is it really apples to apples lawful vs unlawful use of guns i have been convinced of the right of americans to an effective self defense but something strikes me as odd among the pro rkba arguments presented here the numbers comparing hundreds of thousands indeed even a million of instances of law abiding citizens deterring criminal activity seem valid to me likewise the number of gun caused homicides each year about year however it is surprising that the evil antigun empire darth vader breathing sound effect here never tries to compare all legitimate gun defenses vs all gun crimes instead it s always all legitimate gun defenses which includes cases in which the criminals are shot but not killed and cases in which the criminal is not here vs just criminal gun homicides which only includes case sin which the victim died why is this of course it wouldn t be unreasonable to say that in each crime already measured involving guns the consequnces are already known and it is safe to assume that a gun based bank robbery last week will not suddenly turn into a gun basd robbery homicide whereas in the legitimate gun defenses one may assume that all those criminals who were deterred would have committed more crime or more serious crimes had they not been deterred case kim kim husc harvard edu
