Gun Control & RKBA

Last edited Thu Dec 3, 2015, 11:51 AM - Edit history (1)

kang cites bob Aldridge: “Something strange in gun-use statistics,” .. citing the National Crime Victimization Survey, claims victims of crimes only use firearms 235,700 times to defend themselves. There are some egregious errors in citing the NCVS for defensive gun uses.
The most flagrant error is that the NCVS never asks a single question about defensive gun use... The closest any comes to asking about defensive gun use is “Did you do anything with the idea of protecting YOURSELF or your PROPERTY while the incident was going on?” Only if a respondent volunteers a “yes” response, and then, only if the respondent volunteers to say he or she presented a firearm, does the NCVS make any record of a defensive gun use

I don't understand why pro gun author thinks that is an illogical method of prescreening for a dgu. To directly ask about using a firearm could elicit false positives.

bob: There are at least 12 such surveys that estimated annual defensive gun uses, including Gallup (1,621,377 defensive gun uses) and even the Los Angeles Times (3,609,682 defensive gun uses).

I checked Aldridge's 12 dgu surveys (tho maybe some are outdated & new ones have replaced them, but from pro gun 'guncite'), & you know what? there's something STRANGE about those dgu surveys. They don't agree much, have wide total variations, & 3 evidently are not national pan American surveys, but limited to states (calif Illinois ohio), where surprisingly Illinois 1977 and calif 1976 have more by large margins than some national total dgus. Am I reading this wrong people?

Three of the 12 surveys all had estimates of approx. 750,000 +/- 5%;
a) Gallup in 1991 had 777,000 (rounded all) while 2 yrs later had 1,621,000, the difference being respondents 1991 were from gun owning households while 1993 was restricted to gun owners. 1991 included military & police dgus, while 1993 which had a million more dgus, excluded cops & soldiers.
Which begs he Q, what was gallup measuring? Oh, a gallup dgu in both years included shooting at fido to scare him off (dgu against animals included). Oh wait, the dgu figure, while it includes animal dgus, somehow measures only 'IMPLIED' dgus against humans. Somehow animal dgus are included, then excluded? help me out here readers, opinions.
b) Tarrance had 764,000, excluding cops & mil dgus & dgus vs animals.
c) 'Ohio' evidently measured dgus in the state of ohio, & got 771,000, including cops&mil & animal dgus.
http://www.guncite.com/kleckandgertztable1.html

DMIa in 1978 perhaps provides some insight as to 'dgus against animals', where including them produced 2.1 million, while excluding them produced only 1.1 million. Can one get a 'verbal dgu' against an animal? like 'go away bear or I'll get my gun'.

Here's another odd thing, bewildering if you ask me. In the 'recall period' there is no limitation as per the Gary Quack study with a one year dropback (quick edit correction, Gary Kleck) on most of the dgu surveys. Doesn't that mean they are measuring the TOTALITY of dgus a person thinks he has committed during his/her lifetime (quick edit correction, performed).

Survey: Time/CNN Mauser Gallup Gallup LATimes Tarrance
Recall Period: Ever .. 5 yrs.. Ever .. Ever .. Ever ......... 5 yrs.

Here's another quirky stats result inspector clouseau has noticed. The LATimes pan America dgu study in 1994 resulted in 3,609,000 dgus, while the gallup pan America survey a mere year prior in 1993 resulted in 1,621,000 dgus.
Did Americans do twice as many dgus in 1994 than in 1993? I suppose that's possible, but the only different criteria was that gallup surveyed only gun owners, while the LATimes, with double the dgus, measured 'ALL', I presume means all respondents including non gun owners???? How do non gun owners get credit for a defensive gun use? especially when they more than double the total dgus? former gun owners? ex-2ndA addicts? unless they fake it with a verbal dgu, as in 'go away or I'll get my gun' (which I don't really own, or maybe 'go away or I'll get my fathers/friends gun' - eureka!).

And note this footnote, where both 1993 gallup & 1994 LATimes had the very same daddy: .. the Gallup polls of 1991 and 1993, L.A. Times poll, and Tarrance poll were taken from a search of the DIALOG Public Opinion online computer database.

More fun footnotes: a. 1.4% in past year, 3% in past two years, 8.6% ever.>> 1976 Calif pan am.
b. Implied number of def. gun uses Estimated annual number of defensive uses of guns of all types against humans, excluding uses connected with military or police duties, after any necessary adjustments were made, for U.S., 1993. Adjustments are explained in detail in Kleck (1994).
c. Covered only uses outside the home.
d. 1% of respondents, 2% of households.
e. 9% fired gun for self-protection, 7% used gun "to scare someone." >>> I could not even find 'e'.
An unknown share of the latter could be defensive uses not overlapping with the former