Study: GUNS DO NOT MAKE a person Safer. The opposite actually.

http://samuel-warde.com/2015/07/silencing-myth-study-finds-guns-not-increase-personal-safety/

Led by David Hemenway, Ph.D., of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, this study utilizes data from the National Crime Victimization Survey. It is an annual survey of 90,000 households which has revealed data that shows “defensive gun use” not only rarely protects a person from harm, but also increases the personal danger.

The study found that in incidents where a victim used a gun in self-defense, the likelihood of suffering an injury was 10.9 percent. Had the victim taken no action at all, the risk of injury was virtually identical: 11 percent. Having a gun also didn’t reduce the likelihood of losing property: 38.5 percent of those who used a gun in self-defense had property taken from them, compared to 34.9 percent of victims who used another type of weapon, such as a knife or baseball bat.
 
What’s more, the study found that while the likelihood of injuryafter brandishing a firearm was reduced to 4.1 percent, the injury rate after those defensive gun uses was similar to using any other weapon (5.3 percent), and was still greater than if the person had run away or hid (2.4 percent) or called the police (2.2 percent). These results were similar to previous research on older NCVS data which showed that, while using a firearm in self-defense did lower a person’s risk of subsequent injury, it was less effective than using any weapon other than a gun. – The Trace