Excerpts from netnews.talk.politics.guns: 18-Apr-93 2ND AMENDMENT DEAD -
GOOD ! by jrm@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu 

excerpted from a letter I wrote a while ago:

     Although less apparent to those who have not researched
the facts, personal protection is as legitimate a reason  as
sport for the private citizen to own a gun.  The most recent
research  is  that  of Dr. Gary Kleck of the  Florida  State
University  School of Criminology.1  He found that  handguns
are  more  often  used by victims to defeat  crime  than  by
criminals to commit it (645,000 vs. 580,000 respectively  in
this  study).  These figures are even more encouraging  when
you  consider the number of crimes that never occur  because
of  the  presence  of a gun in the hands  of  a  law-abiding
private  citizen.  In a National Institute of Justice  study
of  ten state prisons across the country they found that 39%
of  the  felons  surveyed had aborted  at  least  one  crime
because  they believed that the intended victim was  armed.,
and  57% agreed that "most criminals are more worried  about
meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the
police."2
     One  of the most heinous of crimes is that against  the
women  of  this country.  It has been my recent  observation
that  more  women  are purchasing handguns  for  defense  in
response  to  the  present danger of these  assaults.   This
should be taken as encouraging news if the events of Orlando
Florida  are any indicator.  In the late 1960's  the  female
populace was plagued with a series of brutal assaults;  just
the  publicity of the record number of women buying guns and
obtaining training resulted in an 88% decrease in  rape  for
that  area,  the  only city of its size in  the  country  to
experience a decrease of crime for that year.  Additionally,
a 1979 US Justice Department study of 32,000 attempted rapes
showed  that overall, when rape is attempted, the completion
rate  is 36%. But when a woman defends herself with  a  gun,
the completion rate drops to 3%.
 
1 G Kleck, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America Aldine
de Gruyter, NY, 1991
2 JD Wright & PH Rossi Armed and Considered Dangerous:  A
Survey of Felons and Their Firearms, Aldine de Gruyter, NY,
1986
-------

__________________________________________________________________________
[unlike cats] dogs NEVER scratch you when you wash them. They just
become very sad and try to figure out what they did wrong. -Dave Barry