Steve D. Fischer writes:
There are two kinds of lies to worry about. The first is making
up defensive gun usages (DGUs) which never occurred, or which did not
occur within the 1 year time period. The second is concealing DGUs that
did occur because you feared that your DGU might have been of question-
able legality. We've talked at length about the second circumstance.
Let's look only at the first, then.Kleck reported 213 DGUs in a sample of 5,000. Assuming 59 million
gun owners, that leads to about 2.5 million DGUs per year.The NCVS estimated 80,000 DGUs in that same gun-owning population,
which leads to about 88 DGUs in a sample size of 65,000. If the NCVS
estimate were "correct" then Kleck should have only seen about 7 DGUs
in his smaller sample size. Kleck's "excess" 206 DGUs must have been
lying, then. This amounts to 4.1% of Kleck's sample.But wait a minute, if both studies took good random samples of
the population, then wouldn't we also expect 4.1% of the people who
responded to the NCVS to make up DGUs also? There is no reason to
assume that people who make up DGUs are not randomly distributed in
the population, because roughly 48% of all households own at least
one firearm. Where, then, are the (roughly) 2670 liars in the NCVS
sample?
Good question. It is possible that 4% of the population make things
up. If you ask them if they've used a gun for defence, they'll say
"yes" and invent some details. If you ask them if they've seen a UFO,
they'll say "yes" and invent some details. If you ask them if they've
been burgled, they'll say "yes" and invent some details. So the 2670
liars in the NCVS sample would invent crimes, but not necessarily
invent DGU as one of the details.
The NCVS interview is preceded by a phone verification of the
location of the residence and persons who live there. This gives
the respondents time to make up a good story, if that is their intent.
True, but a story about crime victimization does not have to include DGU.
In the Kleck poll, there in no pre-interview, and respondents must
make up a lie contemporaneously, in such a way that the details will
be relatively consistent.
Though not too consistent. The numbers saying somebody would have
died, the number saying police knew of the incident, the number saying
they wounded the perp, the number saying that they killed the perp are
all impossible. I also note that in 85% of Kleck's cases the person
involved was the person interviewed (rather than someone else in the
household). As Kleck notes (p165) this is surprising since most
households contain more than one adult. Kleck suggests that this is
because people may be reluctant to "inform" on other household
members. Alternatively, it may be because only made stuff up about
themselves rather than others.