The American College of Physicians position paper on firearms injury prevention [1] argues against the carrying of concealed weapons by average citizens, asserting that such restrictions are "self-explanatory." To the contrary, Lott and Mustard [2], using cross-sectional time series crime data for all U.S. counties from 1977 to 1992, found that allowing citizens without criminal records or histories of significant mental illness to carry concealed weapons deterred violent crime and produced no increase in accidental deaths. When state laws permitting concealed handguns went into effect in a county, murders decreased by an average of 8.5%, rapes decreased by 5%, and aggravated assaults decreased by 7%. The authors estimated that if the states that did not have right-to-carry provisions had adopted them in 1992, more than 1500 murders, 4000 rapes, and 60 000 aggravated assaults would have been avoided. The estimated annual gain from allowing concealed handguns was $5.74 billion.

Bureau of Justice statistics demonstrate that using a gun to protect oneself during a crime is the most effective means of avoiding injury [3]. As measured by the National Crime Victimization Survey, one fifth of the victims defending themselves with a firearm suffered an injury compared with almost half of those who defended themselves with weapons other than a firearm or who had no weapon.

This "no data needed" approach to policy formulation is but one example of how ACP-ASIM has ignored the wealth of research on guns, gun control, and violence present in the criminologic, legal, and sociologic literature [4]. The ACP-ASIM has presented an oversimplified view of a complex issue by failing to acknowledge and objectively evaluate the deterrent effects of defensive gun use on crime and crime-related injuries.