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[quote=Anonymous]There was an Atlantic article the other day that mentioned “defensive gun use.”

[quote] Gun advocates counter this tally of unnecessary bloodshed by generating piles of studies on successful “defensive gun use.” Estimates of defensive gun use vary wildly, from as few as 60,000 incidents a year to as many as 2.5 million. The higher estimates are distorted by a crucial error: They rely heavily on self-reporting by gun owners themselves, with a huge risk of self-flattering bias. If an argument spirals until one person produces a gun and menaces the other into shutting up, the gun owner might regard that use as “defensive.” A third party, however, might perceive a situation that only spiraled in the first place because the gun owner felt empowered to escalate it. Whose perception should prevail?

But there’s a larger absurdity to the project of counting “defensive gun uses.” For decades, the world has witnessed a colossal natural experiment in gun laws. With one exception, virtually all developed countries strictly regulate firearms, especially handguns. If there were any merit to the “defensive gun use” argument, you’d expect that one permissive nation to boast much greater safety. Instead, the one outlier nation—the United States—suffers the deadliest levels of criminal violence. Guns everywhere engender violence everywhere.[/quote][/quote]

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