Idaho toddler shoots mother dead in Walmart store.

[Brain357]

That is some good info...and out of an average of 1.6 million defensive uses of guns....it also shows how much restraint law abiding citizens have and how much criminals don't want to be shot.

Except the 1.6 million is pure fantasy. Just how many positive responses were received to arrive at that number?

On the 1.6 million number....that comes,from me averaging the numbers from the 19 different studies, including Kleck's and the NVCS study.....it came out to about 1.6 million times a gun is used to stop violent criminal attack and save lives....that is how I came up with the 1.6 million number....

I think the only answer you can really give is that there are probably 100k-3 million defenses each year. Now any sane person should know it is closer to the 100k, but I guess you have surveys that go up to 3 million based on responses of like only 200 people.

 

[skookerasbil]

I call BS on this whole story until I hear what caliber the weapon was. If it was a revolver, no fucking way a 2 year old has the strength to pull the trigger ( unless it was cocked......unlikely ). FF without this info...........anybody who knows triggers of weapons knows if you have a 4lb trigger pull or more, no 2 year old is discharging the weapon. NO.........FUCKING...........WAY. In double action mode.............impossible. Revolver guns tend not to have a safety so it was likely a revolver.

Unless it was a glock?[/QUOTE but you figure a woman didn't get her weapon fixed at a gunsmith to have less than a 3lb pull.

Factory pull of a Glock is 5.5 pounds........a tough but not impossible pull for a two year old. If it was a .22, the woman would have had to have been the unluckiest woman on the face of the planet to get killed with one .22 bullet. I still call bs on this.........

 

[Vandalshandle]

Vandal...you are being dihiponest, or you need to re read what you posted....you said that people who carry are doing it in fear and terror, and brought up Starbucks....people who carry daily don't do so in fear and terror, they simply understand that as remote as the possibility is that they may be attacked by a criminal....that reality actually does exist...and on the off chance that it does, they will have a gun to deal with it.....there is no fear or terror involved...it is about the same emotional level as checking your tires,for proper inflation.....before you leave the driveway....

carrying a loaded gun in a crowded store is like CHECKING YOUR TIRE PRESSURE BEFORE DRIVING TO THE STORE? So, a person who routinely checks his tire pressure before driving his car, and routinely packs heat before going to the store would also routinely pack heat before going to church, his daughter's piano recital, and a PTA meeting, right?

Bill, I never figured you to have a sense of humor, until now.....

 

[2aguy]

That is some good info...and out of an average of 1.6 million defensive uses of guns....it also shows how much restraint law abiding citizens have and how much criminals don't want to be shot.

Except the 1.6 million is pure fantasy. Just how many positive responses were received to arrive at that number?

On the 1.6 million number....that comes,from me averaging the numbers from the 19 different studies, including Kleck's and the NVCS study.....it came out to about 1.6 million times a gun is used to stop violent criminal attack and save lives....that is how I came up with the 1.6 million number....

But you can't do that. What if the 500k number is correct? Then you are off by 1.1 million.... And of course the number is much closer to100k so you are off by 1.5 million.

Brain...you have no idea what the number is.....I'll trust the people who have done this as a career.....

 

[2aguy]

OK now please post the numbers that prove there are more accidental gun deaths than there are guns used in self defense.

Now don't forget to count all the times a gun is used and not fired

Why would I compare deaths to defenses? Murder is a very small percent of crime, so the vast majority of defenses aren't defending murder. Also a large number of defenses probably didn't require a gun.

Hey YOU said that there are more accidental gun deaths than instances of guns used in self defense.

So fucking prove it.

No I said there are more people accidently shot and killed than there are criminals shot and killed in defense.

A person does not have to be shot and killed for a gun to be used in self defense.

A fact that you control freaks routinely ignore

I have not said that. You better read for the 3rd time what I said. Maybe you will finally understand.

I've actually posted a study that says a criminal is shot and killed in about 34% of defenses. So I'm fully aware.

Again....it is not a study.....it is analyzing he self defense uses of a gun based on a collection of self defense stories from a site that collects them....it is analyzing those stories in paricular....not gun self defense in general.....

 

[Brain357]

That is some good info...and out of an average of 1.6 million defensive uses of guns....it also shows how much restraint law abiding citizens have and how much criminals don't want to be shot.

Except the 1.6 million is pure fantasy. Just how many positive responses were received to arrive at that number?

On the 1.6 million number....that comes,from me averaging the numbers from the 19 different studies, including Kleck's and the NVCS study.....it came out to about 1.6 million times a gun is used to stop violent criminal attack and save lives....that is how I came up with the 1.6 million number....

But you can't do that. What if the 500k number is correct? Then you are off by 1.1 million.... And of course the number is much closer to100k so you are off by 1.5 million.

Brain...you have no idea what the number is.....I'll trust the people who have done this as a career.....

You will? Because they all have different numbers. Is it 100k? Is it 3 million? They only had like 200 positives and you think that can accurately be extrapolated to millions? And don't forget only about 50 hit the news each year and only 230 criminals get shot and killed each year.

 

[Brain357]

Why would I compare deaths to defenses? Murder is a very small percent of crime, so the vast majority of defenses aren't defending murder. Also a large number of defenses probably didn't require a gun.

Hey YOU said that there are more accidental gun deaths than instances of guns used in self defense.

So fucking prove it.

No I said there are more people accidently shot and killed than there are criminals shot and killed in defense.

A person does not have to be shot and killed for a gun to be used in self defense.

A fact that you control freaks routinely ignore

I have not said that. You better read for the 3rd time what I said. Maybe you will finally understand.

I've actually posted a study that says a criminal is shot and killed in about 34% of defenses. So I'm fully aware.

Again....it is not a study.....it is analyzing he self defense uses of a gun based on a collection of self defense stories from a site that collects them....it is analyzing those stories in paricular....not gun self defense in general.....

Yes it is a study. It is using real examples instead of a survey with unverified info. And unless the NRA is full of shit it should be accurate. Are you saying those aren't real examples of self defense with a firearm?

 

[2aguy]

Vandal...you are being dihiponest, or you need to re read what you posted....you said that people who carry are doing it in fear and terror, and brought up Starbucks....people who carry daily don't do so in fear and terror, they simply understand that as remote as the possibility is that they may be attacked by a criminal....that reality actually does exist...and on the off chance that it does, they will have a gun to deal with it.....there is no fear or terror involved...it is about the same emotional level as checking your tires,for proper inflation.....before you leave the driveway....

carrying a loaded gun in a crowded store is like CHECKING YOUR TIRE PRESSURE BEFORE DRIVING TO THE STORE? So, a person who routinely checks his tire pressure before driving his car, and routinely packs heat before going to the store would also routinely pack heat before going to church, his daughter's piano recital, and a PTA meeting, right?

Bill, I never figured you to have a sense of humor, until now.....

It is no different from having a cell phone...it sits in the holster until it is needed...hmmmm....seems to me that no one wakes up in the morning knowing they are going to be attacked during that day......I know the Mother and her daughter who were followed home from the store and then had two monsters beat the husband into submission, who then raped the mother and two daughters and ended up burning down their home and killing the mother and two daughters.........they didn't know that was going to happen....and the people at the church....or Sikh temple.....when they went to that temple they had no idea as they woke that morning that someone would enter the temple and start shooting.....and on and on....it happens to unfortunate people every day, in every state....

It is amazing that people like you would think that this never happens to people....that someone who knows it probably won't happen to them....but is not inconvenienced by carrying a gun and decides to do so is seen as a nut....

And what a bout the parents who might have been at Sandy Hook that day....visiting their kids classroom, doing some volunteer work....or working as a cafeteria monitor....do you think they thought that a monster was going to shoot up their school....when they were making breakfast that morning....

 

[2aguy]

That is some good info...and out of an average of 1.6 million defensive uses of guns....it also shows how much restraint law abiding citizens have and how much criminals don't want to be shot.

Except the 1.6 million is pure fantasy. Just how many positive responses were received to arrive at that number?

On the 1.6 million number....that comes,from me averaging the numbers from the 19 different studies, including Kleck's and the NVCS study.....it came out to about 1.6 million times a gun is used to stop violent criminal attack and save lives....that is how I came up with the 1.6 million number....

But you can't do that. What if the 500k number is correct? Then you are off by 1.1 million.... And of course the number is much closer to100k so you are off by 1.5 million.

Brain...you have no idea what the number is.....I'll trust the people who have done this as a career.....

You will? Because they all have different numbers. Is it 100k? Is it 3 million? They only had like 200 positives and you think that can accurately be extrapolated to millions? And don't forget only about 50 hit the news each year and only 230 criminals get shot and killed each year.

Brain....they can use the proper research techniques to do a lot of things...including figuring out the average number of defensive uses each year...and considering the 40 year period...and the 19 different studies....

 

[2aguy]

again....the bottom column of the chart never wants to post so I give the name of the people or group doing the study, the year of the study and number of times they found guns were used to save lives and stop violent crime each year....

GunCite-Gun Control-How Often Are Guns Used in Self-Defense

GunCite Frequency of Defensive Gun Use in Previous Surveys

Field...1976....3,052,717

Bordua...1977...1,414,544

DMIa 1978...2,141,512
DMIb...1978...1,098,409

Hart...1981...1.797,461

Ohio...1982...771,043
Mauser...1990...1,487,342

Gallup...1991...777,153

Gallup...1993...1,621,377
L.A. TIMES...1994...3,609,682

Tarrance... 1994... 764,036

And this from the clinton justice department...

DEPT. OF JUSTICE...1994...1.5 million
(Subsequent to Kleck's study, the Department of Justice sponsored a survey in 1994 titled, Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms (text,PDF). Using a smaller sample size than Kleck's, this survey estimated 1.5 million DGU's annually.)



Lawerence Southwich Jr. 400,000 fewer violent crimes and at least 800,000 violent crimes deterred..
.(Lawrence Southwick, Jr.,Guns and Justifiable Homicide: Deterrence and Defense-concludes there are at least 400,000 "fewer violent crimes due to civilian self-defense use of guns" and at least "800,000 violent crimes are deterred each year because of gun ownership and use by civilians.")


From Obama's CDC...they spent 10 million dollars in 2013 for this study...

from slate.com an article on CDC obama's era...500-3 million defensive gun uses

Handguns suicides mass shootings deaths and self-defense Findings from a research report on gun violence.
7. Guns are used for self-defense often and effectively. “Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year … in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008,” says the report. The three million figure is probably high, “based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys.”
--------------------

"Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology,[17] U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year."
As shown in the previous footnote, this study did not use a nationally representative population. To correct for this, Just Facts used the following equation:


I re ran the numbers with all of the studies and the average number of times guns are used to save lives and stop violent crime each year in the United States is 1.6 million....including 2.5 million times from the Kleck study and the 108,000 from the National Crime Victimization Study numbers....

8-9,000 gun murders a year vs. 1.6 million times, on average that a non law enforcement, non military, law abiding citizen stops a violent criminal attack or saves a life....

8-9,000 vs. 1.6 million....

Guns save far more lives than they take....even using the lowest numbers from anti gun biased studies.....

not one of the 11 studies, and Kleck's is under 764,000 and there are 8 studies that put the numbers at or near 1.6 million

the only study that is way off....the National Crime Victimisation Survey....which only counts dead criminals....

 

[Brain357]

Here are some more reasons your surveys aren't accurate:
For example, according to Kleck and Gertz’s paper, guns were used in self-defense in 845,000 burglaries. However, from reliable victimization surveys, we know that there were fewer than 1.3 million burglaries where someone was in the home at the time of the crime. From surveys on firearm ownership, we know that 42% of US households own firearms (at the time of the survey), 33% of which contained occupants who weren’t sleeping at the time of the burglary. In order for the burglary statistic cited in Kleck and Gertz’s paper to be true, burglary victims would have to use their firearm in self-defense more than 100% of the time. Or, burglars could only rob houses of gun owners, and those gun owners would have to use their weapons in self-defense every single time they are awake.

David Hemenway, an economist and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, concludes that “one small reason to expect even a tiny percentage of responders to over report (the number of times they used a firearm in self-defense) may be enough to lead to a substantial overestimate.” Indeed, not one scholar since has been able to externally validate any of the claims made by Kleck and Gertz.

In 2010, according to the most recent data on justifiable homicides from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, there were 230 justifiable homicides involving a private citizen using a firearm in self-defense during either an attempted or a completed crime. In the same year, there were 8,275 firearm homicides. This means that, for every one justifiable firearm homicide, there were 36 criminal homicides. Contrary to the gun lobby’s claim that, between 2007 and 2011, guns were used 12.5 million times in self-defense, the most reliable data on this question clearly show that firearms were used only 338,700 times in self-defense, and this includes off-duty police. Clearly, then, despite living in a country with 300 million guns, the use of firearms in self-defense appears to be an exceedingly rare phenomenon.

Two other areas of crime—violent crime and property crime—are analyzed by the Violence Policy Center, and cast serious doubt on the argument that guns are used regularly in self-defense. Between 2007 and 2011, only 0.8 percent of violent crimes involved the intended victim using a firearm in self-defense. During the same five year period, only 0.1 percent of attempted or completed property crimes involved the intended victim using a firearm in self-defense. Given that between 40-45% of American households own a gun, and less than 0.1 percent of victims of property crime end up using a gun to stop a crime, it’s impossible to suggest that guns are being effectively used in self-defense. Rather than guns serving as a useful deterrent, they instead helped to directly facilitate crime: 232,400 guns were stolen each year from U.S. households between 2005 and 2010.

Less Guns Less Crime- Debunking the Self-Defense Myth Armed With Reason

 

[skookerasbil]

Vandal...you are being dihiponest, or you need to re read what you posted....you said that people who carry are doing it in fear and terror, and brought up Starbucks....people who carry daily don't do so in fear and terror, they simply understand that as remote as the possibility is that they may be attacked by a criminal....that reality actually does exist...and on the off chance that it does, they will have a gun to deal with it.....there is no fear or terror involved...it is about the same emotional level as checking your tires,for proper inflation.....before you leave the driveway....

carrying a loaded gun in a crowded store is like CHECKING YOUR TIRE PRESSURE BEFORE DRIVING TO THE STORE? So, a person who routinely checks his tire pressure before driving his car, and routinely packs heat before going to the store would also routinely pack heat before going to church, his daughter's piano recital, and a PTA meeting, right?

Bill, I never figured you to have a sense of humor, until now.....

It is no different from having a cell phone...it sits in the holster until it is needed...hmmmm....seems to me that no one wakes up in the morning knowing they are going to be attacked during that day......I know the Mother and her daughter who were followed home from the store and then had two monsters beat the husband into submission, who then raped the mother and two daughters and ended up burning down their home and killing the mother and two daughters.........they didn't know that was going to happen....and the people at the church....or Sikh temple.....when they went to that temple they had no idea as they woke that morning that someone would enter the temple and start shooting.....and on and on....it happens to unfortunate people every day, in every state....

It is amazing that people like you would think that this never happens to people....that someone who knows it probably won't happen to them....but is not inconvenienced by carrying a gun and decides to do so is seen as a nut....

And what a bout the parents who might have been at Sandy Hook that day....visiting their kids classroom, doing some volunteer work....or working as a cafeteria monitor....do you think they thought that a monster was going to shoot up their school....when they were making breakfast that morning....

You mean Sandy Hook where those kids died in December of 2012.............

The ones who evidently died but came back to life only to get killed again in Afghanistan last month??


Like Noah Ponzner!!!

 

[2aguy]

Here is Kleck on his study....

Klecks defense of his study

http://www.rkba.org/research/kleck/md-rebuttal.3sep95

Vernick refers to "a relatively small sample size" used in
my research, noting that "about 5,000 respondents" were
interviewed. This was substantially correct (it was 4,977), but
this is in fact an unusually large sample for survey research.
Most national surveys have samples in the 600-1600 range. The
number of persons who reported a DGU is not "the sample size."
Rather, the sample size is the number of persons who were asked
the DGU question, i.e. 4,977. It is this number which influences
the precision of the estimates, not the number who answer "Yes"
to the DGU question. In any case, Vernick's guess that only 50
people reported a DGU is incorrect. A total of 194 persons
(weighted; 213 unweighted cases) reported a DGU involving either
themselves or someone else in their household, 165 reported a DGU
in which they had personally participated in the previous five
years, and 66 reported a personal DGU in the past one year
preceding the survey (see Table 2, p. 54 of the report).

Vernick speculates that some substantial number of survey
respondents who reported a defensive gun use (DGU) were actually
describing "distant-in-time events" and that this resulted in
enormous overstatement of the frequency of DGUs. This problem,
known as "telescoping," does occur but in surveys of this type
its effects are cancelled out by problem~ in the opposite
direction (i.e. problems tending to make estimates of DGU
frequency too small) of respondents forgetting DGU events which
really did occur in the period that was asked about. In any case,
effects of telescoping are far too weak to account for the
results we obtained. These issues are discussed on pp. 34-35 of
the report.

Vernick speculates that respondents "may have not understood
what would qualify as a 'defensive use' of a firearm - perhaps
including events where the gun was carried for 'self- defense'
but never actually displayed in response to a specific threat"
(my emphasis). In addition to the highly conjectural nature of
these remarks, they are also wrong. Contrary to Vernick's rather
elitist assumption that members of the general public are too
stupid to know the simple distinction between merely carrying a
gun for protection and actually using it for self-defense, none
of the respondents who initially answered "yes" to our DGU
question were describing instances of merely carrying guns for
protection.

In any case, our estimates of DGU frequency were based
solely on cases that qualified as bona fide DGUs. Two of the
conditions needed for incidents to qualify as genuine DGUs were
that (1) there had to have been an actual confrontation between
the defender and an adversary, and (2) the defender had to have
actually used the gun in some way, some as pointing it at their
adversary in a threatening manner, or using it in a verbal threat
(e.g. 'Stop, I've got a gun.") None of the cases that went into
our estimation of 2.5 million annual DGUs involved person who
merely owned or carried a gun for protection.

Vernick hints that this estimate somehow must be unreliable
because "prior work by Kleck using similar methodology" yielded
the very different estimate of 1 million. I have not done any
"prior work" using "similar methodology." In past publications I
have merely noted the number of annual DGUs that are implied by
the results of surveys previously done by other people, including
the 1 million estimate. The Spring, 1993 National Self-Defense
Survey is the only survey I have conducted on this topic.

Indeed this is the only survey ever designed by anyone
specifically to estimate the frequency of DGU. Given the
technical flaws of prior surveys yielding DGU estimates, there is
no reason why my survey should have yielded the same, presumably
erroneous, estimates as previous surveys. Indeed, there would be
something seriously wrong if, despite my considerable efforts to
improve the methodology, I just got the same results as the
previous, seriously flawed surveys yielded.

In this connection, Vernick misleads by omission, failing to
inform the Commission just how common surveys yielding large DGU
estimates are. To date, there have been at least 14 surveys
implying anywhere from 700,000 to 3.6 million DGUs per year (see
Table 1 of enclosed report). For Vernick to hint that my estimate
was an isolated fluke rather than a common result is more than a
little deceptive. That there are many other surveys implying
frequency DGUs is common knowledge among scholars who study this
subject, as it has been reported in both previous published
articles (e.g. Social Problems, volume 35, p. 3, February, 1988)
and in my book, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America (p.
146), winner of the 1993 Hindelang Award, granted by the American
Society of Criminology to the most outstanding book of the
preceding several years. These are hardly obscure information
sources to serious scholars, and no competent student of the
subject could claim to be unaware of these numerous surveys.

 

[Brain357]

Except the 1.6 million is pure fantasy. Just how many positive responses were received to arrive at that number?

On the 1.6 million number....that comes,from me averaging the numbers from the 19 different studies, including Kleck's and the NVCS study.....it came out to about 1.6 million times a gun is used to stop violent criminal attack and save lives....that is how I came up with the 1.6 million number....

But you can't do that. What if the 500k number is correct? Then you are off by 1.1 million.... And of course the number is much closer to100k so you are off by 1.5 million.

Brain...you have no idea what the number is.....I'll trust the people who have done this as a career.....

You will? Because they all have different numbers. Is it 100k? Is it 3 million? They only had like 200 positives and you think that can accurately be extrapolated to millions? And don't forget only about 50 hit the news each year and only 230 criminals get shot and killed each year.

Brain....they can use the proper research techniques to do a lot of things...including figuring out the average number of defensive uses each year...and considering the 40 year period...and the 19 different studies....

It has been debunked several times over. They simply are not accurate.

 

[2aguy]

And taking on the anti gunner studies... in particular....Hand gun control researcher David Hemenway....

Although we systematically rebut each of Hemenwayls H claims we

4. The Hemenway Critique of the National Self-Defense Survey

Hemenway’s paper was not an attempt to produce a balanced, intellectually serious assessment of estimates of defensive gun use. Instead, his critique served the narrow political purpose of “getting the estimate down,” for the sake of assisting the gun control cause. An honest, scientifically based critique would have given balanced consideration to both flaws that would tend to make the estimate too low (e.g., people concealing DGUs because they involved unlawful behavior, and the failure to count any DGUs by adolescents), and to those that contribute to making them too high. Equally important, it would have given greatest weight to relevant empirical evidence, and little or no weight to idle speculation about possible flaws. Hemenway’s approach was precisely the opposite––one-sided and almost entirely speculative. Readers who have any doubts about the degree to which Hemenway’s paper was imbalanced could carry out a simple exercise to assess this claim: count the number of lines Hemenway devoted to flaws tending to make the estimate too high and the number devoted to flaws making the estimate too low.

Hemenway’s one-sided determination to fixate only on possible sources of overestimation was so strong that he failed to recognize even the most conspicuous sources of underestimation. He claimed that Kleck and Gertz obtained an estimate of gun ownership prevalence in their sample that was “outside the range of all other national surveys” (p. 1434), to the low side, yet was oblivious to the implication of this for DGU estimates––since DGUs are obviously more common among gun owners, any underrepresentation of gun owners in the survey sample would contribute to an underestimate of DGUs.2

He likewise noted the underrepresentation of blacks in the NSDS sample (p. 1434), a problem nearly universal in national surveys, yet did not note the implication that underrepresentation of highly victimized subsets of the population would necessarily imply an underrepresentation of persons who had occasion to engage in acts of self-defense, including use of a gun for self-protection. Similarly, Hemenway asserted that the NSDS gives too much weight to persons who are the only adult in their household (p. 1434), yet apparently was not aware that persons who live alone or in smaller households areless likely than others to be victims of crimes like burglaries (U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics 1996, p. 28), and that he was therefore noting a problem likely to contribute to an underestimation of DGUs.

Likewise, Hemenway made no mention of the even more obvious fact that surveys confined to adults (as all of the DGU surveys were) by definition exclude all self-reports of DGU experiences by adolescents. Since rates of gun carrying are as high among adolescents as among adults (Kleck and Gertz 1998, pp. 200-201), and persons age 12-17 claim about 24% of all violent victimizations (U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics 1997, pp. 6, 8), this problem alone could cause surveys to miss as much as a quarter of all DGUs. Nor did Hemenway acknowledge other obvious sources of underestimation that Kleck and Gertz had explicitly noted, such as the omission of persons without telephones, who are poorer and thus more likely to be crime victims than others (Kleck and Gertz 1995, p. 170).

The political function of this sort of advocacy scholarship is clear. While high estimates of DGU frequency do not constitute an obstacle to moderate controls over guns such as laws requiring background checks, they constitute a very serious obstacle to advocacy of gun prohibition. Disarming the mass of noncriminal prospective crime victims would, if high DGU estimates are even approximately correct, result in large numbers of foregone opportunities for defensive uses of guns that could prevent deaths, injuries, and property loss. To acknowledge high DGU frequency would be to concede the most significant cost of gun prohibition. Hemenway’s paper was an attempt to neutralize concerns about such costs and to provide intellectual respectability for positions identified with Handgun Control Incorporated (HCI), the nation’s leading gun control advocacy group.

Hemenway has close ties to HCI through two key staff members of its “educational” branch, the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence (CPHV). His closest and most frequent collaborator on gun-related research is Douglas Weil, currently Research Director of CPHV, with whom Hemenway has co-written at least five articles on gun topics (Hemenway and Weil 1990a; 1990b; Weil and Hemenway 1992; 1993a; 1993b). (Interestingly, Hemenway did not include Weil, his erstwhile closest collaborator, among those he thanked in his acknowledgements, presumably for their comments on earlier drafts of his paper [Hemenway 1997b, p. 1430], as if to distance himself from an HCI employee). Hemenway also has contributed to, and co-edited, a strongly pro-control 96-page propaganda tract with Dennis A. Henigan, legal counsel to HCI and CPHV (Henigan, Nicholson, and Hemenway 1995). This obscure tract presented a note-for-note rendition of the HCI/CPHV view of the Second Amendment, a view sharply at variance with virtually all scholarly research on the topic (see Reynolds 1995 for a review of the Second Amendment literature).

In one of his articles coauthored with Weil, Hemenway claimed that their survey data showed that the National Rifle Association (NRA) misrepresents the gun control views of its own members. Kleck pointed out in a published critique that many of those respondents that Weil and Hemenway treated as NRA members probably were not, since their figures overstated known NRA membership by a factor of three. This accurate claim is oddly parallel to the inaccurate one Hemenway has since directed at Kleck’s work, the main difference being that NRA membership is exactly known, and so it was indisputable that Weil and Hemenway’s data grossly overstated NRA membership.

Hemenway’s political intentions and strong feelings were evident in his wild overstatements and the grandiose and unwarranted conclusions he drew from weak or irrelevant evidence and fallacious reasoning. He did not get past his title before making his first overstatement, claiming that he had established, without benefit of any new empirical evidence, not only that the NSDS estimates were too high but that they were “extreme overestimates” (Hemenway 1997b, p. 1430). He then announced in his first paragraph that “it is clear that [the Kleck and Gertz] results cannot be accepted as valid” (p. 1430). He went on to falsely claim that “all checks for external validity of the Kleck-Gertz finding confirm that their estimate is highly exaggerated” (p. 1431), when in fact these checks have repeatedly confirmed the conclusion that DGUs are common.

DGUs usually involve unlawful possession of a gun by the gun-wielding victim, and sometimes other illegalities as well (Kleck and Gertz 1995, pp. 150, 156, 174), a point Hemenway did not dispute. Yet, he made the extraordinary and counterintuitive claim that there is a social desirability bias to people reporting their own illegal behavior (Hemenway 1997b, p. 1431)––that is, people will falsely report DGU experiences because they believed this would present them in a more positive, socially desirable light. Hemenway insisted that such a desirability bias is not only plausible, but that it is likely: “the likelihood of social desirability response bias (self-presentation bias) is clear” (p. 1438). By the end of his paper, without having provided any credible supporting evidence, Hemenway concluded that the NSDS was afflicted by an “enormous problem of false positives” (persons claiming a DGU who did not have one) and “massive overestimation,” flatly stating that “the Kleck and Gertz survey results do not provide reasonable estimates about the total amount of self-defense gun use in the United States” (p. 1444). It was an impressive achievement to be able to arrive at such high-powered conclusions without the inconvenience of gathering or even citing any new empirical evidence.

 

[2aguy]

In 2010, according to the most recent data on justifiable homicides from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, there were 230 justifiable homicides involving a private citizen using a firearm in self-defense during either an attempted or a completed crime. In the same year, there were 8,275 firearm homicides. This means that, for every one justifiable firearm homicide, there were 36 criminal homicides. Contrary to the gun lobby’s claim that, between 2007 and 2011, guns were used 12.5 million times in self-defense, the most reliable data on this question clearly show that firearms were used only 338,700 times in self-defense, and this includes off-duty police. Clearly, then, despite living in a country with 300 million guns, the use of firearms in self-defense appears to be an exceedingly rare phenomenon.

again....they only count when people are killed....what is it with you guys....is that the only outcome between a victim and a criminal....really?

I know you guys fixate on the 230 homicide number because by pushing that number...you can play around and say that means there aren't that many defensive gun uses....nice trick, and typical dishonesty of a liberal but it is just that...a trick....

 

[2aguy]

Two other areas of crime—violent crime and property crime—are analyzed by the Violence Policy Center, and cast serious doubt on the argument that guns are used regularly in self-defense.

The report analyzed...no surprise, the National Crime Victimization Survey....the most flawed of all the studies.....that only counts dead people.....and of course the Violence Policy Center uses it because it wrongly distorts the numbers down...by ignoring all other outcomes of violent criminal attack...namely, threatening the criminal with the weapon and the criminal running away, holding the criminal at gun point till the police arrive ,a and shooting, but only wounding the criminal and again, waiting for the police to take him into custody....

No death...it doesn't get included in the NCVS.......I believe the NCVS also meets the individuals face to face, identifies themselves as government agents, to someone who they want to admit may have used a gun in a violent encounter, and does not specifically ask about wether the respondee was in an attack...they have to volunteer that info. through the questioning process.....

 

[Brain357]

In 2010, according to the most recent data on justifiable homicides from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, there were 230 justifiable homicides involving a private citizen using a firearm in self-defense during either an attempted or a completed crime. In the same year, there were 8,275 firearm homicides. This means that, for every one justifiable firearm homicide, there were 36 criminal homicides. Contrary to the gun lobby’s claim that, between 2007 and 2011, guns were used 12.5 million times in self-defense, the most reliable data on this question clearly show that firearms were used only 338,700 times in self-defense, and this includes off-duty police. Clearly, then, despite living in a country with 300 million guns, the use of firearms in self-defense appears to be an exceedingly rare phenomenon.

again....they only count when people are killed....what is it with you guys....is that the only outcome between a victim and a criminal....really?

I know you guys fixate on the 230 homicide number because by pushing that number...you can play around and say that means there aren't that many defensive gun uses....nice trick, and typical dishonesty of a liberal but it is just that...a trick....

Nobody is saying that Bill. But if there are 1.6 million defenses and only 230 criminals shot in defense, then a criminal is shot only one in about 7000 defenses. Having read as many actual defense as we both have you know that is impossible. And I have provided a study on how often a criminal is killed in defense, 34%.

 

[Brain357]

Two other areas of crime—violent crime and property crime—are analyzed by the Violence Policy Center, and cast serious doubt on the argument that guns are used regularly in self-defense.

The report analyzed...no surprise, the National Crime Victimization Survey....the most flawed of all the studies.....that only counts dead people.....and of course the Violence Policy Center uses it because it wrongly distorts the numbers down...by ignoring all other outcomes of violent criminal attack...namely, threatening the criminal with the weapon and the criminal running away, holding the criminal at gun point till the police arrive ,a and shooting, but only wounding the criminal and again, waiting for the police to take him into custody....

No death...it doesn't get included in the NCVS.......I believe the NCVS also meets the individuals face to face, identifies themselves as government agents, to someone who they want to admit may have used a gun in a violent encounter, and does not specifically ask about wether the respondee was in an attack...they have to volunteer that info. through the questioning process.....

What do you mean it only counts dead people? Doesn't it have suggest there are about 100,000 defenses each year? They didn't arrive at that number by only counting dead people.

 

[2aguy]

In 2010, according to the most recent data on justifiable homicides from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, there were 230 justifiable homicides involving a private citizen using a firearm in self-defense during either an attempted or a completed crime. In the same year, there were 8,275 firearm homicides. This means that, for every one justifiable firearm homicide, there were 36 criminal homicides. Contrary to the gun lobby’s claim that, between 2007 and 2011, guns were used 12.5 million times in self-defense, the most reliable data on this question clearly show that firearms were used only 338,700 times in self-defense, and this includes off-duty police. Clearly, then, despite living in a country with 300 million guns, the use of firearms in self-defense appears to be an exceedingly rare phenomenon.

again....they only count when people are killed....what is it with you guys....is that the only outcome between a victim and a criminal....really?

I know you guys fixate on the 230 homicide number because by pushing that number...you can play around and say that means there aren't that many defensive gun uses....nice trick, and typical dishonesty of a liberal but it is just that...a trick....

Nobody is saying that Bill. But if there are 1.6 million defenses and only 230 criminals shot in defense, then a criminal is shot only one in about 7000 defenses. Having read as many actual defense as we both have you know that is impossible. And I have provided a study on how often a criminal is killed in defense, 34%.

It isn't impossible....you haven't provided a study...you have provided an analysis of The Armed Citizen stories and what that specific collection tells us about guns when they are used to stop violent crime...it isn't scientific, has no controls and that you use that as your proof that 19 actual studies by actual researchers, both in private and government research institutions, conducted over 40 years is just silly.....