Reply to The Concealed Carry Fantasy

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[quote=Anonymous]NP here.  I just read the thread.  The pro-gun poster(s) on this thread seem to be misinterpreting the deterrence point (perhaps willfully).  As I read it, the point of PP was that increased gun ownership by society does not deter crime in society.  In other words, if we arm 90% of the citizens in Columbus OH, but only arm 10% of the citizens in Indianapolis, we're not going to find that Columbus's crime level drops to 1/10th of the level in Indianapolis.

There's also a related point about whether an increase in gun ownership leads to other bad effects -- like increased suicide or increased accidental deaths -- regardless of any effect on crime.

But logic certainly suggests that a single individual armed with a gun is better able to deter a criminal than a single individual without a gun.  It certainly seems someone holding a gun will have a better chance of deterring a criminal threat than the same person not holding a gun.  Of course, the person holding a gun also faces an increased risk of blowing his own damn fool head off, and an increased risk of shooting an innocent bystander too.  And perhaps the deterrence effect of the gun is less than the deterrence effect of a dog.  But if you want to look at an artificially narrow question, then I suppose you can get the answer you want.

And then there are some studies that even suggest my simple logic might be wrong -- https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17922-carrying-a-gun-increases-risk-of-getting-shot-and-killed/ .  That study from Philadelphia found people carrying guns are 4 times more likely to be shot than unarmed citizens!: "Overall, Branas’s study found that people who carried guns were 4.5 times as likely to be shot and 4.2 times as likely to get killed compared with unarmed citizens. When the team looked at shootings in which victims had a chance to defend themselves, their odds of getting shot were even higher."

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