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Comment by semi-extrinsic | Hacker News Reader

Here's a bit of statistics for you [1]: for every time someone in the US shoots a burglar in self-defence, there are 900 burglars that successfully stole the firearms in the house and got away with it. So by relying on firearms for home self defence, you're 3 orders of magnitude more likely to be arming violent criminals (that are likely to come back and rob you or a neighbor again) than protecting yourself.

[1] http://www.vpc.org/studies/justifiable15.pdf

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Shooting in self defense is a last resort. Especially at night. You'll generally be temporarily blind from the flash and an unprotected indoor shot will cause permanent hearing damage. That doesn't even include the trauma of shooting someone. Most people would just be happy if there attacker simply left at the sight of the firearm (and most do).

You don't know anything about my home defense setup to be wagging your finger at me. My guns are stored in a Graffunder safe when I'm not home. If you know anything about safes, you'll know those guns are not going anywhere, even if the burglars have all weekend with a blowtorch.

As someone else already pointed out, # of criminals shot vs. successful burglaries is a ridiculous statistic. But it's coming from the Violence Policy Center so that's not surprising.

What's your proposed alternative? If burglars are already armed and violent (your own words) I should disarm myself and submit myself to their mercy? No thanks.

Why limit focus to shootings, simply dissuading the intruder is far preferable and probably much more frequent. In my experience most gun owners don't want to shoot anybody.

If, as you suggest, it's much more frequent for a homeowner with a gun to dissuade an intruder without shooting, than it is for the homeowner to shoot the intruder, then it's obviously a much better choice to keep a convincing replica. In that case, you get most of the benefit of a real gun, but there's no chance of your kids injuring/killing someone, or you accidentally injuring/killing a family member, both of which are about as common as shooting an intruder.

Or: If your point is to avoid accidents and not to disarm people you can recommend they get a gun safe.

Around here gun safes are mandatory. And local hunters and sports shooters work together with the police to keep guns out of the hands of people who cannot be trusted.

Guns kept in proper gun safes are pretty much useless against intruders though.

(To be clear, I agree everyone should keep their guns properly stored in gun safes at all times, and I also think guns for self defence are a bad solution in first world countries.)

Guns kept in proper gun safes are pretty much useless against intruders though.

Do you have any research to back that up?

and I also think guns for self defence are a bad solution in first world countries.

I don't have a gun for self defense but I don't think I should judge those who have either.

As sibling already pointed out these stats seems to only tell part of the story. I'd almost say they seem to be deliberately misleading.

Unless there is more details the fact that few burglars were shot probably tells us that most homeowners with guns are peaceful and just use the guns as a deterrent.

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