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Steve D. Fischer writes: While you're at it, keep in mind that one of Pim's favorite scientists (i.e. one who also hates guns), Colin Loftin, has said publically that the NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey) survey - the "Gold Standard" (guffaw) of surveys - undercounts spousal abuses by as much as a factor of 12, and rapes by a factor of 33. Err, no. He said it might undercount them by this much. Criminologists do agree that NCVS significantly undercounts non-stranger crimes. It does not follow that it undercounts stranger crimes. Since the uses reported to Kleck were mostly…
Steve D. Fischer writes: The NCVS is clearly the most lied-to study in the manifold of studies we have available to date. Even your pal, Colin Loftin has accused it of undercounting your "direct family" spousal abuses by a factor of 12 and rapes by a clean factor of 33. I'd call that lying of a pretty massive scale, wouldn't you? The NCVS has been around for long enough for criminologists to be aware of crimes that it undercounts. It is known to significantly undercount non-stranger crimes, but no-one until now has suggested that it massively undercounts stranger crimes like robbery and…
Eugene Volokh writes: (Incidentally, am I mistaken in thinking that it's the NCVS numbers which are usually cited to show that self-defense with a firearm decreases the likelihood of injury, compared to no self-defense?) No, you are not mistaken. In "Point Blank" Kleck dismisses the NCVS as not adequate for measuring DGUs (because the NCVS undercounts some crimes) and then a few pages later uses the NCVS to measure the effectiveness of defensive gun use. I don't see how he can have his cake and eat it. Another disturbing thing about his treatment of the NCVS in "Point Blank" is that he…
"Eugene Volokh" writes: Please, please, let's take special care to be polite in these exchanges. This is a sensitive subject, but even when we think the other person is dead wrong, it's better to say this in a subtler way. OK, I'll do my best to be polite. I won't say anything in reply to the ill-mannered Frank Warren other than to note that argument ad hominem is a fallacy, as is arguing from authority ("Kleck is infallible" type arguments) and as are straw man arguments (falsely claiming that I have asserted that Kleck is lying or asserted that guns are pointless.) I think critical…
The survey is confidential. The person surveyed cannot get into trouble for mentioning a defensive use with an illegal weapon. Nonetheless someone is less likely to report such a use, so the NCVS will likely underestimate such uses. However, this hardly supports your claim that it is a "gross underestimate" unless almost all defensive gun uses are conducted with illegal weapons. David Veal writes: Considering the problems occasionally (and well publicized) encountered by people using armed resistance to crime, it is possible that people would be hesitant to talk to a government official…
T. Mark Gibson writes: As the saying goes, "If it saves only one life..." I think that something like 1/6th of people who use guns in defense believe that they saved an innocent life by doing so. So even if we were to accept the gross underestimate of the number of times people use guns in self-defense, we could still be talking about over 13,000 lives saved each year by armed citizens. Except that 16% of violent crimes do not result in the victim's death. In fact, only 0.35% of assaults result in death (Kleck table 5.8). 0.35%*80,000=300 lives saved with guns each year. This is an…
Pim van Meurs writes: and since you brought up the 2 M number I assume that you are referring to Kleck's latest poll ? I assume that you realize that other measures of crime as measured by this survey seem quite inflated, 200,000 criminals injured or killed in self defense and 800,000 burglaries prevented for instance. Sounds like inflated statistics to me. C. D. Tavares said: Well, Pim, the fact that you personally find this data hard to accept is going to make me run right out and reconsider it from the ground up. I mean, heavens --- it doesn't even come close to agreeing with the stone…
Method of % Completed % Attacked % Injured Num Times Self Protection Used(a) Used gun 30.9 25.2 17.4 89,009 Used Knife 35.2 55.6 40.3 59,813 Used other weapon 28.9 41.5 22.0 104,700 Used physical force 50.1 75.6 50.8 1,653,880 Tried to get help or frighten offender 63.9 73.5 48.9 1,516,141 Threatened or reasoned with offender 53.7…
Alfred A. Hambidge, Jr. said: For the benefit of those trying to follow this thread, could you post the NCS questions in question? There are 20 screening questions. I'm not going to type them all in -- the following are just the ones that relate to to assault and robbery. (37) Did anyone take something directly from you by using force, such as by a stickup, mugging or threat? (38) Did anyone TRY to rob you by using force or threatening to harm you? (39) Did anyone beat you up, attack you or hit you with something, such as a rock or a bottle? (40) Were you knifed, shot at, or attacked with…
Jon Buck said: NCS didn't do a very good job of asking; they only asked about defensive weapon use after the respondent answered positively to having been a victim of a crime. Right, so cases where someone whipped out a gun without being threatened with violence weren't counted. Kleck makes this criticism of the NCS (in "Point Blank", if I remember correctly). This leaves out the case of successful self-defense, in which the intended victim was not victimized because they used a gun in self-defense; No it doesn't. Such a person is still a victim of the crime of attempted robbery, or…
Michael J. Phelps said: Is it not possible that many unsuccessful robberies are not reported, thus not included in the NCS data? NCS data is not based on reports, but a very extensive survey. Consider that a person who is on the receiving end of an attempted robbery didn't loose anything [so what are they reporting?], may not consider themselves a victim [after all, the crime wasn't completed], and doesn't see what benefit there would be in spending the time reporting the attempt. The NCS asks "did anyone try to rob you?" On a personal note, 5 guys tried to rob me some years ago; they didn'…
Kleck's survey: (1) 2,500,000 defensive uses (2) 8% of these involve wounding/killing a criminal. Therefore: 8% of 2,500,000 = 200,000 defensive uses involve wounding/killing a criminal. Kleck's earlier research: (3) 15% of gunshot wounds are fatal. David Barton said: I strongly suspect a combination of 2 and 3. Note that (as I recall, in the dim recesses of my memory; I would appreciate correction) Kleck arrived at the 15% figure by dividing reported gun woundings against reported fatalities. I suspect that: eyewitness reports by those involved in incidents will over-report woundings (…
Larry Cipriani said: KLECK: About 8 percent of the defensive uses involved a sexual crime such as an attempted sexual assault. About 29 percent involved some sort of assault other than sexual assault. Thirty-three percent involved a burglary or some other theft at home. 33% of 2,500,000 is 825,000. NCS data gives 1,000,000 burglaries each year when there is someone at home. So in 83% of these burglaries a gun was used for defence?? NCS asked: 3% said they used a gun for self-defence. Twenty-two percent involved robbery. 22% of 2,500,000 is 550,000. NCS data gives about 1,000,000…
In other words, the NCS only counts defensive uses against crimes. Andy Freeman said: Wrong. NCS doesn't get into defensive uses unless the victim thinks that a crime occurred even if it was successfully self-defended against. As in "Have you been the victim of a crime?" Someone who successfully self-defended against an armed robber might well answer "no". They weren't a victim. Yet, that's a self-defense against crime, one that the NCS wouldn't ever find out about. In fact the NCS does not ask "Have you been the victim of a crime?". Andy appears to have made that question up. The…
Wright & Rossi's survey of criminals showed that the main reason why criminals carry guns is self-defence, so a large number of the 500,000 gun assaults may be illegal self-defence uses. Rick Bressler said: I have a problem with confusing an assault with a defense. The two are mutually exclusive. At least under US law, an assault is a crime, a defense is not.... There are two meanings to the term "self-defence" in my dictionary: 1. the act of defending one's own person, reputation, etc 2. (Law) the use of reasonable force against an attacker, constituting a defence in criminal law and…
About 2/3 of the crimes where guns are used for self defence are assaults, so this is the death rate that we should use. Frank Crary said: Why? As I said, attempted murders/murders would have a much (as in, order of magnitude) higher. Even if they are only a small fraction of violent crimes, their contribution would still be as great as that from assaults. Let's see, if attempted murder/murder is 5% fatal, then there must be 500,000 of them to get the same contribution as I have assumed from assaults. That gives 25,000 homicides from attempted murder/murder and 25,000 from assaults. Oops…
The death rate from robberies is about 1.5 per thousand robberies. If the same death rate occurs in other crimes, then guns save 1.5*65, or about 100 lives per year. Frank Crary said: What makes you think that the death rate from robberies is typical? It certainly isn't for, say, murders or attempted murders. I'd expect it to be much higher for other crimes, such as rape (although there is a selection effect, about half the rapes reported by the local news are rape/murders.) By selecting robberies, and using 1.5/1000 as the death rate, your estimate is low by possibly as much as a factor of…
Greg Booth said: A 1979 US Justice Department study of 32,000 attempted rapes show that overall, when rape is attempted, the completion rate is 36%. But when a woman defends herself with a gun, the completion rate drops to 3%. "Rape victimization in 26 American Cities" is indeed a US Justice Department study, so I can correct all the inaccuracies in the above paragraph. 32,000 is the estimated number of rapes and attempted rapes by strangers in the 26 cities surveyed. The number of rapes and attempted rapes by strangers in the sample was about 1600. The completion rate for rapes by…