Louisiana Gonzales break-in burglar shot
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How many gun owners are there in the US? Good question. No one really knows for sure. That’s because 1) surveys of gun ownership are historically inaccurate due to gun owners’ reluctance to talk about their firearms, and 2) many of those who are doing the polls have an interest in understating the actual number of gun owners.

If you believe the latest small arms survey, America has about 120 guns for every 100 residents. With roughly 325 million people in the US, that puts the number of civilian-owned firearms in the neighborhood 390 million. We’d guess that’s at least 10% to 20% low, but what do we know?

In short, Americans own a lot of guns. Which makes you wonder why criminals — particularly in rural parts of the south — think that breaking into homes is a good career move.

Take, for instance, 20-year-old Major Payton. He let himself into a trailer in Gonzales, Louisiana early one morning last week. That awoke the 60-year-old resident, who retrieved a firearm.

According to WBRZ.com,

Sheriff Bobby Webre said both men fired shots.

Payton was shot in the chest and died at the scene. The resident was shot in the stomach and taken to a local hospital for surgery. He is expected to recover.

Just to recap for the criminals out there in our audience, we live in a country where there are about 400 million firearms in civilian hands. There are also over 17 million people with carry permits, and that doesn’t count everyone who lives in constitutional carry states who don’t need a permission slip.

In short, it’s getting increasingly dangerous to be a criminal in the US. Unless, of course, that’s part of your job description. Maybe that’s why even Bloomberg.com acknowledges that we are experiencing historically low levels of crime in this country.

That, and the fact that people like Major Payton don’t seem to keep up on current events.

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58 COMMENTS

  3. And tweets and reporting like this makes using firearms for self defense a double edged sword. “coroner just wheeled out the victim of the early morning fatal shooting” I’m pretty sure the dead guy was the criminal and not the victim.

    • I do love when the criminal, the perp, the bad guy, is ‘the victim’ because he / she got the appropriate punishment. Words are used very deliberately by media; it’s no oversight that bad guys are ‘victims’ when they get shot by the good guys.

  6. 325 million Americans own 390 million gunzs, take note ISIS, N. Korea, China and South America. It’s more then just the criminals, Americans with gunz, We are an army. It’s to bad the Govarmint doesn’t see it that way. Not the civil war sht, but as protectors of MY country.

    • Actually there’s only about 290 million once you strip out the really young, etc. Although my 7 year old nephew has about 6 or 7. 🙂

  9. And one thing the media never talks about is , open carry states don’t have as many problems as gun free zone states, or states that don’t issue CCW permits.

  10. Here’s wishing the 60 year old resident with the belly wound a swift and full recovery.

    For the deceased criminal, hope the friends and family can afford a substantial funeral expense to ease their sense of closure. There’s lots of economic activity in that you see, jobs are supported, people earn their living burying the dear departed. With all that paying for the funeral and the open house and the food afterwards, lots of sales tax will be paid too. So benefits all around, for the wage earners and the public treasury.

    So do try not to be so frigg’n negative all the time folks. Helps to always look for that silver lining in every little dark cloud.

  11. “and that doesn’t count everyone who lives in constitutional carry states who don’t need a permission slip.”

    Judging from my own State of MS, you can add about 8 million to the nationwide number. And then there’s a few million who carry regardless of where they live. Your WAG is as good as mine or anyone else’s.

  12. I am pretty sure that the types of crimes in free states and gun grabbing states are different. The robbery and home takeovers are going to be much safer for the criminals in no gun zone areas. A home takeover in Idaho or Arizona would be a suicidal move by a criminal, not so much in Ca.

  13. To the best of my knowledge, I admit I’m no expert, every state in the union allows you to have a gun in your home. And that’s where this crime and all home invasions occur.

    • Ban homes. /solved.

      And I just /solved the problems AOC keeps talking about too.

      A free education in every mind and a free ticket for the public high speed rail in every… yurt. AOC 2020 and beyond!

      • Don’t knock yurts. I think they’re the wave of the future. Or a cardboard replica of same. Can’t be a homeless [problem if everybody has a yurt.

    • assuming the local Chief LEO signs off on your FOID application…complete with multiple notarized references

      still never forget when i strolled into my local PD back home and asked for an FOID application.

      “What do YOU need a gun for?” never been addressed so condescendingly in my entire life.

    • To the best of my knowledge, I admit I’m no expert, every state in the union allows you to have a gun in your home. And that’s where this crime and all home invasions occur.

      A dodge on the first statement and the second claim.

      13 State attorneys general joined DC in opposing Heller and asserted any jurisdiction right to ban guns in the home on a 50.1% vote of their legislature, which several jurisdictions had done. also joining DC in support of total ban: EVERY gun control group.

      So the correct answer is EVERY gun control group, which in total outspend the NRA 13:1 at the least, all oppose your right ot have a gun in your home, even if you have a background check, training, waiting period. Also supporting TOTAL ban for law abiding citizens: Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, Kamila Harris, Joe Biden, Corey Booker, Kristen Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein, Chuck Schumer.

    • Depends on where you live, I guess. When I lived in West Virginia it was all white males. Sometimes white females. Meth is a hell of a motivator.

          • That video is not representative of the movie. It is much worse, but there’s no way you could get anything more to show without carding people.

        • Looks like my old man’s side of the family. Biker Trash and outlaws. Had one die proving you can’t rape a .38. He was the scholar of that bunch. How my old man turned out as good as he did I’ll never know.

          There’s a group here on ttag that feels its only a crime if a non white does it. The same group hates, despises, the .gov and the fbi. Calls them tyrants and the like. Yet they eat up the fbi sourced crime stats to prove that only whites are victims and commit no crimes.

          I’m white and I grew up in an all white community. Our jails were still full.

        • West Virginia is only 3.4% African American, but that 3.4% commits 19% of the homicide there. In DC the African Americans population is 48%, and that demographic commits 96% of the murder there.

          Nationally 13.7% of the population and committing 51-54% of murders in the least ten years.

        • there is a group here that eats up every claim by the FBI when it criticizing Republicans, but then says the FBI is “lying” when it shows that blacks commit violent crimes and murder at profoundly higher rates.

          They claim Eric Holder’s FBI is “racist” when it notes black males from 15-55 years-old are about 6% of the population and commit half of all US murder. How and why would Obama’s man be doing so?

          The hypocrisy of those denying the elevated rates of African Americans committing gun crime is strange. The FBI is the be all and end all, yet it is systematically falsifying basic data in its own field of expertise???

        • Ted. First, I voted Trump and am a registered voter with the gop. But I’ll play your numbers game with you. Let’s just look at raw numbers and ignore all other parts of the equation like folks like to do when discussing black crime.

          Lets take a simple number. Right off the top of my head there are 30-35 thousand gun related deaths per year in the US. Let’s ignore, as you folks that want to point out how deadly the black folk are, everything but the raw numbers.

          Look at those numbers! By God shannon and hillary are right! There’s a gun violence epidemic! We must ban guns! Its for the children!

          See. It don’t make a lot of sense, either case. But there are those amongst us that have to hammer at the evil blacks. And the jooz. Did I forget them jooz?

    • “Why do they always seem to be young black males?”

      If it does indeed seem this way then the reason is because your brain has created a pattern it expects and is looking to complete. Where it finds data that supports the pattern it latches on to it. Where it finds data that runs counter to the expected pattern your brain tends to reject or minimize it.

      • Truth. Called “confirmation bias.”
        But, then, you watch the news and it seems to confirm my confirmation bias.

        • It is not the “MSM.”
          caIt is basic incontrovertible data from every state. African American males 15-55 years old are 6% of the Us population and commit half of gun crime and murder, in fact the entire elevation of US murder over international developed nation averages.

          In fact no group in the US is shot by police LESS per capita per violent armed felony committed than African American males.

          Claiming Obama’s own DOJ is lying is just hilarious.

      • Crime statistics show that Blacks offend at many times the rates of Whites. The Black homicide rate is 8 times that of Whites. It’s not confirmation bias. It’s reality.

        • So you have faith in and believe the .gov and their minions? Good to know. Next time you’re ranting about tyranny I’ll remind you.

      • No. You do not understand what confirmation bias is nor understand you r argument is a strawman.

        That African Americans are 13.7% of the population and have committed 51%-54% of all intentional homicide in the least then UCRs is not confirmation bias.

        Please learn the terms. We even know the claim African Americans are simply caught or charged more often is not the case.

        • Ted: “Confirmation bias, also called confirmatory bias or myside bias, is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs or hypotheses.”

          YOU learn your terms. I used it exactly as intended. And, for the record, that does NOT mean one’s pre-existing beliefs are incorrect, or, for that matter, that they are correct. It just means you believe something and frequently see something that confirms those beliefs.
          Like, I believe you’re an asshole, and your smug, arrogant posts confirm that belief.

  15. unbeknownst to him what he had signed up for was actually the room temperature challenge
    and he lost
    badly

  17. How many gun owners are there in the US? Good question. No one really knows for sure. That’s because 1) surveys of gun ownership are historically inaccurate due to gun owners’ reluctance to talk about their firearms, and 2) many of those who are doing the polls have an interest in understating the actual number of gun owners.

    it isn’t about them being “historically inaccurate.” That implies the reason for the inaccuracy has always been the similar. In fact, the reason for under-counting is increasing.

    1) Increasing proportion of gun owners who solely own for home/self defense (inherently extremely high confidentiality), and decreasing proportion of hunters (an inherently partially social/public, low confidentiality).
    2) Plus known increase in numbers of people taking optional or mandated professional training which all have a strong and repeated emphasis to keep gun possession confidential and not tell a stranger.
    3) Increasing distrust in polling/surveying data security due to many breaches of data security
    4) increasing distrust in polling/surveying political intent

    My local paper, the Washington Post, has published the General Social Survey numbers on gun ownership, which they had at about 36% and declining the past five years to about 31% — and called the GSS the “gold standard of surveys.” Yet the Post also published analysis piece a couple of years ago on how GSS numbers survey numbers on who is gay are “obvious under-counts” since it was a “private matter” and up to 3/4 of people who gay would not tell a surveyor.

    So the facts are:
    a) Raw numbers are low: the raw numbers of owns a gun are without a doubt very large under-counts.
    b) Trends are inverted: the trends are also likely inverted and ownership is likely have been going UP, not down the past generation since the reason for it to be confidential is increasing.
    c) Demographics: since a 60 year old white male guy in Wyoming is likely to assume almost everyone does own a gun it will likely be no secret; while an African American woman in an urban area is likely not to hunt, or do much social with their gun , they are more likely to view their gun ownership as profoundly confidential — and therefore “who” owns guns as reflected in GSS or gallup is also certainly inaccurate.

    What do a dozen sober and well thought out peer reviewed studies, which have established that there re huge undercounts in privacy relate direct questions issues tell us is the best way to get a more accurate idea? They say indirect questions are more accurate. What do answers to indirect questions on guns tell us? That proportion of households with gun ownership is with a virtual certainly to have been increasing:
    http://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/FT_15.04.01_guns_Safer.png

  18. “Home invader” is racist. the proper term is “undocumented occupant.”

    just like “bank robbery” should be changed to “undocumented withdrawal ” and “rapist” should be changed to “undocumented sperm donor”.

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