A Couple Numbers For Gun Nuts To Crunch

If you believe the best solution to the gun violence problem is more guns, if you think schools would be safer if teachers were issued handguns after a 3-day training course, if you think keeping a gun in your house will protect you, if the idea of weaponizing the entire country into a gigantic circular firing squad makes sense to you, then here are a few numbers for you to chew on:


Your student is three times more likely to be struck by lightning than he or she is to be killed at school, by any means including guns or other.

In the U.S., guns are used in self-defense 180,000 times a year. 

For every time a gun in the home is fired in legally justified self-defense, there are 4 accidental shootings, 7 criminal gun assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides.

New York City Police Dept. officers must have a shooting range target hit rate of at least 78% to pass their firearms training program.

In actual real-world incidents of firing their weapons, the average NYPD officer has a hit rate of 30% if the target does not return fire.  When the target is shooting back, the officer's hit rate is 18%.  And these are highly-trained professionals.


Wake up!  On the whole, guns in the home, in our schools, in our businesses and on our streets increase our risk and make us less safe.
 

Cover art by Roy Lichtenstein, for TIME, June 21, 1968