“Can it be true that about two million instances occur each year in which a gun was used as a defensive measure against crime? … I do not like their conclusions that having a gun can be useful, but I cannot fault their methodology.”
It is hard to challenge the data collected. We do not have contrary evidence. The National Crime Victim Survey does not directly contravene this latest survey.”
“34% of the felons said that they had been “scared off, shot at, wounded or captured” by a victim armed with a firearm. The same percentage said they worried about being fired upon by armed victims, while 57% said they were more concerned with encountering an armed victim than encountering law enforcement officers.”
"I am as strong a gun-control advocate as can be found among the criminologists in this country. I hate guns-ugly, nasty instruments designed to kill people.
“What troubles me is the article by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz. The reason I am troubled is that they have provided an almost clear-cut case of methodologically sound research in support of something I have theoretically opposed for years, namely, the use of a gun in defense against a criminal perpetrator.
"I have to admit my admiration for the care and caution expressed in this article and this research. Can it be true that about two million instances occur each year in which a gun was used as a defensive measure against crime? …
I do not like their conclusions that having a gun can be useful, but I cannot fault their methodology."
"During the last quarter of the 2000 century, the murder rate declined 27.7% while the number of handguns owned by Americans increased 160%.
"Luxembourg, where handguns are totally banned and ownership of any kind of gun is minimal, had a murder rate nine times higher than Germany in 2002."
"By the year 2000, violent crime had so increased that England and Wales had Europe’s highest violent crime rate, far surpassing even the United States."
"I discovered fact after fact that starkly disproved the claims and "facts" so many teachers and colleagues had expressed about firearms and their relationship to violence, and which, during my long trip through academia, had led me to believe stricter gun control was just plain common sense.
"I now believe wholeheartedly in the right to carry, the wisdom of the 2nd Amendment, the particularly important benefits of concealed carry for women, and the notion that more firearms in law-abiding hands does make society demonstrably safer."
"If you're anti-gun and Lott's book does not ... force you to reconsider the ... benefits of an armed society, you either did not read the book with an open mind, or you do not know how to distinguish a precisely-reasoned argument from a merely political one."
"Fear of the unknown or known gun carrier... has an immediate effect on reducing violent criminal activity."
"Ninety-five percent of the time, we get to the scene late."
But knowing that most all your citizens are armed and can defend themselves is a far larger deterrent because the criminal is threatened with immediate injury rather than sometime later whenever the police arrive."a significant association between increased permit ownership and a drop in murder and violent crime rates."
"Permit holders are convicted of misdemeanors and felonies at one-sixth of the rate at which police officers are convicted."
"The National Institute of Justice study examined state-level assault-weapons bans and found NO statistically discernible reductions in crime."
"Murders, rapes, and robberies impose large costs on communities through lower property values, higher insurance premiums, and reduced investment.
[They] impose significant costs on taxpayers, who bear the financial burden of maintaining the police personnel and operations, courts, jails, and prisons directed toward these crimes and their perpetrators".
Cities can enjoy "budget savings, higher revenues, and personal income and wealth gains by reducing violent crime."
A reduction of 20.4% in the homicide rate in a given year "in a zip code causes a 1.52% increase in housing values in that same zip code the following year."
"Savings include lower expenditures on law enforcement and the justice system, as well as the additional revenues that each city could expect to collect from local taxes."
"Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.”
Leonardo da Vinci, painter, writer, sculptor, inventor, engineer, all-round genius (1452 – 1519)
– Sheriff David Clarke, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
"People normally don't want to get involved in suspicious activity or crimes because they're scared of becoming a victim themselves.
"But [once you're armed and able to protect yourself], you're much more likely to be open and sincere with police officers because you have a means to defend yourself and your family if the bad guys come looking for you."
– Police Chief Jim Koury, City of Nelson, Georgia
DC52 R Studies page94