I’m not originally from the United States, and when I go back home to visit, one of the questions that I get asked a lot is “why do Americans own so many guns?” My favorite writer on the gun ownership and self-defense issues is Amy Swearer, who writes for the Daily Signal. Below, I’ll link to two recent articles where she talks about recent examples of self-defense in America.

Here are some examples from August 2024:

• Aug. 5, Albuquerque, New Mexico: A disabled Vietnam War veteran awoke to the sounds of someone using a knife to open his bedroom window, police said. The veteran grabbed a pistol from a nightstand and, as the intruder raised the window, fired a single shot that killed him.

• Aug. 15, Brookhaven, Georgia: Police said that a woman called a neighbor for help after her home surveillance system detected four armed men had broken in. The neighbor confronted the men and, according to witnesses, exchanged 15 to 20 rounds until police arrived and the suspects fled in a car. After a chase and a second exchange of fire with officers, three of the four were taken into custody, police said.

• Aug. 21, Liberty Hills, Texas: As a homeowner surveyed his backyard with a contractor, he saw a machete-wielding man climb a fence, enter his property, and try to get into his residence, police said. Afraid for his wife and two young children, the homeowner locked up before getting his gun and confronting the man on a deck of the residence. Seeing the gun, the intruder began to walk away and was arrested by police. He was charged with criminal trespass.

• Aug. 23, Falls Mills, Virginia: Police said a would-be carjacker assaulted a female driver at a rural gas station, telling her child in the back seat: “I’m going to rape your mommy.” Bystanders, one with a handgun, heard the woman’s screams and came to her aid. The carjacker charged at the armed good Samaritan, who shot and wounded him. Police said that the assailant was wanted on outstanding criminal charges. The local sheriff publicly praised the bystanders who intervened, telling reporters, “This could have been a very different outcome.”

• Aug. 24, Medford, Oregon: An armed resident fatally shot an intruder who forced his way into an apartment and threatened another resident with a knife, police said.

And here are some examples from July 2024:

• July 2, Bullhead City, Arizona: Police said Mayor Steve D’Amico heard someone banging on his front door and “messing with” the doorknob in the middle of the night, so he armed himself for a potential confrontation. While still in his underwear, the mayor opened the door, located the would-be intruder (who’d somehow gotten past a locked gate), and detained him at gunpoint until police arrived. The suspect faced charges for trespassing and disorderly conduct.

• July 8, California Valley Village, California: Police said two intruders broke into what they believed was an unoccupied residence and came face-to-face with an armed homeowner. After a “scuffle” in which one intruder used pepper spray against him, the homeowner opened fire, hitting one intruder and sending the other fleeing with an accomplice waiting in a getaway car. The wounded suspect was identified as a repeat offender recently released on probation; his extensive criminal record included arrests for burglary, robbery, and illegal gun possession.

• July 18, Towns County, Georgia: Police said an armed homeowner helped end a dayslong search for an escaped prisoner who walked away from an off-site work detail. The homeowner ordered him to the ground and held him at gunpoint until police arrived. The homeowner’s dog had alerted him to an intruder on the property; when the homeowner investigated, he saw the man in an orange prison jumpsuit. The escapee had been at a county detention center awaiting a court appearance on charges including two counts of burglary, drug offenses, and violating his probation.

• July 22, Ogden, Utah: Police said a pair of pit bulls attacked two neighbors, who shot the dogs to avoid being bitten. The growling dogs had hemmed in one neighbor, who shot and killed one dog when they went after him; the other neighbor shot and wounded the second dog when it charged. The dogs had a history of biting, police said.

• July 28, North Vernon, Indiana: An intruder entered a house through an unlocked door, helped himself to food, went into the room of a female resident, and chased her around the property, police said. The homeowner armed himself and held the intruder at gunpoint until police arrived. The suspect faced charges of burglary and unlawful residential entry.

It’s especially important for people living in blue cities or blue states to arm themselves, because the police forces in these areas have had their budgets slashed by Democrats. “Defund the police” sounds so good, but it just gets a lot of peaceful, law-abiding people killed.

It’s very important to ask secular leftists who want to ban law-abiding people from owning firearms “what do you expect people to do when criminals want to hurt them?” The answer I get from my atheist Democrat friend is that he expects them to call the police, and wait for them to arrive. There is a real suspicion among secular leftists of law-abiding people defend themselves – especially men. A man defending his family? Why, that’s “sexist”. Better to call the police and wait for them to arrive.

The peer-reviewed research

Whenever I get into discussions about gun control, I always mention two academic books by John R. Lott and Joyce Lee Malcolm.

• The Lott book was published by the University of Chicago Press (now in its 3rd edition)
• The Malcolm book was published by Harvard University Press

The book by economist John Lott, linked above, compares the crime rates of all U.S. states that have enacted concealed carry laws, and concludes that violent crime rates dropped after law-abiding citizens were allowed to carry legally-owned firearms. That’s the mirror image of Dr. Malcolm’s Harvard study, which shows that the 1997 UK gun ban caused violent crime rates to MORE THAN DOUBLE in the four years following the ban. But both studies affirm the same conclusion – more legal firearm ownership means less crime.

One of the common mistakes I see anti-gun advocates making is to use the metric of all “gun-related deaths”. First of all, this completely ignores the effects of hand gun ownership on violent crime, as we’ve seen. Take away the guns from law-abiding people and violent crime skyrockets. But using the “gun-related deaths” number is especially wrong, because it includes suicides committed with guns. This is the majority (about two thirds) of gun related deaths, even in a country like America that has a massive inner-city gun violence problem caused by the epidemic of single motherhood by choice. If you take out the gun-related SUICIDES, then the actual number of gun homicides has decreased as gun ownership has grown.

For a couple of useful graphs related to this point, check out this post over at the American Enterprise Institute.