Earlier this year the NRA asked me to do a presentation on armed self-defense -- both the law and the incidence. They ended up using only the law part. Here is the section on the utility of armed defense. 

1. Firearms are unique among weapons.  

The unique role of firearms in human society is that they are weapons of defense – the only weaponry which allow the weak to defend against victimization and aggression by the string. This obvious point is obscured to us because, of course, firearms can be and are also used by aggressors for unlawful violence. But firearms are only marginally helpful to attackers who in any event have the advantage of choosing the time, place and victim. Victims on the other hand are virtually naked without firearms.

Thus the true impact of firearms on society is that only they allow victims to defend themselves on equal terms with criminals. To understand this, visualize something that all too often occurs: a confrontation between a homicidal 200 pound man armed with a knife and a 115 pound woman. Even if the woman also has a knife, her chances of survival are poor.

Now imagine the same confrontation but with both parties are armed with firearms. The woman is still in serious danger but she is no longer a helpless victim. The man is also in serious danger if instead of retreating he persists in attacking her. As we shall see, in organized society firearms are vastly advantageous to victims rather than to predators.

Moving from theory to ascertainable fact, criminological studies find that in confrontations with criminals armed citizens usually win. First, self-defense incidents involving gun-armed citizens occur three-to-six times more often each year than gun attacks by criminals. And, Professor Southwick concludes, in such incidents, "The use of a gun by the victim significantly reduces her chance of being injured ...." For instance, another study finds that "firearms are used over half a million times a year [in America] against home invasion burglars; usually the burglar flees as soon as he fnds out that the victim is armed, and no shot is ever fired."

I add emphasis in the foregoing quote because it represents the consistent outcome of confrontations between criminals and gun-armed citizens. The latter enjoy two immense advantage which may explain why criminals usually flee without firing a shot. First, gunshots tend to attract police attention, a consummation as adverse to criminals as is devoutly welcomed by victims. Second, roughly 85% of those wounded by gunshot survive if they get medical care. Again, victims welcome such intervention while criminals dread it since it focuses police attention. Victims can satisfactorily answer police questions while criminals cannot; for them going to a hospital is just a first step toward going to prison.

In short, if victims are armed they are in a generally much better position in a gunfight than are criminals.

2. Saving Lives – what a difference a gun makes.

The NRA’s incredibly successful push for mandatory concealed carry issuance laws began in the tenure of two women, Marian Hammer and Tanya Metaksa, as president of the NRA, and head of its lobbying arm, respectively. To them, concealed carry was a women’s safety issue. By the mid-1980s they had made it a major NRA goal.

To understand their concern requires understanding how victimization of women differs from male victimization. It has been estimated that roughly one third of American women will be raped sometime in their lives. Sometimes such victims are also murdered. Yet women are far less often murdered than are men – because women are far less often involved in the high risk criminal milieu which characterizes most murder victims.6 The presence or absence of guns is largely irrelevant to whether people living high-risk criminal lives will be murdered. Once again, without firearms their killers are only slightly worse off than they would be with firearms since they have the advantage of picking the time, place and victim to attack. In the absence of guns, killers still have innumerable other murder weapons to substitute. Consider Russia whose many decades of anti gun policies were so stringently enforced that guns have rarely been used in Russian murders. Despite this general absence of guns, for as long as we have data (from the 1960s on) Russia’s murder rates have always been as much as four times higher than American.

Unlike most male murder victims, most females have not chosen high risk life styles. Rather they die because they were so unfortunate as to be targeted by sexual predators, stalkers or former mates who turned out to be violent aberrants. Help rarely comes from such politically correct solutions as restraining orders8 or cell phones.  Almost all murderers have life histories of violence, felony, psychopathology and/or substance abuse.  Does anyone seriously believe a man with such a life history who wants to kill a woman – and often ends up killing himself as well – will be deterred by the possibility of a contempt sanction for violating a restraining order?

If a woman is so menaced, physical resistance is generally the only course – and the only or best means of resistance is a gun for it is the one weapon that allows a weaker victim to resist a stronger attacker.  Analyses of available evidence "reveal a great deal of self-defensive use of firearms; in fact, more defensive gun uses than crimes committed with firearms."

It may be instructive to contrast two sets of actual instances:

A. Outcomes of Criminal Attack - Women Without Guns

To limit examples to manageable proportions we describe only ones in which: (a) the victims were store clerks; (b) they were murdered, not just raped; and © judicial proceedings ensued:

*New Mexico: suit against convenience store by family of clerk kidnapped, raped and murdered Jan. 12, 2005;

Texas: James Allridge executed August 26, 2004 for abduction, rape and murder of convenience store clerk;

Tennessee: having been incarcerated for raping the same clerk, defendant upon release from prison kidnapped her from her job and killed her. (Whether he raped her could not be determined as her body was never found);

Louisiana: murder of motel clerk by co-employee to cover up robbery Indiana: convenience store clerk kidnapped, raped and tortured to death.

Texas: Convenience store clerk abducted, raped and murdered. Idaho: Convenience store clerk abducted, raped and murdered.

B. Outcomes of Criminal Attack - Women With Guns

The following examples appeared in 2004 publications:

Eugene, OR Register-Guard 6/25/04: convenience store clerk gave robber all the money she had. When he threatened to kill her unless she gave him more she drew her gun, chased him out of the store, then shot the back window out of his getaway car. He and his driver were shortly apprehended.

Johnson City (TN) Press 1/8/04: Alerted when a man broke through her porch door and began kicking in her front door, a 56 year old Erwin, TN woman routed him with two warning shots. He was arrested minutes later.

Daily Oakland (MI) Press 3/20/04: Though he had not supported Michigan’s new "shall issue" law the Farmington, Michigan Police Chief changed his mind when a woman walking to her office at 6:30 a.m. was menaced by a stranger who only backed off when she drew her gun from her purse. The gun "probably saved her life."

Chief Dwyer commented.Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun 3/22/04: Springfield, Ohio resident MelanyYancey locked herself in her bedroom when two armed men broke into her house. She fired a warning shot when they began breaking down her bedroom door. They shot back but fled when one was mortally wounded in the ensuing gun fight.

Detroit Free Press 4/29/04: Detroit businesswoman Barbara Holland was returning to the home she shares with her 18 year old daughter one evening when an armed man knocked her down as she was unlocking her front door. "He looked surprised" she reported when she pulled a gun from her purse and killed him.Belleville, Il.

News-Democrat 8/6/04: Nina Sloan, 87, grabbed her gun and her cane and hobbled toward her kitchen door when she heard a man breaking it in. He fled when she fired a warning shot as he stuck his hand through the broken glass to unlock the door.

Spokane Review 7/9/04: When a man broke into her home and attempted to enter her bedroom Spokane, WA resident Lisa Hansen arrested and held him at gun point for police.The Tennessean 7/19/04 Two young women hid in a bedroom with a gun when two men broke into their Nashville, TN home, but when one man entered the bedroom they mortally wounded him and both intruders fled.

Southern Sentinel 8/11/04: An 88 year old Ripley, Miss. Woman was raped by a man who forced his way into her house but as he began ransacking it she got her gun and shot him whereupon he fled only to be arrested later in the day.

Orlando Sentinel 8/11/04: Confronted in her store by two gun wielding robbers, Haines City, FL store owner Judy Foster shot one and both robbers fled.

Arab Tribune 8/4/04: Observing a man rummaging through her car an Arab, AL woman armed herself and chased him away into the arms of the police.

In sum: a) firearms are of much more use to victims than they are to criminals; b) incidents in which victims use guns ti defend themselves are three times more com mon than gun crimes; c) even if a criminal has a gun, if he discovers his victim is armed in the great majority of cases he flees and d) victims with guns are much less likely to suffer injury than unarmed victims.