1.1.c "Is there any independent data that supports Kleck and Gertz?"
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This article is from the talk.politics.guns Official Pro-Gun FAQ, by Ken Barnes (kebarnes@cc.memphis.edu) with numerous contributions by others.
1.1.c "Is there any independent data that supports Kleck and Gertz?"
See Kleck and Gertz (1995), above.
also "National Institute of Justice Research in Brief,"
"Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership
and Use of Firearms," May 1997, SuDoc# J 28.24:G 95/3 (1997)
In summary: A recent study funded by the National Institute of
Justice, and conducted by criminologists Phillip J. Cook of Duke
University and Jens Ludwig of Georgetown University, on behalf of
the pro-"gun control" Police Foundation (a non-profit Washington
D.C.-based research group spun off from the Ford Foundation in
1970), found a reported 1.5 million annual DGUs in 1994, using the
Kleck/Gertz criteria. The data for the Cook/Ludwig study were
obtained from a nationwide random-digit-dialed telephone survey
of 2,568 adults conducted during November and December of 1994 by
Chilton Research Services of Drexel Hill, PA. While the authors of
the Police Foundation study consider their survey to be "a reliable
reference" for other purposes (such as estimating the percentage of
gun-owning households), the DGU estimates, they say, are greatly
exaggerated and not informative as to whether private gun ownership
has a net positive or negative effect on crime. In attempting to
explain away this particular finding, Cook and Ludwig argue by
comparison to the NCVS data that for example, the number of DGUs
reported to their survey as being associated with rapes or attempted
rapes is greater than the total number of rapes or attempted rapes
estimated by the NCVS. It has been argued by some criminologists,
however, as Kleck and Gertz note in their survey results, that the
NCVS severely undercounts rapes, and would miss "nearly all DGUs
associated with" them (p.155). Cook and Ludwig describe other
comparisons between their DGU counts and the NCVS data as "almost
as absurd," and note that their survey also suggests that "130,000
criminals are wounded or killed by civilian gun defenders," which
they say is "completely out of line with other, more reliable
statistics on the number of gunshot cases." The Kleck/Gertz survey
likewise found that DGU-involved respondents who reported firing
their gun at the offender (which was in only 15.6% of the cases)
were likely to "remember with favor" their marksmanship and report
that they had wounded the offender (8.3% of respondents). Kleck and
Gertz discount these wounding reports, writing that "If 8.3% really
hit their adversaries, and a total of 15.6% fired at their adversaries,
this would imply... a level of combat marksmanship far exceeding that
typically observed even among police officers" (p.173).
In explaining away their large number of estimated DGUs, Cook and
Ludwig invoke a variation on the "dishonest respondent" hypothesis,
namely that most such reports are "false positives," a result of the
probability bias that some of the large number of non-DGU involved
respondents will make up a story, while the smaller number of actual
DGU-involved respondents will make less of a difference to the total
estimate, no matter how they respond. Other factors, including
"telescoping," or that respondents "may be geniunely confused due to
substance abuse, mental illness, or simply less-than-accurate memories"
could produce these "false positives," the authors argue. While
"telescoping" may affect DGU estimates, the latter factors should
also affect the overall reliability of other questions in the survey
(indeed of any survey). Cook and Ludwig describe their results as
"the most complete data available on the private stock of firearms
in the United States." But considering the public stigma which has
been placed on gun owners by much of the mass media, Cook and Ludwig's
confidence in their finding that just 35% of respondents households
own guns (by comparison to the approximately 50% of households found
in previous surveys) may be misplaced. If Cook and Ludwig can't
believe those respondents who claim to have used a gun defensively,
how can they trust their respondents to report accurately about their
"arsenals" of "cop-killer assault weapons," "junk guns," and "high
powered sniper rifles" to anonymous strangers on the telephone?
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