Kellermann states that as an emergency room doctor, he noted that the number of gunowners injured by their own gun or that of a family member seemed to greatly outnumber the number of intruders shot by the gun of a homeowner, and therefore he determined to study whether or not this was in fact true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Kellermann (I could quote from this, but it's IMO worth a read.)
When the team looked at shootings in which victims had a chance to defend themselves, their odds of getting shot were even higher.
PS: As to why you have not heard of this. The final appropriation language included the following statement: “[N]one of the funds made available for injury control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control”. These words appear in every CDC grant announcement to this day. [5]
Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Showing correlation doesn't show causation.
Consider, for example, that people who are more likely to be injured by a gun at the outset are probably more likely to own, and even to have to use, a gun themselves. A drug dealer, for example, is more likely to have a gun because of his line of work. But having the gun isn't what makes it more dangerous; rather, it's more dangerous, so he feels he needs a gun.
Thus, the gun owners have a higher Bayesian prior. It would be very wrong to interpret this to say that owning a gun causes your likelihood of it being used (maybe even accidentally) against you.
I suggest that many people who actually do such studies understand this, and that is a better reason for it not to be in the headlines.
I don't feel the need to defend the research. There is a lot of it and it does address your obvious concerns. My point about funding was demonstrating that like Abstinence only education the is that it's treated as a political issue where actual evidence is irrelevant. The proper result of a study that you disagree with is to look for flaws and then do more research or change your stance, not to cut funding.
Anyway, did you read the any of the studies or are you filtering new evidence though your basis in such a way that you don't need to reconsider your stance? In proper Bayesian reasoning you need to consider how much this information even if flawed adjusts your probability estimates. Deciding that the risks of some activity is worth it is one thing, deciding that some activity is good and therefore ignoring the risks is not. I just linked a specific case where someones owning a gun resulted in there being shot by that gun so the situation exists. The question becomes how common is it and how common is it to defend yourself with a gun and then compare them. And to do that you need actual evidence not a hunch.
Yes, being shot with your own gun is a rare event, so is using your gun to defend yourself. And at the level of paranoia where spending money on a gun so you can defend yourself becomes reasonable you need to consider other low probability events. The largest downside is how having a gun tends to escalate the violence of a situation, but when evaluating types of guns that takes a back seat to losing control of it.
PS: I am pro gun despite the expectation that it reduces safety. Arthur Kellermann overestimates the risks, but he is a good starting point for the research.
But let me note that we're not just passengers on the probability bus. All those possibilities of accidents or otherwise being harmed by your own weapon are avoidable. I can mitigate all of those dangers by taking responsibility for myself (and imposing the same on my family) to be properly trained and practiced.
On the other hand, there isn't so much that I can do to mitigate the danger I'm in should I or my family find ourselves in the (admittedly very unlikely) situation of being attacked (yes, I can try to avoid some situations to begin with, but I claim that ordinary prudent behavior is the most that can be expected here without getting to diminishing returns).
If I'm under attack, there's little else I can do to protect myself. But ahead of time, I can prepare myself and family to defend ourselves, and at the same time ensure that we won't get ourselves into trouble. I much prefer being the one driving the outcome, rather than the bad guy.
I have never heard of shotgun ammo being used in a handgun. Your PS does not explain that. I am going to go with CWuestefeld's response until I see some actual stats on the issue.
There are handguns that shoot a .410 shotgun shell. The Taurus Judge[1] is one such gun.
However, I think the parent meant that owners either are shot by someone they know who is using their guns maliciously or non-maliciously, or have the gun somehow removed from their control by an assailant and then killed with it.
When the team looked at shootings in which victims had a chance to defend themselves, their odds of getting shot were even higher.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17922-carrying-a-gun-i...
EX: "owner that was armed with a shotgun got shot with his own gun" http://texasfred.net/archives/2671
PS: As to why you have not heard of this. The final appropriation language included the following statement: “[N]one of the funds made available for injury control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control”. These words appear in every CDC grant announcement to this day. [5]