Are Your Household Firearms a Significant Contributor to Homicides?

[Eghad]

I saw the post about the Harvard public health study.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/press/releases/press01112007.html

our findings suggest that the household may be an important source of firearms used to kill men, women and children in the United States.

Since we own a lot of firearms based on the Harvard Study we should have some homicides connected to them.

I would say that a firearm used in legal self defense should not be counted nor a firearm used to commit self defense in the line of duty by a peace officer.

So have any of your household firearms been connected to a criminal act of homicide?

 

[Monkeyleg]

Yeah. About 5 am this morning, I caught my Kimber sneaking back into the safe. Turns out it went out and shot a convenience store owner in the middle of the night.

Bad Kimber! Bad!

 

[Playboypenguin]

Yeah. About 5 am this morning, I caught my Kimber sneaking back into the safe. Turns out it went out and shot a convenience store owner in the middle of the night.

Monkeyleg,

I hate to be the one to say this, but when a gun goes bad I feel the blame usually lies with the owner. You probably did not give him enough attention or were too strict with him. Maybe you didn't clean and oil him enough and failed to make him feel special and important. Maybe if you had listened more and been involved in his life he would not have turned rogue.

 

[mikejonestkd]

kimbers will do that, they are too independent and headstrong to properly train..

You should have gotten a colt, they don't go rouge on you...

 

[badbob]

I'm glad I'm not the only one. One of my shotguns started acting surly and didn't want to go hunting or do any of the things that shotguns love to do. Turned out to be an addiction problem and he was commiting crimes to support his Breakfree habit and he had joined a gang. I'm heartbroken.

badbob

 

[Mike Irwin]

If there's a gun homicide in my house, chances are one of my dogs suddenly evolved and grew opposable thumbs...

 

[Eghad]

It sounds like the old story that you are more likely to die if you have guns in your house myth. If that was true some of us should have died a long time ago with the number of guns we have in the home.

 

[Dave Haven]

Not since I have owned them, anyway.
My '03A3 and my M1911A1 may have been used to commit wartime homicides.
My K98 and my P38 may have been used to commit wartime homicides.
I have killed with my M1911A1. (Had a .22LR conversion on it at the time, and shot a mouse.)

 

[JJB2]

NOPE!!! fat teddy kennedy's car has killed more people than my guns!!!!!

 

[shield20]

I posted this at THR, may have some interest here...

OK - could not download a copy of this particular report, but I did find another similiar report "An evaluation of state firearms regulations and homicide suicide rates", from a Univ of Pittsburgh group.

Now - 1st thing, while looking at 5 different gun laws (shall issue, 2ea 21 yr age limit, etc.), they compare "homicide" and "firearm homicide" rates - NOT "murder", "gun related murder", or any other gun related crimes, so the reason for what exactly they were trying to prove escapes me; they mention however the attempt to study 'the benefits of shall issue laws enacted with the goal of curtailing fiream deaths' under the theory that THAT is the reason they are passed... [hmmmmmm...'K....thought they were enacted to give we, the people back the right to self-security, or to avoid letting we, the people be unwilling victims of violent criminals, or to...]

BUT ANYWAY, from Table 2:

Rates per 100,000...
Firearm Homicides [with shall issue law]: 5.00
Firearm Homicides [w/out shall issue law] : 5.90
All Homicides [rate with shall issue law] : 7.5
All homicides [rate w/out shall issue law] : 8.99

Summary Point 3::"A "shall issue" law that permits the carrying of a handgun in an unrestricted fashion may be associated with an increase in homicide rates."
WHAT????? But the numbers...right there...BOTH "w/shall issue" homicide rates were lower...???

And from Table 4 Suicides
Rates per 100,00...
Firearm Suicides [with shall issue law]: 9.70
Firearm Suicides [w/o shall issue law] : 10.20
All Suicides [rate with law] : 14.5
All Suicides [rate w/o law] :14.5

Summary point 4: "Little evidence was observed that any of the laws evaluated were associated with a significant reduction in either firearm homicide or firearm suicide rates."
GREAT - again, not that is a real issue, but what about the fact that...
THE CHARTS - YOUR CHARTS - show a reduction in not only Firearm Homicides, but all homicides AND a reduction in firearm suicides with shall issue laws vs. w/o shall issue laws;...so what the $^^$#???

THIS IS WHAT WE ARE UP AGAINST! TOTAL BS, EVEN DESPITE THEIR OWN NUMBERS THAT SHOW THE CONTARY - THEY MAKE ABSURD STATEMENTS LIKE "MAY" AND "SHOW NO SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION" without mentioning what the study REALLY showed:

"with regards to the enactment of shall issue laws, the rates of even firearm homicides and firearm suicides did not get worse, and in fact, they went down slightly. Giving the people the opportunity to defend themselves via shall issue laws in NO way made homicide/suicide rates worse, but instead overall made them slightly better."

What crap!!

 

[Monkeyleg]

"It sounds like the old story that you are more likely to die if you have guns in your house myth. If that was true some of us should have died a long time ago with the number of guns we have in the home."

Eghad, I don't want this to turn into a cigarette/smoking thread, but that reminds me of the old story that every cigarette you smoke takes five minutes off your life.

Given the number of cigarettes I smoke, and that I started smoking at age 16, that "five minute" figure means that I should have died 11.39 years before I started smoking.

 

[roy reali]

Guilty

My guns have killed many an afternoon.

My bank account has taken its hits too.

 

[G-Cym]

I'm glad I'm not the only one. One of my shotguns started acting surly and didn't want to go hunting or do any of the things that shotguns love to do. Turned out to be an addiction problem and he was commiting crimes to support his Breakfree habit and he had joined a gang. I'm heartbroken.

Just wait til his gang friends convince him to cut his barrel real short. I hear that's "cool" with punks these days

 

[wayneinFL]

I'm trying to train my rifle to do this. I can't seem to get very good groups. It always knows where it's pointing, so it should get me better groups. When my rifle get's really good at shooting, I'm going to just put it up in the tree stand so I can go get breakfast. About noon I can come back and pick up my deer.

Hopefully, I can get my knife to dress out the deer for me.

 

[209]

My guns used to run amok after dark. I finally bought a gun safe and now they are locked up after curfew. It's not a problem for me anymore.

The one or two that are out and about all hours of the day and night haven't violated my rules. They seem like they are perfectly content to just sit around and look tough, but the truth of the matter is that they are lazy.

They won't even shoot on their own. No.... I have to actually pick them up and then point them at the target and sqeeze their trigger to get them to do anything. And when I do that, the ungrateful little things kick at me! Go figure.

Not only that- I have to reload them when they go empty. D%mn lazy a$$ guns! And they require I massage them with oil- or else they will just pout and not do anything! After all I have done for them!

 

[tegemu]

To the contrary, I absolutely believe that household firearms are responsible for a reduction in or a lower amount of homicides.

 

[protectedbyglock]

This is good.
It's nice to see people with the same problems I have. Why do you think I've been asking around for a safe? It's getting out of control, really. I had to buy a blackhawk muzzle for Glock 21. When XD9 figures out how to get it off of him, we're all screwed. That 21 is a BAD A$$!

 

[BillCA]

I think I see the problem some of you guys are having.

Insufficient training. Y'see, you have to train them early, like right after you get them. As soon as possible, get them used to wearing a holster. It doesn't take much time, really. They're very quick to learn. Once you get them used to the holster, they don't mind wearing a gun sock to bed in the safe. One problem I do have, though, is some of them like the holster so much they want to cuddle on your right hip all of the time like BodyGuard does.

Unlike old dogs, though, you can teach an old gun new tricks. I've taught an old S&W M15 to stay and it sits quietly on the nightstand.

It's the feeding I have a problem with. So many different types of food for 'em. Some like one brand better than another and it shows up in their range performance. I'm just glad none of them have the voracious appetite some of you have complained about.

 

[Eghad]

49 people who probably own several or more firearms and no homicides.

 

[KMBRTAC45]

Well my Dad was really hard on his guns. Wouldn't take them out to play or pay any attention to them. So, I thought I would be different and let them run around and play whenever they wanted. But now they have NO respect for me at all and sneak out after I've gone to bed, they come back all high on Hoppes and FP-11. I'm not sure I can get them back in line anymore.