The Colorado Daily recently reprinted the Wall Street Journal's article on Paxton Quigley, including the nefarious little paragraph the Journal tacked onto the end.  After recieving much assistance from various T.P.G. type folks, I wrote a letter to the editor criticizing this last paragraph, and surprise, surprise, surprise, they published it.  The text follows. The Colorado Daily, btw, is the University of Colorado (Boulder) student (I think) newspaper... not exactly a big coup, but every little bit, i guess...  (The title was the only thing they changed/added)  "Gun Stats"  The Daily recently reprinted an article from the Wall Street Journal, primarily concerned with Paxton Quigley, author of "Armed and Female."  The article, in turn, cites a misleading statistic that was originally reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.  The article states, "A study... found that a gun in the home was 43 times more likely to be used to kill its owner, spouse, a friend, or child than to kill an intruder."  This is an often-quoted statistic, and it is misleading for sev- eral reasons, outlined below:  The study gives the impression that, if you own a  gun, the likelihood that you will successfully use it to  defend yourself is less than that of the gun being turned against you.  The study, however, fails to take into account cases where a law-abiding citizen uses a gun  to thwart a crime, without actually killing the perpe- trator.  The study actually refers to 'acquaintances' rather than 'friend'.  This would include the friendly neigh- borhood thug who shows up like clockwork, every month, the second your grandmother cashes her social security check.  Possibly an acquaintance, but hardly a friend.  The NEJM study is based on the immediate dis- position of cases and fails to take into account cases originally filed as homicides that were later ruled to be self-defense.  Especially considering the small sample  size (396), taking these events into account has a sub- stantial effect on the 43:1 ratio quoted.  Criminologist Gary Kleck gives us a slightly dif- erent statistic: a gun is 33 times more likely to be  used, successfully, by a private citizen against an  aggressor than it is to kill anyone at all.  Further, per- sons defending themselves from aggression by using a  gun fare better than those who resist vicimization by some other means, or who offer no resistance at all. Statistics available from the FBI and other agencies  also show that a gun is 245 times more likely to be used by a non-criminal to defend against criminal threat than to be used to commit criminal homicide, 535 times more likely to be used to defend against a criminal threat than to accidentally kill anybody, and 50 times more likely to defend against criminal threat than to be used to commit suicide.  It is well to keep in mind that nearly anything can  be proved by uncritical quotation of statistics.  One has to consider carefully what questions were asked by those gathering the data before one can draw an accu- rate conclusion from them.  D.F. Taylor CU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry   -- Spooksmoke: Revolution, Assasination, Thorium, Cobalt-60, Clintin, CIA, NSA, SHC   DoD #202 / loki@acca.nmsu.edu / liberty or death / taylordf@ucsu.colorado.edu                   Send me something even YOU can't read... -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.2