Quick Facts

• A study by Prof. Gary Kleck, a criminologist, finds that law-abiding citizens use a gun between 1.5 and 2.8 million times a year (on average) to thwart crime. In the overwhelming majority of these cases, the mere sight of the gun is enough to stop the crime and no shots are fired.

  While there have been no studies to see how many innocent bystanders have been shot during attempts to thwart crime (I've only heard of cases where the police did this, not civilians), a study did determine that, on average, homicides by police were 5x as likely to be questionable as to justification as were citizen-committed self-defense homicides in the same city (this was either Detroit or Chicago).

  The Department of Justice indicated that extensive research into collected crime stats showed that the ONLY means of resistance to crime that was overwhelmingly successful in preventing injury to the victim while thwarting the crime was armed resistance (use of a firearm). The success rate was in the high 80% range. Submission was twice as likely to result in injury or death to the victim (and, of course, the criminal succeeded in his crime). Unarmed resistance was far more dangerous than either armed resistance or submission. Why do you think the police carry guns? :-)

• USC Title 10 (311 Militia: Composition and Classes) states,

  "The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States, and of female citizens of the United States who are commissioned officers of the National Guard.

  The classes of the militia are--

  • the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
  • the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or Naval Militia."
• From the Defense Intelligence Agencys:
  Small Arms Identification and Operation Guide - Eurasian Communist Countries 105 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1988).

  `assault rifles' are `short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachine gun and rifle cartridges.'