Every so often, a local news story about a victim of crime goes national. Most recently, it was Sarah McKinley, 18, home alone with her 3 month old son, a few days after Sarah's husband had died of lung cancer. Two men apparently looking to steal pain medicine prescribed for the husband broke in. Sarah grabbed a shotgun and a pistol and killed Justin Martin as he forced entry into her home. How often do such incidents happen? While the results from studies vary, the numbers are large. The National Crime Victimization Survey, for various procedural reasons, is at the low end, showing 108,000 such cases a year (although this was some years back, when crime rates were higher than now). The widely reported Kleck/Gertz study, which has its own set of problems, showed a range of 830,000 to 2.45 million defensive gun uses per year. Other studies have fallen solidly in the middle, with hundreds of thousands of defensive gun uses per year.
Cramer: On the right side of the bullet
Friday, February 10, 2012
Monday, January 12, 2026
Manufactured panic has frequently been used to lay the policy foundation for legislative and legal efforts meant to ban legally manufactured and lawfully owned firearms.
Tuesday, January 6, 2026
In 1999, when the rest of the country was fretting over the potential Y2K disruption of worldwide computer systems, the City of Gary, Indiana launched its lawsuit against handgun manufacturers, retailers and a wholesaler, raising ...
Thursday, January 8, 2026
Anti-gun legislators in Richmond have been busy ahead of the 2026 legislative session working on ways to burden your Second Amendment rights.
Tuesday, January 13, 2026
On Wednesday, January 14th, the Virginia General Assembly begins the 2026 legislative session, and lawmakers are once again expected to pursue an aggressive anti-gun agenda.
Monday, January 12, 2026
Gun control advocates have gone to great lengths to rebrand themselves as mere proponents of “commonsense gun safety measures.”
More Like This From Around The NRA
