When I was doing “A Field Guide to American Politics,” there was a chapter in the “Field Guide” called “Gun Defense.” (Is that enough quotes? Perhaps I will switch to parenthesis…)
Anyway, the “Gun Defense” chapter focused on reinforcing the fact that guns save lives every day. I could have Googled it every night, but lucky for me, there was already a great blog reporting on the used of firearms in self defense.
Recently that blog, Clayton Cramer’s Civilian Gun Defense Blog, reached it’s 4000th post:
Since I started this project in 2003, Dave Burnett and myself (and Pete Drum, before he went on to other activities) have been posting every news story that we could find in which civilians in the U.S. used a gun in self-defense. By “civilian” we mean persons who are not active or retired police officers (who have a special status in the law when it comes to carrying and using weapons).These entries are (with one or two exceptions, such as when my neighbor chased an intruder out of his daughter’s room) all derived from published news sources. Of necessity, this means that these were incidents sufficiently high profile to receive the attention of both police and news media.
He’s got a boatload of great stats from over the years, including which states showed the most used of firearms in self-defense. Missouri came in with 89.
Congratulations, Clayton! Keep doing what you are doing.
Hat Tip: Sharp as a Marble
