U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- Lots of us own guns. We also carry those guns legally in public. That is critically important because concealed carriers save a lot of lives. You knew most of that already, but there are a few things we keep hidden from you. Every day there are over 17 million of us legally carrying concealed in public. That happens seven days a week, with no days off. We save thousands of lives a day.
You already know that using a firearm is serious business. The law says an innocent person can only defend themselves with lethal force if death or great bodily injury are imminent and unavoidable. In plain language that means someone might go to the hospital or the morgue unless you present your firearm to stop the bad guy right now. If you didn’t know that, then you probably assumed something very close to it. The gun is a last resort, and we only threaten to take a life if an innocent person is about to lose theirs.
What you might not know is that one-out-of-11 adults alive in the US today used a firearm in self-defense. You might not know that honest gun owners legally use their guns to save lives over 4500 times a day. The great news is that they didn’t have to shoot 4500 people. Far from it. Most bad guys don’t want to be shot, and that is why the bad guys ran away when these defenders presented their firearms. In fact, we discharged a gun in self-defense a little more than 800 times a day. Even then, we only had to shoot and kill the bad guy a little more than once a day. That says that guns are almost always used to save lives rather than take them. That good news shouldn’t come as a surprise. That is what we’d expect from our neighbors who own guns.
What does it mean to save 4500 lives a day? Honest gun owners save more lives than are lost each day to heart disease, to cancer, and to all accidents combined. Each year, gun owners save twice as many lives as are taken by chronic lower respiratory diseases (read emphysema from smoking), by strokes, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, kidney disease, flu and pneumonia, and by suicide. That is an amazing number of lives that were saved by ordinary people like you.
The reason honest gun owners do so much good is that they are like you. They are everywhere and they happened to be in the right place at the right time.
They were willing and able to stop a threat and save lives.
Concealed carry is common. The number of concealed carriers is comparable to the number of office and administrative support workers. There are more concealed carriers in public than there are healthcare, education, and library workers combined. On average, one-out-of-a-dozen adults in public is legally carrying every day.
Their guns may be hidden, but with that many armed citizens on the streets we would already know if gun owners were a problem. In fact, they are a solution; they stop a dangerous threat until the police arrive. That isn’t everything, but to 1.7 million of us a year, it was desperately important to be armed.
About Rob Morse
The original article, with sources, is posted here. Rob Morse writes about gun rights at Ammoland, at Clash Daily, at Second Call Defense, and on his SlowFacts blog. He hosts the Self Defense Gun Stories Podcast and co-hosts the Polite Society Podcast. Rob was an NRA pistol instructor and combat handgun competitor.
and sadly the guns we use to defend ourselves will need to be turned on those we hired to protect us , united self defense forces of Colombia started attacking the people who created the group for money people wont give you more take it , civil forfeiture same thing police stealing
I agree about the civil forfeiture being stealing. There is a terrific book on that subject called “The Tyranny of Good Intentions.”
Can you explain more about the self defense forces of Colombia, please?
The farmers and ranchers were getting robbed and kidnapped buy farac which was at the beginning cuban sponsored and trained group trying to over through government , today it is just more a narco cartel ,, so the farmers and ranchers started their own army united self defense forces. At first the mercenary army did what it was supposed to and protected the people and towns where they were located keeping the farac and drug gangs out, as years wore on and they saw the money the other side had ,they started asking at first then demanding more. they started… Read more »
I did not know. Good report. I wonder why anyone would rob a farmer or rancher, we never have any cash. I can see why they changed to their own brand of robbing and kidnapping.
I thought that you were career Air Force.
went to military school joined dea thinking I would avoid jungle war trained with marines was sent embedded was shot at by both sides bad choice , my mother was navy dad was army aircore/air force.
This sounds like Mexico. This has happened VERY often when the “protectors” begin to prey upon those they had protected in the short past.
pick your third world shi thole they are all the same. at least in parts of mexico they are taking control, from the government and the cartels I truly hope they can expand the safe zones a lot of the non military guns are going to these people and both our government and theirs are trying to stop the expansion of free zones, safe places for people to live,cant control armed population
Good story. Enjoyed reading it. My thanks to Rick and his people for helping other be able to defend themselves.