Media Covers 'Gun Crime'
But Not Self-defense Gun Use

By Emma Colton. Feb 20, 2022

Americans across the country have used legal guns to defend themselves and thwart crimes, but the reports often fly under the radar and most people are unaware how often guns are used in self-defense cases.

"Having a gun is by far the safest course of action when people are facing a criminal by themselves," Dr. John Lott, an economist and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, told Fox News Digital. He pointed to women in particular, who "behave passively" and are "about 2.4 times more likely to end up being seriously injured than a woman who has a gun to protect herself."

As crimes skyrocketed in major cities since 2020, instances of women using guns to protect themselves and stop crimes have repeatedly played out.

HERE ARE 10 TIMES LEGAL GUN OWNERS RECENTLY THWARTED CRIMES IN LIFE-THREATENING SITUATIONS

"Thank God I had my gun, or I'd probably be dead right now," a Chicago woman with a concealed carry permit said in October after two would-be carjackers approached her outside a bank.

In New Orleans just last week, a mom and Air Force veteran pulled a gun on a man who tried to get into her car while she was sitting in gridlocked traffic with her 2-year-old son. She wasn't forced to fire the weapon and the suspect took off.

'Dramatic undercount'

Lott said that, in a typical year, the media reports about 2,000 defensive gun use stories, but he added "that is a dramatic undercount, because the vast majority of successful self-defense cases don't make the news." .....

This information is well known to gun owners but examples given help highlight the disparity between what the media chooses to report and what they omit.
"The bottom line is that if you want to reduce 'gun crime', you do the same things that you do to reduce violent crime generally, and that is make it riskier for criminals to commit crime."

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