Report: Criminologists, Economists Find Benefits to Gun Ownership

This past December marked three years since the massacre at Sandy Hook. Commemorating the anniversary, President Obama took to Facebook to pen a post that wondered how we as a nation explain congressional inaction on gun control to the victims' families. This type of rhetoric has been a common refrain from the president in the wake of other mass shootings since Newtown and the near-daily shootings in cities like Chicago. But despite attempts by President Obama, congressional Democrats, and the gun control lobby to push for stricter gun laws as the answer to gun violence, the nation remains divided on the issue.

So where do academics stand on the relationship between gun ownership and crime? A newly released survey of experts from the Crime Prevention Research center found that researchers supported what Second Amendment advocates have argued all along regarding concealed handgun laws, gun-free zones, self-defense and crime, and suicide and guns.

Authors of the report John R. Lott, Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, and Gary Mauser, Professor Emeritus of the Marketing Department at Simon Fraser University, surveyed criminologists and economists who had published peer-reviewed empirical research on gun issues. The survey found that differences exist between these two groups of academics, with the economists much more inclined to believe guns makes people safer. Criminologists, on the other hand, do not hold this belief as strongly. They are also more divided on the idea of deterrence than economists. Still, when their responses are combined, the results show that the researchers believe guns are used more for self defense than crime;

When I was in my early twenties, I shared a big farm house with four other women. One worked as a bar tender while putting herself through college. A wacko at the bar latched onto her and began stalking her. She moved to try and throw him off and rid herself of his constant harassment. She also did not want him hurting us.

She got a restraining order against him, but it did no good. A detective hooked her up with a gun, a carry licence and a gun range training class because he knew they could not protect her from one so obsessed.

One day he was waiting for her when she came out of a store. He grabbed her and stuffed her in his car as he scooted over to get in the drivers seat she shot him. He died.

Suddenly the stalking halted.

In another incident, my son stopped a stalker from kidnapping a woman in a Walmart parking lot. She was screaming as he grabbed her and she looked at my son and yelled for help. My son grabbed her and his gun and said, she was coming with him. The bad guy left and was later arrested. This happened while he was in college.

For women, guns are the great equalizer. Given the elite are packing the country with Muslims and foreign criminals, American men and women will need guns and training now more than ever.

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