From: oleary@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (brian.m.leary)
Subject: Re: 1.2 Million Handgun Defenses per year
Organization: AT&T
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 19:34:40 GMT
Summary: Sorry, no category for tree branches

In article <LAMBERT.93Jan12220125@henna.spectrum.cs.unsw.oz.au>, lambert@spectrum.cs.unsw.oz.au (Tim Lambert) writes:
> >>>>> On Sun, 10 Jan 1993 06:02:36 GMT, oleary@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (brian.m.leary) said:
> 
> > What about that estimate of only 80,000 defensive uses per year from 
> > the National Crime Survey?  According to Kleck:
> 
> > "One survey that almost certainly is not adequate for estimating the total
> > number of defensive gun uses is the National Crime Survey.  Respondents in
> > that survey are not asked about defensive actions unless they first give
> > an affirmative answer to screener questions asking about victimization
> > experiences in general."
> 
> In other words, the NCS only counts defensive uses against crimes.  

Could this be a language problem?  I can defend myself without considering
myself a crime victim.  Let us say a man approaches me waving sharpened
stick muttering  "I have this sharpened stick" over and over again.  I
pull my coat to one side and say "I have a nice revolver in 
44 magnum.  The strange man turns and walks away.  Have I been assaulted?
Yes - I felt threatened, I think a jury  would agree.  Do I consider
myself a victim of an assault?  No.  Would I report it to the police -
yes - though the person that it happened to did not.  If someone,
two years later asked me if I had been assaulted - I think I would
answer no.  If they asked me if I was a crime victim I would definitely
answer no.

> If
> this is the reason for the discrepancy between 80,000 and one million,
> then there must be 900,000 defensive uses of one of the following
> types:
> 1. No crime occured: e.g. Somebody is trying to break in. House owner
> takes gun and investigates.  Discovers the wind was knocking a branch
> against the window.  While the gun helped the house owners peace of
> mind in this case, he was never in any danger.

Sorry, several of the polls use a followup question - asking what
the gun was used against. For instance;
Hart found 2 percent animals, 3 percent persons and 1 percent both. (1)
So 3 of the 4 percent involved people.
No count of tree branches is given. 

Kleck notes that most of the surveys asked if the gun was fired.
Kleck says that in half the instances the gun was
fired and the rest of the time the gun was merely displayed or
referred to.  The data goes far beyond your comfort example. (2)

> 2. The crime is "assault with a deadly weapon" and is committed by the
> gunowner: e.g. A burglar uses a gun to hold an angry resident at bay.
> While I wouldn't call this a defensive use, the burglar probably
> would, and it would be counted in one of of the above polls as such.
> 

These are the only two possibilities you can think of?

How about the one I mentioned - that NCS undercounts some types
of crimes? Kleck cites commercial robberies - where 10 percent of all
defenses occur - as not being counted at all in NCS.

Also, he cites Lofin and Mackenzie as saying that NCS undercounts
domestic violence by an order of magnitude in some instances.(3)
(Though I'm not sure you can trust L&M )

How about the possiibility that I think is most likely - not considering
that you have been victimized - NCS asks "have you been victimized",
interviewee thinks back to the guy who was breaking down his door
when the interviewee arrived with gun in hand, remember how fast
the guy ran away, grins and says "no, I haven't been victimized".

What about being afraid to admit that you have used a gun for
self defense to a representative conducting an official crime
survey for the government - in New York, justified or not you
could be rewarded with a year in jail for this admission.
A lot of people are nervous about self-defense, thanks to
screwy laws like New Yorks.  A lot of law abiding people
don't like to get involved with cops - they are scared that
they'll get arrested for something they thought was ok.

Oh, by the way, Dr. Kleck indicates that burglars defending themselves
against homeowners are severely undercounted.(4)

Brian Leary

(1) Kleck, Point Blank, page 103.
(2) Kleck, page 111
(3) Kleck, page 110
(4) Kleck, page 109

Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns,alt.society.civil-liberty