The April 2010 Rangemaster Newsletter is up.

One thing in the newsletter bears repeating: most self-defense incidents do not happen at home. Most people are all into home-defense, but the reality is it makes up a small part of violent crime. From the newsletter:

To illustrate, here are some statistics from the United States Department of Justice, looking at Robbery Locations for the year 2007:

Street- 43.8%
Commercial- 13.9%
Residence- 15.2%
Banks- 2.1%
Gas station- 2.6%
Miscellaneous- 16.8%.

So, you are almost three times as likely to be robbed on the street than at home, and in the home only accounts for 1 robbery in 6. Similar patterns exist for rape, aggravated assaults, etc. In fact, good locks, an alarm system, and proper lighting can reduce your risk of violent crime at home to very low levels.

So this isn’t to say you can’t have issues at home, but on the whole most incidents are outside the home: about 85%! So just looking at the statistics, odds are if the flag is going to fly it’s going to fly when you’re away from home.

What’s your plan for defending yourself outside of your home?