The polls and studies that provide these numbers are the result of a great deal of work by researchers and pollsters. I am not going to try and duplicate that here.
But here is some info gathered by the above mentioned methods.
"A 1982 survey of male felons in 11 state prisons dispersed across the U.S. found:
• 34% had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"
• 40% had decided not to commit a crime because they "knew or believed that the victim was carrying a gun"
• 69% personally knew other criminals who had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"
From: Book:
Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms (Expanded Edition). By James D. Wright and Peter D. Rossi. Aldine De Gruyter, 1986 (Expanded edition published in 1994).
The definitive study of the quality of prisoner self-report data is Marquis (1981), a data quality analysis of the RAND "Criminal Careers" survey. In this study, data quality was assessed by comparing prisoners' self reports with information contained in official criminal justice records. Since the format and procedures of the RAND survey were very similar to those followed in our survey, it is reasonable to assume that Marquis' findings generalize. Summarizing briefly, Marquis found:
1. There is no evidence that prisoners attempt to deny salient aspects of their criminal past. ...
2. Comparisons of self-reported conviction-offense data with official records showed that "on a general level, the data are close to unbiased" (Marquis, 1981: 32). Moderate biases were found on some items , but in general, reliability of the self-report data was "moderately high."
Same as above. Page 155:
2. Have you ever been scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim? No: 66%, Yes: 34%,
(N) = (1673)
3. Was there ever a time in your life when you decided not to do a crime because you knew or believed that the victim was carrying a gun? No, never: 61%, Yes, just once: 10%, Yes, a few times: 22%, Yes, many times: 8%,
(N) = (1627)
4. [H]ave any of the criminals you have known personally ever been scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim? No, none: 31%, Yes, but only one: 10%, Yes, a few: 48%, Yes, many: 11%,
(N) = (1627)
"Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the
Journal of Quantitative Criminology,
[17] U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year."
As shown in the previous footnote, this study did not use a nationally representative population. To correct for this, Just Facts used the following equation:
t =
c ×
g ×
p / [
n ×
r × [[
s ×
d /
f] + [(1-
s) × (1-
d) / (1-
f)]]]
Where:
t = Total defensive gun uses in a nationally representative population
c = Defensive gun uses in this survey, civilian against offender, clear = 48
g = Minimum proportion of households with a gun = 0.34*
p = Population, ages 25-70 = 158,799,375â€
n = Survey sample size = 3006
r = Proportion of survey respondents with a gun in their home = .83
s = Proportion of survey respondents who are female = .25
d = Proportion of defensive gun uses by females = .46‡
f = Proportion of population (ages 25-70) who are females = .51â€
"A 1994 survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Americans use guns to frighten away intruders who are breaking into their homes about 498,000 times per year."
from:
Estimating intruder-related firearm retrievals... Violence Vict. 1997 - PubMed - NCBI
So I don't think I was ever "afraid" of guns. I have a healthy respect for them, though.
