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Rape survivor Amanda Collins spoke during a legislative hearing concerning Colorado’s proposed ban on concealed firearms on college campuses. She explained how she wished she would’ve had a firearm to defend herself from her rapist, which could have possibly prevented the attack from occurring.

Sen. Evie Hudak claimed:

“actually, statistics are not on your side, even if you had a gun. you said that you were a martial arts student, I mean person, experienced in Tae Kwon Do, and yet because this individual was so large, was able to overcome you even with your skills, and chances are that if you had had a gun, then he would have been able to get that from you and possibly use it against you."

Hudak video

Are her statistics reliable? They do not appear to be part of the FBI Uniform Crime Statistics, but may be from the Colorado Coalition Against Gun Violence?

While she doesn't define what she means by "you" (all people/women/CCW carriers/attempted violent crime victims/etc.), but are there any sets of individuals for which it is true that having a handgun increases your chances of being injured by their attacker rather than if they didn't have a handgun?

Flimzy
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user1873
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    In my opinion, the two bolded comments are so completely distinct that they do not belong in the same question. I'd further go so far to say that if the Senator meant to imply that the first followed from the second then either she was intentionally lying or she is too dumb to walk and chew gum at the same time. Possibly she careful didn't imply that, but counted on her audience misinterpreting it that ways which may be a common tactic but is sufficiently deceitful for me to count it as lying. – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Apr 10 '13 at 19:35
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    If only we were [allowed to actually do this sort of research](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/15609/did-the-national-rifle-association-nra-block-research-into-statistics-related)... – Tacroy Apr 10 '13 at 21:00
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    The trouble with suc questions is that they are almost always framed badly. If you possess a gun there are a number of things that can happen, some of which are omitted in most of the situations mentioned in the framing. Sure it feels as though having a gun would put you in a better position defensively in, for example, a potential rape situation. But, as the question says, it might not. Also worth considering are the potential probabilities of use in a domestic argument or a suicide (eg gun deaths from suicide exceed those from homicide by more than 2:1 in the US). – matt_black Apr 10 '13 at 22:35
  • Thanks for the title fix. Next issue (which I think is @dmckee's point): The second paragraph of the quote reads to me as - looking at the totality of deaths, there were 83 times as many deaths of women, killed by handguns in any situation at all, compared to the number of women who killed anyone is self-defence. Now, that sounds like a completely meaningless comparison, unrelated to the previous issue. This makes me optimistically hope that the reporter simply mangled the original claim, and the real claim makes sense in context. Do we have a transcript? – Oddthinking Apr 11 '13 at 01:02
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    @Oddthinking, yep after finding the video, it turns out that the 83 deaths claim is a non-sequitur. It refers to total women murders from handguns compared to women who kill their attacker. Neither of which have anything to do with defending yourself with a handgun from an attacker (I.e you don't need to kill the attacker, and total handgun deaths has nothing to do with people who carry CCWs) – user1873 Apr 11 '13 at 01:42
  • This [website claims](http://seamus-muldoon.blogspot.com/2013/03/colorado-legislator-wants-victims-to.html) that this is the [source of the claim](http://www.vpc.org/studies/myth.htm) Nevermind, this is the 83 women statistic that I removed. – user1873 Apr 11 '13 at 01:48
  • [Another page](http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2008.143099) offers this study as an example, but the confounding factors/study limitations don't make it a good fit for a college CCW carrying individual. – user1873 Apr 11 '13 at 02:09
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    Claim's in the same league as "dressing nicely makes you more likely to be raped". Carrying a weapon and being able to use it can be a great deterrent. It's when you fail to use it when needed that things get ugly quickly. – jwenting Apr 12 '13 at 05:37
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    @jwenting, yes. That is the heart of the matter, what are your odds of injury/death with/without a gun. The FBI statistics (from the National Crime Victims Surveys-NCVS) seem to indicate that in the 60k+ handgun self-defense cases you are 2x as likely to not be injured if you attack the offender, and 6x as likely to not be injured if you threaten the offender. I was hoping for newer data though, since the one I have is from the early 90's. – user1873 Apr 12 '13 at 05:55
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    @user1873 and that doesn't even include the potential attackers who are deterred by a bulging pocket or the mere thought that their intended victim may be packing heat... – jwenting Apr 12 '13 at 05:59
  • The real problem with the sort of statistic you need to answer this question is, it just is not tracked reliably. No one reliably tracks the number of crimes prevented. As it is a far more nebulous concept than tracking the number of actauly crimes and injuries that occur. – Jonathon Nov 16 '15 at 21:33

1 Answers1

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Defensive use of guns in USA by crime victims is a common occurrence indicated by national surveys. However, researchers dispute the exact number of people using guns for defense. Research shows that an armed victim might use a weapon to resist attacker aggression and avoid injury . Referring to 'Committee on Priorities for a Public Health Research Agenda to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence' review of possessing arms for self defense and injury rates, further research is needed to confirm or discount whether having a handgun increases your chance of injury.

Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was “used” by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies (Kleck, 1988; Kleck and DeLone, 1993; Southwick, 2000; Tark and Kleck, 2004). Effectiveness of defensive tactics, however, is likely to vary across types of victims, types of offenders, and circumstances of the crime.

pericles316
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  • @March Ho-The referred committee recommendation is based on findings from several studies mentioned in the highlighted part of the answer. Researchers such as Kleck have shown in multiple studies that victim gun use in crime incidents is associated with lower rates of victim injury than any other defensive response, including doing nothing to resist and there is a much larger study research needed per the committee to confirm or deny the claim of whether possessing a handgun decreases or increases the chance of injury. – pericles316 Nov 16 '15 at 06:02