USA's "gun problem"

[2aguy]

The Cato book based on their paper is interesting reading....they have a lot of defensive gun use stories and some interesting insights into the debate.....

How often was a criminal shot and killed in the stories they reviewed?

A quick scan of Tough Targets talks about this...

At one time it was quite common for gun control advocates to use the very low num- ber of recorded justifiable homicides with guns as evidence that there were very few self- defense shootings. The main problem with that line of reasoning is that it only includes those defensive gun uses where a citizen kills a criminal. It does not tell us anything about instances where the criminal was wounded (but did not die), where the victim held an attacker for police, or where the brandishing of a gun caused the criminal to flee.

Another problem is that the data gath- ered on justifiable homicides employs a very strict definition of what is “justifiable”: where one person kills another person to pre- vent a felony, and the action is lawful.6 That narrow definition does not include excusable homicide. Many states have two categories of excusable homicide. The first category is a homicide “committed by accident and mis-

4fortune, or in doing any other lawful act by lawful means, with usual and ordinary cau- tion, and without any unlawful intent.”7 For example, that would be the case where a gun owner does everything right about his target shooting, but another person wanders into the middle of the gun range and gets shot. In other words, it is an accidental death.

But the second category of excusable ho- micide is so similar to justifiable homicide that one may not immediately see the dif- ference: “When committed by accident and misfortune, in the heat of passion, upon any sudden and sufficient provocation, or upon a sudden combat, when no undue ad- vantage is taken, nor any dangerous weapon used, and when the killing is not done in a cruel or unusual manner.”8 If a stranger ran up to you on the street, knocked you to the ground, and you pulled out a gun and shot the attacker, that response would likely be ruled an excusable homicide. It would not be a justifiable homicide, because you were not in danger of death or great bodily harm—al- though that might not have been obvious at the time. Excusable homicide laws recognize that in the circumstance of “sudden com- bat” one does not have time to make that subtle distinction.

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports also significantly overstate murders and understate defensive gun uses. If the police investigate a homicide and ask the district attorney to charge someone with murder or manslaugh- ter, that is reported as a murder or man- slaughter to the Uniform Crime Reports program. But district attorneys will often investigate a case in the weeks afterward, find evidence that the killing was justifiable or excusable homicide, and drop the case en- tirely.

 

[2aguy]

The Cato doesn't break down their data for injuries or deaths.....more along the lines of what type of crime.....

 

[2aguy]

This Forbes article quotes Newsweek saying that civilians kill 2.5 times more criminals than police....

Disarming the Myths Promoted By the Gun Control Lobby - Forbes

On the other hand, Newsweek has reported that law-abiding American citizens using guns in self-defense during 2003 shot and killed two and one-half times as many criminals as police did, and with fewer than one-fifth as many incidents as police where an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal (2% versus 11%).

 

[2aguy]

Extranosalley has a number....it is a place to start looking...

How Many Criminals Shot In Self Defense Each Year Extrano s Alley more than a gun blog

We do know by comparing FBI and CDC data that between 1300 and 1700 criminals are killed each year by individuals acting in self defense.

While I do not catch every instance of a fatality resulting from a Defensive Gun Use, the reports I do get average 3.27 fatalities a day, again generally confirming the data from official sources.

 

[Brain357]

What 500 defenses....and if you look at the research there are more kills than show up in the FBI data base....remember....the FBI data is not perfect...

Here is a more detailed look at defensive shooting incidents from 2003 to 2011....same idea as the NRA site, but more samples over a longer period of time....

From the book, or White Paper from CATO...."Tough Targets"

"The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports also significantly overstate murders and understate defensive gun uses. If the police investigat a homicide and ask the district attorney to charge someone with murder or manslaughter, that is reported as a murder to the Uniform Crime Reports program. But district attorney's will often investigate a case in the weeks afterward, find evidence that the killing was justifiable or excusable homicide, and drop the case entirely.

Further, some of the charges, are found to be justifiable or excusable homocide by judges and juries during a trial. this is very often the case in spousal abuse situations where a woman defends herself or her children from an estranged husband.9 A killing initially charged as a murder or negligent homicide that is later reclassified as a justifiable or excusable homicide, will not be moved in the Uniform Crime Reports data from the homicide column to the justifiable homicide column."

---------------------------
They then go on to explain how this can distort numbers by siting an article from Time magazine that looked at deaths in one day and then went back to check on the cases a year later....the 14 non law enforcement justifiable homicides went up to 28 because a year later the 14 other gun crimes were found to be justifiable homicides....and at least 43 other murder cases had not gone to trial....


And they say because of this.......

"clearly, the FBI justifiable homicide data is not particularly meaningful for understanding defensive gun uses that result in death-and is useless for understanding the vastly larger number of defensive gun uses that do not result in death."

http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/WP-Tough-Targets.pdf

The Data Set

At one time, it was widely believed that a fairly large percentage of defensive gun uses
might be criminals defending themselves from other criminals: marijuana growers protecting their crops, gang members de- fending themselves from other gang mem- bers, a falling out between members of a criminal enterprise. That was only specula- tion. For a long time, there was not much in the way of actual data.

Since the survey data has severe limita- tions with respect to defensive gun uses, collecting accounts of self-defense as they are reported in news outlets may be a better method of assessing the frequency and na- ture of self-defense with firearms. The data set supporting this paper is derived from a collection of news stories published between October 2003 and November 2011.12

There is a selection bias problem with the method of gathering news stories. Many defensive gun uses never make the news. Sometimes that is because the person us- ing a gun in self-defense saw no need to call the police—he or she scared off the bad guy. In some cases, the victim might not want to explain to the police that he has a gun, perhaps because he is a felon, or perhaps because he lives in a jurisdiction with very restrictive gun control laws. Sometimes the police do get called, but the officers do not find the circumstances sufficiently impor- tant to issue a press release. After all, “Man Scares away Burglar, No Shots Fired” is not particularly newsworthy, unless you live in a very small town.

In spite of the selection bias problem, there is one enormous advantage to this model of gathering data: it provides a rich set of information about motives, circum- stances, victims, and criminals. It also pro- vides a sufficiently large database (almost 5,000 incidents), randomly selected, so that some conclusions about the nature of armed self-defense in America can be drawn. Best of all, whatever the deficiencies of news reporting, the model is not completely de- pendent on the honesty or accuracy of the respondent—unlike some of the questions raised with respect to defensive gun use sur- veys.

As to wether they included criminals using guns defensively........

In a few instances, we have includ- ed cases where the initial news reports were clearly of legitimate defensive gun uses, but where law enforcement or a prosecutor chose to charge a gun owner.
Those are relatively rare; when there was any doubt as to whether a use of a gun might be criminal, it was not included in our list of news accounts until such time as there was confirmation that the defensive gun use was deemed lawful. In only a handful of cases did later investiga- tion turn an initial defensive gun use into a criminalcharge.Themostcommonscenario is that law enforcement officers chose not to prosecute based on the evidence at the scene and testimony of witnesses, but referred the case to a grand jury for review.

The very right wing pro gun Cato institute? Sorry but I would believe nothing they say.

I still find it funny that you don't like Cato.....and yet will use the NRA site to come to wrong conclusions...and again...I am a life member of the NRA and I like "The Armed Citizen" because it collects these stories in one location....but it isn't scientific.......neither is Cato, and they admit that........but I don't know why you choose one right wing site over another......

Because the Cato institute is not honest. They are extremely biased. Why is it you throw out the armed citizen findings?

Brain...it isn't scientific.....they just look at what the NRA could find and post....without too much effort of looking...Cato looked more by the way.....and it isn't "findings" but observations of the events.......

How many were shot and killed in the Cato?

 

[Brain357]

Extranosalley has a number....it is a place to start looking...

How Many Criminals Shot In Self Defense Each Year Extrano s Alley more than a gun blog

We do know by comparing FBI and CDC data that between 1300 and 1700 criminals are killed each year by individuals acting in self defense.

While I do not catch every instance of a fatality resulting from a Defensive Gun Use, the reports I do get average 3.27 fatalities a day, again generally confirming the data from official sources.

Yeah that's a reliable source. I'll use fbi data, about 230.

 

[Wyatt earp]

No, it's a gun problem. Every race have bast**s but not every race have guns to use! And as we can see, in many countries(European, but not third-world countries)where weapons are banned - crimes comitted with guns are very rare!

Alcohol kills and injures far more people in the US than guns do, why don't you anti-gun grabbers ban alcohol?

Because alcohol is alcohol, and guns - are guns, it's not equal things.
haven't got gun while drunken fight - you will not kill your "enemy"(of course can, but in many rare cases), if you have - you can kill him!
Alcohol is often - way to relax, guns too, but people suffered much more from guns, not from alcohol!

You dont know much about alcohol do you? It kills more people in america then all the wars we have ever had combined through car crashes and liver failures and the like

 

[Brain357]

The Cato doesn't break down their data for injuries or deaths.....more along the lines of what type of crime.....

Convenient. I guess the results weren't to their liking. This is why they are a joke. They review all these news stories and talk about how often people are not shot, but don't give their findings? I don't care about their opinion, they need to give the numbers. But since they didn't like the findings they don't publish them.

 

[BluesLegend]

No, it's a gun problem. Every race have bast**s but not every race have guns to use! And as we can see, in many countries(European, but not third-world countries)where weapons are banned - crimes comitted with guns are very rare!

Alcohol kills and injures far more people in the US than guns do, why don't you anti-gun grabbers ban alcohol?

Because alcohol is alcohol, and guns - are guns, it's not equal things.
haven't got gun while drunken fight - you will not kill your "enemy"(of course can, but in many rare cases), if you have - you can kill him!
Alcohol is often - way to relax, guns too, but people suffered much more from guns, not from alcohol!

You dont know much about alcohol do you? It kills more people in america then all the wars we have ever had combined through car crashes and liver failures and the like

Not to mention being the source of domestic violence, kids getting killed and maimed in crashes. The lame ass liberals are waging a war against guns but on alcohol abuse its crickets.

 

[Brain357]

No, it's a gun problem. Every race have bast**s but not every race have guns to use! And as we can see, in many countries(European, but not third-world countries)where weapons are banned - crimes comitted with guns are very rare!

Alcohol kills and injures far more people in the US than guns do, why don't you anti-gun grabbers ban alcohol?

Because alcohol is alcohol, and guns - are guns, it's not equal things.
haven't got gun while drunken fight - you will not kill your "enemy"(of course can, but in many rare cases), if you have - you can kill him!
Alcohol is often - way to relax, guns too, but people suffered much more from guns, not from alcohol!

You dont know much about alcohol do you? It kills more people in america then all the wars we have ever had combined through car crashes and liver failures and the like

Not to mention being the source of domestic violence, kids getting killed and maimed in crashes. The lame ass liberals are waging a war against guns but on alcohol abuse its crickets.

Like the right is going to pay for treatment for alcoholics...

 

[NoNukes]

No, it's a gun problem. Every race have bast**s but not every race have guns to use! And as we can see, in many countries(European, but not third-world countries)where weapons are banned - crimes comitted with guns are very rare!

Alcohol kills and injures far more people in the US than guns do, why don't you anti-gun grabbers ban alcohol?

Because alcohol is alcohol, and guns - are guns, it's not equal things.
haven't got gun while drunken fight - you will not kill your "enemy"(of course can, but in many rare cases), if you have - you can kill him!
Alcohol is often - way to relax, guns too, but people suffered much more from guns, not from alcohol!

You haven't added the benefits of guns to your equation...each year, on average, guns are used by honest, law abiding ,innocent, non military, non police, people to stop violent crime and save lives 1.6 million times......

Vs.....8-9,000 gun murders

vs. ...6-700 accidental gun deaths...

so guns are a net benefit in the hands of good people......

This sounds like total bullshit. Do you have any true statistics to back this up?

Funny that you would ask that....notice how many studies there are and the numbers......the clinton justice dept. study and the obama CDC studies are anti gun studies....so look at what they found.....in particular.....

A quick guide to the studies and the numbers.....the full lay out of what was studied by each study is in the links....
GunCite-Gun Control-How Often Are Guns Used in Self-Defense

GunCite Frequency of Defensive Gun Use in Previous Surveys
Field...1976....3,052,717
DMIa 1978...2,141,512
L.A. TIMES...1994...3,609,68
Kleck...2.5 million
Obama's CDC....2013....500,000--3million

--------------------


Bordua...1977...1,414,544
DMIb...1978...1,098,409
Hart...1981...1.797,461
Mauser...1990...1,487,342
Gallup...1993...1,621,377
DEPT. OF JUSTICE...1994...1.5 million
Journal of Quantitative Criminology--- 989,883 times per year."
-------------------------------------------
Ohio...1982...771,043
Gallup...1991...777,152
Tarrance... 1994... 764,036
Lawerence Southwich Jr. 400,000 fewer violent crimes and at least 800,000 violent crimes deterred..



NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey)....108,000


Notice, the 3 different groupings of stats from the research listed so far.....not one of them approaches the NCVS number of 100,000....

This tells us nothing, such as how they came about these numbers. they appear to be just random.

 

[Brain357]

Alcohol kills and injures far more people in the US than guns do, why don't you anti-gun grabbers ban alcohol?

Because alcohol is alcohol, and guns - are guns, it's not equal things.
haven't got gun while drunken fight - you will not kill your "enemy"(of course can, but in many rare cases), if you have - you can kill him!
Alcohol is often - way to relax, guns too, but people suffered much more from guns, not from alcohol!

You haven't added the benefits of guns to your equation...each year, on average, guns are used by honest, law abiding ,innocent, non military, non police, people to stop violent crime and save lives 1.6 million times......

Vs.....8-9,000 gun murders

vs. ...6-700 accidental gun deaths...

so guns are a net benefit in the hands of good people......

This sounds like total bullshit. Do you have any true statistics to back this up?

Funny that you would ask that....notice how many studies there are and the numbers......the clinton justice dept. study and the obama CDC studies are anti gun studies....so look at what they found.....in particular.....

A quick guide to the studies and the numbers.....the full lay out of what was studied by each study is in the links....
GunCite-Gun Control-How Often Are Guns Used in Self-Defense

GunCite Frequency of Defensive Gun Use in Previous Surveys
Field...1976....3,052,717
DMIa 1978...2,141,512
L.A. TIMES...1994...3,609,68
Kleck...2.5 million
Obama's CDC....2013....500,000--3million

--------------------


Bordua...1977...1,414,544
DMIb...1978...1,098,409
Hart...1981...1.797,461
Mauser...1990...1,487,342
Gallup...1993...1,621,377
DEPT. OF JUSTICE...1994...1.5 million
Journal of Quantitative Criminology--- 989,883 times per year."
-------------------------------------------
Ohio...1982...771,043
Gallup...1991...777,152
Tarrance... 1994... 764,036
Lawerence Southwich Jr. 400,000 fewer violent crimes and at least 800,000 violent crimes deterred..



NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey)....108,000


Notice, the 3 different groupings of stats from the research listed so far.....not one of them approaches the NCVS number of 100,000....

This tells us nothing, such as how they came about these numbers. they appear to be just random.

Yes the range of results should tell anyone with common sense these aren't done very well. In 1994 one says 764,036 and another 1.5 million? So which is right? And 1991 Gallup 777,152 and then in 1993 Gallup 1,621,377? More than doubled in 2 years? These are just not very accurate and have been debunked many times over.

On top of that, Kleck who did the most famous survey has said most defenders are involved in criminal behavior:
Kleck:
"This is true because DGUs typically involve criminal behavior, such as unlawful gun possession, by the gun-using victim, who therefore is often unwilling to report the incident."

And even the very pro gun cato institute seems to know that many are felons:
In some cases, the victim might not want to explain to the police that he has a gun, perhaps because he is a felon, or perhaps because he lives in a jurisdiction with very restrictive gun control laws.

So many defenses are criminals defending against criminals.

The NCVS survey of 108,000 is the most likely to weed out criminals defending against criminals so it probably the most accurate of the bunch.

 

[2aguy]

Because alcohol is alcohol, and guns - are guns, it's not equal things.
haven't got gun while drunken fight - you will not kill your "enemy"(of course can, but in many rare cases), if you have - you can kill him!
Alcohol is often - way to relax, guns too, but people suffered much more from guns, not from alcohol!

You haven't added the benefits of guns to your equation...each year, on average, guns are used by honest, law abiding ,innocent, non military, non police, people to stop violent crime and save lives 1.6 million times......

Vs.....8-9,000 gun murders

vs. ...6-700 accidental gun deaths...

so guns are a net benefit in the hands of good people......

This sounds like total bullshit. Do you have any true statistics to back this up?

Funny that you would ask that....notice how many studies there are and the numbers......the clinton justice dept. study and the obama CDC studies are anti gun studies....so look at what they found.....in particular.....

A quick guide to the studies and the numbers.....the full lay out of what was studied by each study is in the links....
GunCite-Gun Control-How Often Are Guns Used in Self-Defense

GunCite Frequency of Defensive Gun Use in Previous Surveys
Field...1976....3,052,717
DMIa 1978...2,141,512
L.A. TIMES...1994...3,609,68
Kleck...2.5 million
Obama's CDC....2013....500,000--3million

--------------------


Bordua...1977...1,414,544
DMIb...1978...1,098,409
Hart...1981...1.797,461
Mauser...1990...1,487,342
Gallup...1993...1,621,377
DEPT. OF JUSTICE...1994...1.5 million
Journal of Quantitative Criminology--- 989,883 times per year."
-------------------------------------------
Ohio...1982...771,043
Gallup...1991...777,152
Tarrance... 1994... 764,036
Lawerence Southwich Jr. 400,000 fewer violent crimes and at least 800,000 violent crimes deterred..



NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey)....108,000


Notice, the 3 different groupings of stats from the research listed so far.....not one of them approaches the NCVS number of 100,000....

This tells us nothing, such as how they came about these numbers. they appear to be just random.

Yes the range of results should tell anyone with common sense these aren't done very well. In 1994 one says 764,036 and another 1.5 million? So which is right? And 1991 Gallup 777,152 and then in 1993 Gallup 1,621,377? More than doubled in 2 years? These are just not very accurate and have been debunked many times over.

On top of that, Kleck who did the most famous survey has said most defenders are involved in criminal behavior:
Kleck:
"This is true because DGUs typically involve criminal behavior, such as unlawful gun possession, by the gun-using victim, who therefore is often unwilling to report the incident."

And even the very pro gun cato institute seems to know that many are felons:
In some cases, the victim might not want to explain to the police that he has a gun, perhaps because he is a felon, or perhaps because he lives in a jurisdiction with very restrictive gun control laws.

So many defenses are criminals defending against criminals.

The NCVS survey of 108,000 is the most likely to weed out criminals defending against criminals so it probably the most accurate of the bunch.

Sorry, not true......the NCVS doesn't even specifically ask about defensive gun use....it isn't designed to find that out, any results they have come as a second thought....they are looking for crime victimization....add to that the fact that you have government agents interviewing people in person, thereby making anyone who might have used a gun without knowing all of the laws afraid of implicating themselves, law abiding citizens get caught up in bad laws all the time, and then add to it the fact that the NCVS doesn't even try to look at times where a defender doesn't shoot the criminal, but just scares them off, holds them for police or just injures the criminal and the NCVS is the least likely to be accurate......

 

[Brain357]

You haven't added the benefits of guns to your equation...each year, on average, guns are used by honest, law abiding ,innocent, non military, non police, people to stop violent crime and save lives 1.6 million times......

Vs.....8-9,000 gun murders

vs. ...6-700 accidental gun deaths...

so guns are a net benefit in the hands of good people......

This sounds like total bullshit. Do you have any true statistics to back this up?

Funny that you would ask that....notice how many studies there are and the numbers......the clinton justice dept. study and the obama CDC studies are anti gun studies....so look at what they found.....in particular.....

A quick guide to the studies and the numbers.....the full lay out of what was studied by each study is in the links....
GunCite-Gun Control-How Often Are Guns Used in Self-Defense

GunCite Frequency of Defensive Gun Use in Previous Surveys
Field...1976....3,052,717
DMIa 1978...2,141,512
L.A. TIMES...1994...3,609,68
Kleck...2.5 million
Obama's CDC....2013....500,000--3million

--------------------


Bordua...1977...1,414,544
DMIb...1978...1,098,409
Hart...1981...1.797,461
Mauser...1990...1,487,342
Gallup...1993...1,621,377
DEPT. OF JUSTICE...1994...1.5 million
Journal of Quantitative Criminology--- 989,883 times per year."
-------------------------------------------
Ohio...1982...771,043
Gallup...1991...777,152
Tarrance... 1994... 764,036
Lawerence Southwich Jr. 400,000 fewer violent crimes and at least 800,000 violent crimes deterred..



NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey)....108,000


Notice, the 3 different groupings of stats from the research listed so far.....not one of them approaches the NCVS number of 100,000....

This tells us nothing, such as how they came about these numbers. they appear to be just random.

Yes the range of results should tell anyone with common sense these aren't done very well. In 1994 one says 764,036 and another 1.5 million? So which is right? And 1991 Gallup 777,152 and then in 1993 Gallup 1,621,377? More than doubled in 2 years? These are just not very accurate and have been debunked many times over.

On top of that, Kleck who did the most famous survey has said most defenders are involved in criminal behavior:
Kleck:
"This is true because DGUs typically involve criminal behavior, such as unlawful gun possession, by the gun-using victim, who therefore is often unwilling to report the incident."

And even the very pro gun cato institute seems to know that many are felons:
In some cases, the victim might not want to explain to the police that he has a gun, perhaps because he is a felon, or perhaps because he lives in a jurisdiction with very restrictive gun control laws.

So many defenses are criminals defending against criminals.

The NCVS survey of 108,000 is the most likely to weed out criminals defending against criminals so it probably the most accurate of the bunch.

Sorry, not true......the NCVS doesn't even specifically ask about defensive gun use....it isn't designed to find that out, any results they have come as a second thought....they are looking for crime victimization....add to that the fact that you have government agents interviewing people in person, thereby making anyone who might have used a gun without knowing all of the laws afraid of implicating themselves, law abiding citizens get caught up in bad laws all the time, and then add to it the fact that the NCVS doesn't even try to look at times where a defender doesn't shoot the criminal, but just scares them off, holds them for police or just injures the criminal and the NCVS is the least likely to be accurate......

Those are some of the reasons why it's not loaded with felons defending themselves like the other numbers. And yes it looks at times where the defenders doesn't shoot, how else do they get to 108,000?

 

[2aguy]

This is what Kleck actually says about law abiding citizens and using guns for self defense in the middle of arbitrary and byzantine gun laws created by anti gunners to entrap law abiding gun owners who defend themselves....

his work again....

Armed Resistance to Crime The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun

Even under the best of circumstances, reporting the use of a gun for self-protection would be an extremely sensitive and legally controversial matter for either of two reasons. As with other forms of forceful resistance, the defensive act itself, regardless of the characteristics of any weapon used, might constitute an unlawful assault or at least the R might believe that others, including either legal authorities or the researchers, could regard it that way. Resistance with a gun also involves additional elements of sensitivity.

Because guns are legally regulated, a victim's possession of the weapon, either in general or at the time of the DGU, might itself be unlawful, either in fact or in the mind of a crime victim who used one. More likely, lay persons with a limited knowledge of the extremely complicated law of either self-defense or firearms regulation are unlikely to know for sure whether their defensive actions or their gun possession was lawful.

It is not hard for gun-using victims interviewed in the NCVS to withhold information about their use of a gun, especially since they are never directly asked whether they used a gun for self-protection. They are asked only general questions about whether they did anything to protect themselves.[26] In short, Rs are merely given the opportunity to volunteer the information that they have used a gun defensively. All it takes for an R to conceal a DGU is to simply refrain from mentioning it, i.e., to leave it out of what may be an otherwise accurate and complete account of the crime incident.


And as to why the NCVS is a crap way to determine the number of defensive gun uses.....

Further, Rs in the NCVS are not even asked the general self-protection question unless they already independently indicated that they had been a victim of a crime. This means that any DGUs associated with crimes the Rs did not want to talk about would remain hidden. It has been estimated that the NCVS may catch less than one-twelfth of spousal assaults and one-thirty-third of rapes,[27] thereby missing nearly all DGUs associated with such crimes.

In the context of a non anonymous survey conducted by the federal government, an R who reports a DGU may believe that he is placing himself in serious legal jeopardy. For example, consider the issue of the location of crimes. For all but a handful of gun owners with a permit to carry a weapon in public places (under 4% of the adult population even in states like Florida, where carry permits are relatively easy to get)[28], the mere possession of a gun in a place other than their home, place of business, or in some states, their vehicle, is a crime, often a felony. In at least ten states, it is punishable by a punitively mandatory minimum prison sentence.[29] Yet, 88% of the violent crimes which Rs reported to NCVS interviewers in 1992 were committed away from the victim's home,[30] i.e., in a location where it would ordinarily be a crime for the victim to even possess a gun, never mind use it defensively. Because the question about location is asked before the self-protection questions,[31] the typical violent crime victim R has already committed himself to having been victimized in a public place before being asked what he or she did for self-protection. In short, Rs usually could not mention their defensive use of a gun without, in effect, confessing to a crime to a federal government employee.


And what about in your own home......say in places like Chicago...where it has been illegal to register a handgun since 1985 or Washington D.C. where you can't own any guns....or New York where the process to get a permit is only accomplished with lots of money and the help of a lawyer...something many regular citizens can't do or afford......and that is only 3 of the major cities....here is Kleck on defending your own home....

Even for crimes that occurred in the victim's home, such as a burglary, possession of a gun would still often be unlawful or of unknown legal status; because the R had not complied with or could not be sure he had complied with all legal requirements concerning registration of the gun's acquisition or possession, permits for purchase, licensing of home possession, storage requirements, and so on. In light of all these considerations, it may be unrealistic to assume that more than a fraction of Rs who have used a gun defensively would be willing to report it to NCVS interviewers.


And more on why the NCVS is a crap study for determining defensive gun use......

The NCVS was not designed to estimate how often people resist crime using a gun. It was designed primarily to estimate national victimization levels; it incidentally happens to include a few self-protection questions which include response categories covering resistance with a gun. Its survey instrument has been carefully refined and evaluated over the years to do as good a job as possible in getting people to report illegal things which other people have done to them.

This is the exact opposite of the task which faces anyone trying to get good DGU estimates--to get people to admit controversial and possibly illegal things which the Rs themselves have done. Therefore, it is neither surprising, nor a reflection on the survey's designers, to note that the NCVS is singularly ill-suited for estimating the prevalence or incidence of DGU. It is not credible to regard this survey as an acceptable basis for establishing, in even the roughest way, how often Americans use guns for self-protection.

 

[2aguy]

Alcohol kills and injures far more people in the US than guns do, why don't you anti-gun grabbers ban alcohol?

Because alcohol is alcohol, and guns - are guns, it's not equal things.
haven't got gun while drunken fight - you will not kill your "enemy"(of course can, but in many rare cases), if you have - you can kill him!
Alcohol is often - way to relax, guns too, but people suffered much more from guns, not from alcohol!

You haven't added the benefits of guns to your equation...each year, on average, guns are used by honest, law abiding ,innocent, non military, non police, people to stop violent crime and save lives 1.6 million times......

Vs.....8-9,000 gun murders

vs. ...6-700 accidental gun deaths...

so guns are a net benefit in the hands of good people......

This sounds like total bullshit. Do you have any true statistics to back this up?

Funny that you would ask that....notice how many studies there are and the numbers......the clinton justice dept. study and the obama CDC studies are anti gun studies....so look at what they found.....in particular.....

A quick guide to the studies and the numbers.....the full lay out of what was studied by each study is in the links....
GunCite-Gun Control-How Often Are Guns Used in Self-Defense

GunCite Frequency of Defensive Gun Use in Previous Surveys
Field...1976....3,052,717
DMIa 1978...2,141,512
L.A. TIMES...1994...3,609,68
Kleck...2.5 million
Obama's CDC....2013....500,000--3million

--------------------


Bordua...1977...1,414,544
DMIb...1978...1,098,409
Hart...1981...1.797,461
Mauser...1990...1,487,342
Gallup...1993...1,621,377
DEPT. OF JUSTICE...1994...1.5 million
Journal of Quantitative Criminology--- 989,883 times per year."
-------------------------------------------
Ohio...1982...771,043
Gallup...1991...777,152
Tarrance... 1994... 764,036
Lawerence Southwich Jr. 400,000 fewer violent crimes and at least 800,000 violent crimes deterred..



NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey)....108,000


Notice, the 3 different groupings of stats from the research listed so far.....not one of them approaches the NCVS number of 100,000....

This tells us nothing, such as how they came about these numbers. they appear to be just random.

Read Klecks study...he goes through the entire process of which research company he used, how the people were questioned and which questions were asked and how they were screened....there are also other places where Kleck responds to his critics and explains why they don't know what they are talking about....

 

[Brain357]

This is what Kleck actually says about law abiding citizens and using guns for self defense in the middle of arbitrary and byzantine gun laws created by anti gunners to entrap law abiding gun owners who defend themselves....

his work again....

Armed Resistance to Crime The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun

Even under the best of circumstances, reporting the use of a gun for self-protection would be an extremely sensitive and legally controversial matter for either of two reasons. As with other forms of forceful resistance, the defensive act itself, regardless of the characteristics of any weapon used, might constitute an unlawful assault or at least the R might believe that others, including either legal authorities or the researchers, could regard it that way. Resistance with a gun also involves additional elements of sensitivity.

Because guns are legally regulated, a victim's possession of the weapon, either in general or at the time of the DGU, might itself be unlawful, either in fact or in the mind of a crime victim who used one. More likely, lay persons with a limited knowledge of the extremely complicated law of either self-defense or firearms regulation are unlikely to know for sure whether their defensive actions or their gun possession was lawful.

It is not hard for gun-using victims interviewed in the NCVS to withhold information about their use of a gun, especially since they are never directly asked whether they used a gun for self-protection. They are asked only general questions about whether they did anything to protect themselves.[26] In short, Rs are merely given the opportunity to volunteer the information that they have used a gun defensively. All it takes for an R to conceal a DGU is to simply refrain from mentioning it, i.e., to leave it out of what may be an otherwise accurate and complete account of the crime incident.


And as to why the NCVS is a crap way to determine the number of defensive gun uses.....

Further, Rs in the NCVS are not even asked the general self-protection question unless they already independently indicated that they had been a victim of a crime. This means that any DGUs associated with crimes the Rs did not want to talk about would remain hidden. It has been estimated that the NCVS may catch less than one-twelfth of spousal assaults and one-thirty-third of rapes,[27] thereby missing nearly all DGUs associated with such crimes.

In the context of a non anonymous survey conducted by the federal government, an R who reports a DGU may believe that he is placing himself in serious legal jeopardy. For example, consider the issue of the location of crimes. For all but a handful of gun owners with a permit to carry a weapon in public places (under 4% of the adult population even in states like Florida, where carry permits are relatively easy to get)[28], the mere possession of a gun in a place other than their home, place of business, or in some states, their vehicle, is a crime, often a felony. In at least ten states, it is punishable by a punitively mandatory minimum prison sentence.[29] Yet, 88% of the violent crimes which Rs reported to NCVS interviewers in 1992 were committed away from the victim's home,[30] i.e., in a location where it would ordinarily be a crime for the victim to even possess a gun, never mind use it defensively. Because the question about location is asked before the self-protection questions,[31] the typical violent crime victim R has already committed himself to having been victimized in a public place before being asked what he or she did for self-protection. In short, Rs usually could not mention their defensive use of a gun without, in effect, confessing to a crime to a federal government employee.


And what about in your own home......say in places like Chicago...where it has been illegal to register a handgun since 1985 or Washington D.C. where you can't own any guns....or New York where the process to get a permit is only accomplished with lots of money and the help of a lawyer...something many regular citizens can't do or afford......and that is only 3 of the major cities....here is Kleck on defending your own home....

Even for crimes that occurred in the victim's home, such as a burglary, possession of a gun would still often be unlawful or of unknown legal status; because the R had not complied with or could not be sure he had complied with all legal requirements concerning registration of the gun's acquisition or possession, permits for purchase, licensing of home possession, storage requirements, and so on. In light of all these considerations, it may be unrealistic to assume that more than a fraction of Rs who have used a gun defensively would be willing to report it to NCVS interviewers.


And more on why the NCVS is a crap study for determining defensive gun use......

The NCVS was not designed to estimate how often people resist crime using a gun. It was designed primarily to estimate national victimization levels; it incidentally happens to include a few self-protection questions which include response categories covering resistance with a gun. Its survey instrument has been carefully refined and evaluated over the years to do as good a job as possible in getting people to report illegal things which other people have done to them.

This is the exact opposite of the task which faces anyone trying to get good DGU estimates--to get people to admit controversial and possibly illegal things which the Rs themselves have done. Therefore, it is neither surprising, nor a reflection on the survey's designers, to note that the NCVS is singularly ill-suited for estimating the prevalence or incidence of DGU. It is not credible to regard this survey as an acceptable basis for establishing, in even the roughest way, how often Americans use guns for self-protection.

I don't really care how many criminals are defending themselves.

 

[2aguy]

The NCVS is not a defensive gun use study.......it is a victimization study only.......it peripherally gets responses for gun use but it is not designed to target that population of victims....

The NCVS was not designed to estimate how often people resist crime using a gun. It was designed primarily to estimate national victimization levels; it incidentally happens to include a few self-protection questions which include response categories covering resistance with a gun. Its survey instrument has been carefully refined and evaluated over the years to do as good a job as possible in getting people to report illegal things which other people have done to them.

This is the exact opposite of the task which faces anyone trying to get good DGU estimates--to get people to admit controversial and possibly illegal things which the Rs themselves have done. Therefore, it is neither surprising, nor a reflection on the survey's designers, to note that the NCVS is singularly ill-suited for estimating the prevalence or incidence of DGU. It is not credible to regard this survey as an acceptable basis for establishing, in even the roughest way, how often Americans use guns for self-protection.

 

[2aguy]

This is what Kleck actually says about law abiding citizens and using guns for self defense in the middle of arbitrary and byzantine gun laws created by anti gunners to entrap law abiding gun owners who defend themselves....

his work again....

Armed Resistance to Crime The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun

Even under the best of circumstances, reporting the use of a gun for self-protection would be an extremely sensitive and legally controversial matter for either of two reasons. As with other forms of forceful resistance, the defensive act itself, regardless of the characteristics of any weapon used, might constitute an unlawful assault or at least the R might believe that others, including either legal authorities or the researchers, could regard it that way. Resistance with a gun also involves additional elements of sensitivity.

Because guns are legally regulated, a victim's possession of the weapon, either in general or at the time of the DGU, might itself be unlawful, either in fact or in the mind of a crime victim who used one. More likely, lay persons with a limited knowledge of the extremely complicated law of either self-defense or firearms regulation are unlikely to know for sure whether their defensive actions or their gun possession was lawful.

It is not hard for gun-using victims interviewed in the NCVS to withhold information about their use of a gun, especially since they are never directly asked whether they used a gun for self-protection. They are asked only general questions about whether they did anything to protect themselves.[26] In short, Rs are merely given the opportunity to volunteer the information that they have used a gun defensively. All it takes for an R to conceal a DGU is to simply refrain from mentioning it, i.e., to leave it out of what may be an otherwise accurate and complete account of the crime incident.


And as to why the NCVS is a crap way to determine the number of defensive gun uses.....

Further, Rs in the NCVS are not even asked the general self-protection question unless they already independently indicated that they had been a victim of a crime. This means that any DGUs associated with crimes the Rs did not want to talk about would remain hidden. It has been estimated that the NCVS may catch less than one-twelfth of spousal assaults and one-thirty-third of rapes,[27] thereby missing nearly all DGUs associated with such crimes.

In the context of a non anonymous survey conducted by the federal government, an R who reports a DGU may believe that he is placing himself in serious legal jeopardy. For example, consider the issue of the location of crimes. For all but a handful of gun owners with a permit to carry a weapon in public places (under 4% of the adult population even in states like Florida, where carry permits are relatively easy to get)[28], the mere possession of a gun in a place other than their home, place of business, or in some states, their vehicle, is a crime, often a felony. In at least ten states, it is punishable by a punitively mandatory minimum prison sentence.[29] Yet, 88% of the violent crimes which Rs reported to NCVS interviewers in 1992 were committed away from the victim's home,[30] i.e., in a location where it would ordinarily be a crime for the victim to even possess a gun, never mind use it defensively. Because the question about location is asked before the self-protection questions,[31] the typical violent crime victim R has already committed himself to having been victimized in a public place before being asked what he or she did for self-protection. In short, Rs usually could not mention their defensive use of a gun without, in effect, confessing to a crime to a federal government employee.


And what about in your own home......say in places like Chicago...where it has been illegal to register a handgun since 1985 or Washington D.C. where you can't own any guns....or New York where the process to get a permit is only accomplished with lots of money and the help of a lawyer...something many regular citizens can't do or afford......and that is only 3 of the major cities....here is Kleck on defending your own home....

Even for crimes that occurred in the victim's home, such as a burglary, possession of a gun would still often be unlawful or of unknown legal status; because the R had not complied with or could not be sure he had complied with all legal requirements concerning registration of the gun's acquisition or possession, permits for purchase, licensing of home possession, storage requirements, and so on. In light of all these considerations, it may be unrealistic to assume that more than a fraction of Rs who have used a gun defensively would be willing to report it to NCVS interviewers.


And more on why the NCVS is a crap study for determining defensive gun use......

The NCVS was not designed to estimate how often people resist crime using a gun. It was designed primarily to estimate national victimization levels; it incidentally happens to include a few self-protection questions which include response categories covering resistance with a gun. Its survey instrument has been carefully refined and evaluated over the years to do as good a job as possible in getting people to report illegal things which other people have done to them.

This is the exact opposite of the task which faces anyone trying to get good DGU estimates--to get people to admit controversial and possibly illegal things which the Rs themselves have done. Therefore, it is neither surprising, nor a reflection on the survey's designers, to note that the NCVS is singularly ill-suited for estimating the prevalence or incidence of DGU. It is not credible to regard this survey as an acceptable basis for establishing, in even the roughest way, how often Americans use guns for self-protection.

I don't really care how many criminals are defending themselves.

Good for you.......neither do I .....

 

[2aguy]

Something Kleck says and is supported by other researchers....

Data from the NCVS imply that each year there are only about 68,000 defensive uses of guns in connection with assaults and robberies,[16] or about 80,000 to 82,000 if one adds in uses linked with household burglaries.[17] These figures are less than one ninth of the estimates implied by the results of at least thirteen other surveys, summarized in Table 1, most of which have been previously reported.[18] The NCVS estimates imply that about 0.09 of 1% of U.S. households experience a defensive gun use (DGU) in any one year, compared to the Mauser survey's estimate of 3.79% of households over a five year period, or about 0.76% in any one year, assuming an even distribution over the five year period, and no repeat uses.[19]

The strongest evidence that a measurement is inaccurate is that it is inconsistent with many other independent measurements or observations of the same phenomenon; indeed, some would argue that this is ultimately the only way of knowing that a measurement is wrong. Therefore, one might suppose that the gross inconsistency of the NCVS-based estimates with all other known estimates, each derived from sources with no known flaws even remotely substantial enough to account for nine-to-one, or more, discrepancies, would be sufficient to persuade any serious scholar that the NCVS estimates are unreliable.