime victims, McDowall estimates an average of 55,000 defensive gun uses per year between 1997 and 2001."

55,000 times a gun was used in a defensive manner in four years. OH MY GOSH, that's 13750 times a year. Divide that by 50 states, that means that guns were discharged at a rate of 275 times a year per state or 23 times a month per state !!!!!

No, sir. Please re-read the quotation -- "55,000 defensive gun uses per year".

Your division then comes to 1,100 per year per state and 91 per month per state.

[DParker]

Marking Men's Health off my list of potentially interesting magazines.

Why? I couldn't find anything in the article that was factually incorrect/misleading nor terribly biased (though some bias is always going to appear in any article on any controversial subject.) Oh sure, the paragraph ending with "Now you know where to duck for cover" (or some such) was a bit inflammatory. But the fact that they factored in carry laws and some cities where handgun carry is allowed still scored so highly tells me that it wasn't a Brady-style "allowing guns is inherently bad" ranking system.

And how the heck did El Paso in the great State of Texas get an A+ for "Least Armed and Dangerous"?

I am embarrassed any Texas city would be on that side of the ledger.

You think it's bad that relatively few people are shot in El Paso?

[BigDan]

Too bad Round Rock and Sugarland aren't listed. We're safest in Texas according to the CQ Press. =-]
http://www.cqpress.com/docs/City%201%20 ... 25_14E.pdf

[solaritx]

You are right. The blood shed and shootings are statistically even more than I thought !!!! (because I didn't read close enough)

The basis is still the same. Use the statistics that you want to make the opinion outcome what you want it to be. Anytime one outright lies using statisics to make their point....one can only come to one conclussion....they are biased in their opinion.

[barres]

Man, I so love statistics:

Here is one that is in the article: "But even that number is far greater than what's indicated by data from the Department of Justice's (DOJ) own annual National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), according to David McDowall, a professor of criminology at the State University of New York at Albany. Using NCVS data from actual crime victims, McDowall estimates an average of 55,000 defensive gun uses per year between 1997 and 2001."

55,000 times a gun was used in a defensive manner in four years. OH MY GOSH, that's 13750 times a year. Divide that by 50 states, that means that guns were discharged at a rate of 275 times a year per state or 23 times a month per state !!!!!

One would think that normal people that have CHL use their guns 55,000 times during this period. What has America come to? We are back in the wild west again with gunfights in the streets almost daily!!!!

What is NOT SAID is that these statistics INCLUDE the discharge of a weapon by Law Enforcement. Any and all times a Law Enforcement officier discharges his weapon, it is for (or hopefully for) defensive purposes.

WHAT would really be good to see, is subtract the number of Law Enforcement discharges from this number to get a "civilian" number, then divide that by the number of individuals that legally own and have CHL's over the same period......oh yea, that would not help the article and it's point of blood and gunfire in the streets of the wild west america.

Um... It actually never says that a gun was discharged even once. It says they were used defensively 55,000 times per year, and many experts state that most defensive uses of handguns do not include firing a single shot. Which of course it the conclusion the author wanted you to jump to, and you obliged.

[DParker]

You are right. The blood shed and shootings are statistically even more than I thought !!!! (because I didn't read close enough)

The basis is still the same. Use the statistics that you want to make the opinion outcome what you want it to be. Anytime one outright lies using statisics to make their point....one can only come to one conclussion....they are biased in their opinion.

Where's the lie and/or bias? The article cites a stat regarding defensive uses of firearms. It makes no claims regarding anyone being harmed by these uses. Furthermore, this is the sort of statistic we so often trumpet ourselves as an indicator of a positive aspect of gun ownership by law-abiding citizens.

I fail to see what it is that you're railing against here.

[Snake Doctor]

With all due respect, skiprr, I have to agree about your passing on Men's Health magazine. Not only was this not some flaming anti-gun article, but it was one page out of a nearly 150-page magazine. It's not as if the editor is veiling Brady Campaign talking points within the workout descriptions or recipe sections. It's just a statistics piece... that's it.

[Rugrash]

Snake Dr...don't let stats frighten you from working in DC or turning down opportunities. Yes I know they (stats) paint a grim picture of DC, but unless you're living and working in Anacostia or some other bad parts of the city then you'd be perfectly fine. I'm not trying to start a flame war here either. I lived in the People's Republic of Maryland for 5 years, but worked inside the beltway and hung out in DC alot. You should stay out of certain areas just like you would in any city and always have your situational awareness tuned.

Hopefully will SCOTUS will rule in our favor this month.

Just my $.02

Rug

[lrb111]

Just to highlight,, the annual National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is from reported crimes.
Not from all defensive uses of firearms. Those are the ones that were estimated over 2 million annually.