Originally Posted by American_made
http://www.gunowners.org/sk0405.htm
Other research shows that guns clearly deter criminals. Polls by the Los Angeles Times, Gallup and Peter Hart Research show that there are at least 760,000, and possibly as many as 3.6 million, defensive uses of guns per year. In 98% of the cases, such polls show, people simply brandish the weapon to stop an attack.
The defensive nature of guns is further reflected in the different rates of so-called hot burglaries, in which a victim is at home when a burglar strikes. In Canada and Britain, which both have tough gun-control laws, almost half of all burglaries are "hot." In The U.S., where greater gun ownership is allowed, only 13% of burglaries are "hot."
Criminals are not behaving differently simply by accident. U.S. felons reveal in surveys that when committing crimes they are much more worried about armed victims than about the police