This is just playing with words.

The meaning remains the same. If you stop your attacker you have stopped your victimization.

If you prevent your rape you have stopped the victimization.

If you prevent your murder you have prevented your victimization.

You can play with the word all you want, but being unable to stop the crime is not a solution and THAT is what the OP is about.

Leaders who are tasked with reducing crime that tell you to just do nothing to protect yourself are not doing there job.

Gun-control advocates look at guns only as a means to harm others even though they are more often used to prevent injury. According to a 1995 study entitled “Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun” by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, published by the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology at Northwestern University School of Law, law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year.

That means that firearms are used 60 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to shoot with criminal intent. Of these defensive shootings, more than 200,000 are by women defending themselves against sexual abuse. About half a million times a year, a citizen carrying a gun away from home uses it in self-defense. Again, according to Kleck amd Gertz, “Citizens shoot and kill more criminals than police do every year [2,819 times versus 303].” Moreover, as George Will pointed out in an article entitled “Are We a Nation of Cowards?” in the November 15, 1993, issue of Newsweek, while police have an error rate of 11 percent when it comes to the accidental shooting of innocent civilians, the armed citizens’ error rate is only 2 percent, making them five times safer than police.

Some try to turn this argument around, blaming crime problems in Washington, D.C. on weak gun laws in Virginia, but the reality is that Virginia with all of its guns and few laws does not have the crime problem that plagues Washington, D.C. and its gun bans. If guns are the problem, then why is it that those areas with the most guns have the lowest crime levels? If one believes that gun control lowers crime and violence and thus guns are responsible, then these aforementioned facts are counterintuitive to the logic of gun control. This is especially true of the 31 states that have enacted concealed carry laws. Even though groups like Handgun Control, Inc. continually attacked such measures in saying that they will lead to higher crime, "blood on our streets," and "wild west shootouts," just the opposite has occurred. Those states that have enacted concealed carry measures have seen their crime rates immediately fall and continue to do so at rates in most cases faster than the national average. One of the best examples is Florida. Prior to their enactment of concealed carry laws in the late 1980s, the crime rate in Florida was higher than the national average. However, following the enactment of the concealed carry law their crime immediately began to drop and has continued to do so today. In fact, today the crime levels in Florida are considerably lower than the national average. Additionally, the U.S. state with the lowest crime rate, Vermont, also happens to be the state with the fewest gun control laws and they allow all law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons.

In 1987, when Florida enacted such legislation, critics warned that the "Sunshine State" would become the "Gunshine State." Contrary to their predictions, homicide rates dropped faster than the national average. Further, through 1997, only one permit holder out of the over 350,000 permits issued, was convicted of homicide. (Source: Kleck, Gary Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, p 370. Walter de Gruyter, Inc., New York, 1997.) If the rest of the country behaved as Florida's permit holders did, the U.S. would have the lowest homicide rate in the world.

Other studies give similar results. “Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms,” by the Clinton administration’s Justice Department shows that between 1.5 and 3 million people in the United States use a firearm to defend themselves and others from criminals each year. A 1986 study by Hart Research Associates puts the upper limit at 3.2 million.

Those studies and others indicate that often the mere sight of a firearm discourages an attacker. Criminologist John Lott from the University of Florida found that 98 percent of the time when people use guns defensively, simply brandishing a firearm is sufficient to cause a criminal to break off an attack. Lott also found that in less than 2 percent of the cases is the gun fired, and three-fourths of those are warning shots.

The problem with what you posted is that you are talking apples to oranges. You need to make the comparison apples to apples.

In states where CCW permits are made "shall issue", you can watch the crime statistics drop like a rock. This is significant, because you have a before / after scenario, instead of comparing two states with different demographics, geography, education levels, poverty levels, etc. By doing a before / after study on a state, you are comparing apples to apples and the statistics are meaningful.

Your arguing definitions like they dont hold multiple meanings and like that is somehow cogent.

When ever a person decides to argue a definition it becomes clear they have nothing better to argue.

http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0210e.asp

This just makes sense. There are far more law abiding citizens with guns, than violent criminals. It only makes sense that the defensive usage would be a greater preponderance. It takes some extreme bias to disregard this, however once a person has made the decision to go unarmed no matter what, they often do not care about the relationship between armed defense and lower rates of violent crime.

It also makes sense that fewer of the shooting would be mistaken, a citizen has a far greater chance of being prosecuted than a police officer does, which means they are far less likely to shoot if it isn't needed. The police are given protections from prosecution, they know it, and they use lethal force more often due to this knowledge. The police are far fewer in number, but have a greater incidence of unjustified shootings than the law abiding citizen.

This concludes that law abiding citizens with defensive firearms are a greater deterrent to crime than police.

I know some wont understand and others wont try to understand but the analogy to explain the pov of the 'be a victim' (highly paraphrased) explanation

is ,,'better a live chicken than a dead hero'

many agree, many dont
I think the walk away with your life rather than escalate it into someones death argument is valid,,,

BBC, you seem to think community policing means citizen policing. It doesn't. It is done by the police, who therefore do have the means to protect themselves.

"It may be hard to believe, but the majority of people have no more desire to kill people than you do. It may also surprise you that most criminals are lazy cowards who don't want to die, they just want life to be easier." I fully believe both of these statements.

One reason why I think more guns makes the situation worse is that thieves steal guns from law-abiding citizens. This happened to my husband and me. It was only an old 22 pistol which he had for sentimental reasons (as far as I could tell), but it was perfectly capable of killing someone.

I still think the culture of the community has a lot to do with crime rate. Why is Maine so low? It's a poor, poor state and there is a rabid gun fan base. I actually can't think of anybody I know there who doesn't have a gun except possibly one person. So why? Is it because the population is so spread out? Because of the Yankee attitude of "mind your own business and I'll mind mine"? Because there's nothing to steal? Because the weather is too bad? Because it's such a beautiful place that people don't feel like doing bad things? Until we can at least have a clue about this kind of thing, I don't think we'll get anywhere.

like Im in the wild wild west

Poverty. That one factor more than almost any other dictates crime.
I think the better question is why is Maine an exception. That I have no clue. Good find however, as exceptions tend to tell you more than the rules.

Brava, I am not saying we should police our communities (I have no personal desire to do this), someone else mentioned that. What I believe is that the only person who is with you 100% of the time who is in a position to be responsible for your safety, is you.

When the supreme court of the land makes it clear that police do not have a responsibility to protect citizens, AND they strip you of your second amendment rights by making it illegal to carry a gun, such as in DC, then you are made a perfect target by criminals.

This is just hyperbole.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10tbl05.xls
You do not need to believe we live in the wild west, you just need to believe the FBI has valid data and then look at it.

it tells me that violent crime happens, no big surprise

I still have less than a 2 percent chance of it happening though

so I dont feel the dire need to protect myself from it, anymore than I feel a need to steer clear of males because of statistics about the percentage of inmates in jail who are male,,

I dont begrudge those who wish to carry them, Im just not one,,,

I get that, but the hyperbolic language does not make you seem unbiased, nor objective.

Do you think I am some kind of cowboy for carrying a gun?

What do you think the murder rate was in the wild west?