Gun statistics you seldom see - The Orange County Register

Link: http://www.ocregister.com/news/gun-200911-homeowner-year.html (via shareaholic.com)

It happened earlier this month in Irvine. Police were looking for a man suspected of raping an 18-year-old woman in her home. As the cops searched, the fleeing suspect, a 27-year-old L.A. gang member, tried to hide by breaking into another home. Inside, the homeowner, a man who had recently undergone defensive firearms training, heard the commotion, grabbed a handgun and confronted the suspect.
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But as I said, the homeowner - for security reasons, he declined to be interviewed or identified by name - didn't shoot. Instead, he shouted at the suspect to stop, at which point the guy ran out of the house. Shortly thereafter he was caught and arrested by the police.
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So how will that incident be reflected in the crime statistics?

Yes, the rape will be added to the grim numbers of that despicable crime, and the successful arrest will appear in the Irvine Police Department's annual statistics. And ironically, if the homeowner had justifiably shot and killed the intruder it still would have been listed in the overall statistics as a gun-related homicide - the same statistics that anti-gun activists use to promote stricter so-called "gun control" laws to keep firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens.

But police departments and other government agencies don't collect hard numbers on crimes that may have been prevented by armed citizens - because, as in the Irvine case, they're difficult and sometimes impossible to quantify.

And that's unfortunate. Because crimes prevented by firearms are as important in the debate over guns as crimes committed with firearms.