Quote:
"The issue of "home defense" or protection against intruders may well be misrepresented. Of 626 shootings in or around a residence in three U.S. cities revealed that, for every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides (Kellermann et al, 1998). Over 50% of all households in the U.S. admit to having firearms (Nelson et al, 1987). It would appear that, rather than being used for defense, most of these weapons inflict injuries on the owners and their families."
http://medlib.med.utah.edu/WebPath/T...S/GUNSTAT.html
"From 1993 to 2002,1 data from the BLS Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) show that 175 workers were killed on the job as the result of an accidental gunshot wound. While this total represented only 0.3 percent of the 61,146 workplace fatalities suffered by all workers during this 10-year span, these fatalities are especially alarming because they involve firearms and are prevalent in military and protective service occupations."
Below is a chart showing the rates of accidental gunshot deaths between the years 1993 and 2002. Note the fact that these individuals were police, government agents, and military who shot and killed themselves or a by-stander in the course of doing thier jobs. These statistics do not include either gulf war, for obvious reasons.
Quote:
"Research has shown that a gun kept in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a member of the household, or friend, than an intruder.(Arthur Kellermann and Donald Reay. "Protection or Peril? An Analysis of Firearm Related Deaths in the Home." The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 314, no. 24, June 1986, pp. 1557-60.) The use of a firearm to resist a violent assault actually increases the victim's risk of injury and death(FE Zimring, Firearms, violence, and public policy, Scientific American, vol. 265, 1991, p. 48)."
"Keeping a gun in the home carries a murder risk 2.7 times greater than not keeping one. That is, excluding many other factors such as previous history of violence, class, race, etc., a household with a gun is 2.7 times more likely to experience a murder than a household without one, even while there was no significant increase in the risk of non-gun homicides. " (Arthur Kellermann et. al., "Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home," The New England Journal of Medicine, October 7, 1993, pp. 1084-1091)
"The present study, based on a sample of eighteen countries, confirms the result of previous work based on the 14 countries surveyed during the first International Crime Survey. Substantial correlations were found between gun ownership and gun-related as well as total homicide and suicide rates. Of the recorded homicide rates, 16% were commited unintentionally. Widespread gun ownership has not been found to reduce the likelihood of fatal events committed with other means. Thus, people do not turn to knives and other potententially lethal weapons less often when more guns are available, but more guns usually means more victims of homicide and suicide." (International Crime Victim Survey 2004)
So there you go. Some statistics and comments from our governement, the National, and International Crime Victim surevey (used by law enforcement to track trends in crime), Scientific American, and the New England Journal of Medicine.