Our new favorite commenter, Frail Liberty, said no one believe that 2.5 million lives are saved each year by the defensive use of guns. Even Kleck's study said the figure would be about 160,000.
My response:
I can assure you, FL, many of the pro-gun uninformed believe that 2.5 million lives are saved a year. They believe that because they've read it and have repeated it so often themselves that it's taken on an aura of truth.
You're smarter than that. Great. Good for you. So how about this for an idea. Of the 162,000, since the poll was getting its info from the defender, how many do you think were really unnecessary and/or criminal? None?
My idea is that, given human nature and the obvious temptation to paint the picture in its best light, anyone who describes a defensive use of a gun has about a 50% chance of being a liar. In other words, only half of the reported DGUs are really legit. The others are criminal acts disguised.
Thanks for the feature ... I think. But you seemed to brush right past critical points without comprehending them and have made flat out false assertions.
ReplyDeleteFirst, semantics are sometimes important: I didn’t say “no one believe that 2.5 million lives are saved each year”. I was merely responding to your accusation that I had somehow changed the statistics. I did state that 2.5 million defensive uses is not the same as 2.5 million lives saved. Now, I am sure that there are a few on my side of the fence who also get that confused and so some (a few) have probably said 2.5 million lives are saved each year. But I think most understand the difference and actually state 2.5 million defensive uses or 2.5 million times referring to lives *and* property. You state that “they've read it and have repeated it so often”. So, I challenge you to show me even half a dozen times where someone has said 2.5 million lives saved? I think you might find that it is only your side that is taking those statistics out of context.
Second, you go on to make a point that I clearly stated in my post. In fact, you give the numbers even more credit. I said “even if only one quarter of such incidents are such that lives were indeed saved” and you said “only half of the reported DGUs are really legit”. Yet you failed to apply the rest of the critical thinking skills necessary to finish to evaluating the significance of those assumptions – I guess that is because I didn’t spell them out well enough.
So let’s try again and we will meet in the middle and say that the magic ratio is 1/3. So 54,000 DGU in the US each year. The question I posed was “how many lives were saved by that single incident?” Well, with most of these uses occurring in the home and the average household size in the US at 2.63 persons per home, and assuming that few criminals intend to kill some victims but leave others alive, I think we can safely say that each incident likely protected the lives of at least 2 people. So that is at least 108,000 people directly protected by a DGU.
Now, stay with me if you can, many of these instances involve the criminals being injured, killed, or in some instances held for the police. So now you have to think about all of the future people who will not be threatened by the same criminal because the citizen in these instances had the ability to defend themselves. Now I cannot even begin to calculate that number. But the reasoning is sound enough that I can say, with confidence, that hundreds of thousands of lives are protected each year via the use of firearms.
And, since this study was performed in 1993 before the wave of CCW laws gained much momentum, it doesn’t even begin to cover the many instances where lives were saved in a public setting by an armed citizen.
And, finally, I will restate my final thought which you did not even address: Honest discussion cannot even begin until those who say they want to save lives by implementing gun control acknowledge that guns save lives at least some of the time.
My 50% idea was that, of the number you mentioned only 50% were legit. Of the remaining, not all of them would have died, in fact only a small percent of them would have.
DeleteWhat? Did you even read your own remarks? Talk about bait and switch:
Delete"My idea is that, given human nature and the obvious temptation to paint the picture in its best light, anyone who describes a defensive use of a gun has about a 50% chance of being a liar. In other words, only half of the reported DGUs are really legit. The others are criminal acts disguised."
So 'only half of the reported DGU's are really legit' now turns into 'only half of the fraction that Frail Liberty gave in an effort to offset possible yet unproven statistical bias are really legit'?
Even if I accept your ridiculous re-write of our assumptive model, that still means 20,000 DGU each where at least one life was protected.
Again, given that these incidents likely involved the protection of more than one life per incident and many prevented future incidents, at least 100,000 lives saved each year is still a reasonable guess.
But even if you don't accept that, that is still at least 55 lives saved each day by DGU, nearly twice as many as are claimed to be killed by gun violence each day by gun control proponents.
It really comes down to two words, Intellectual Honesty ... and you sir have repeatedly proven that you have none.
And given that there were 8775 murders with a firearm in 2010 (and they were dropping over time).
Deletehttp://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10shrtbl08.xls
Even with 20,000 lives protected (which is the re-written assumption...it could be much higher) it appears that there were at least 2+ times more people saved with firearms than were murdered by them. Something to think about when you wish to severely limit the availability of firearms. Or...do you with to think about that?
Frail Liberty, you should not accuse others of intellectual dishonesty and then say
Delete"Even if I accept your ridiculous re-write of our assumptive model, that still means 20,000 DGU each where at least one life was protected."
How do you get 20,000? I said 50% are legit, it could be much lower, but that doesn't mean every single one of them would have died otherwise. Very few would have. You know that stats on armed robberies. Only a tiny percentage end up in shootings and of them only a tiny percentage end up in deadly shootings.
And don't forget, that original number of 160,000 came from Kleck, who, I believe, has a history of erring on the high side.
Here's my other "proof" that the number of DGUs is extremely low. On The Truth About Guns, which has a huge readership, you almost never read a first-hand story of a defensive gun use. Why? Do you think among the 10,000 daily readers the average and frequent, according to you, number of DGUs is taking place but they're just not reporting it?
DeleteNo. DGUs are as rare as hen's teeth. That's why.
Mike,
DeleteThis is insane. As stated previously, the study in question was concerning defensive firearms uses where someone "almost certainly would have been killed" if not for the DGU. That is why we are talking about 162,000 as a starting point and not 2.5 million. 2.5 million is total defensive gun uses while 162,000 is DGU’s where someone would have been killed.
I acknowledged, in my very first post, that many in your camp take issues with the study because the instances were self-reported. So I only counted one fourth of the numbers.
Then, I allowed your bait and switch logic that initially talked about the 50% whole study and allowed you to apply it to my already slashed counts.
A little math for you:
1/4 * 1/2 = 1/8
162,000/8 = 20,250
20,250/365.25 ~= 55
55 saved per day > 32 killed per day
It's pretty simple. You just have to open your mind and stop trying to make the world fit in with your world view.
"And don't forget, that original number of 160,000 came from Kleck, who, I believe, has a history of erring on the high side." SERIOULSY?!?!? That is the WHOLE REASON why we have been reducing the study number all along.
You cannot slash the study numbers by one eight because it was done by Kleck. And then say 'Don't forget it was a Kleck study so the numbers are high'. That, my friend, is practically the definition of intellectual dishonesty. I should try that with the IRS. ‘Here is 25% of my income for taxes … oh wait … I still need to apply the 25% tax rate … so here is 25% of that.’
Truth about guns is a great site, but it is not even remotely focused on gathering DGU. Why don’t you spend a few moments browsing one of the sites that actual has that focus:
http://gunssavelives.net/
http://www.cato.org/guns-and-self-defense/
http://nraila.org/gun-laws/armed-citizen.aspx
And I don’t want to hear any noise about these being made up reports. These are documented cases gathered from either media and or police blotter reports.
Mike. Trying to debate with you is like talking to a toddler. You mostly ignore the points that were made. And when you do respond, it is either devoid of logic or diversionary.
Frail Liberty, what you have to understand is that Mikeb doesn't call it a legitimate gun use unless the good citizen dies before shooting the thug. Mike wants good citizens to comply with criminals. He hates it when anyone resists an attack or takes responsibility for personal safety. That's how he can claim that the numbers are much lower than the reports indicate.
DeleteFL said, "Mike. Trying to debate with you is like talking to a toddler."
DeleteWhat the fuck is that supposed to be, an intellectually honest and germane observation which will further the discussion?
Another thing you said which could be turned around on you is this gem. "It's pretty simple. You just have to open your mind and stop trying to make the world fit in with your world view."
Once you chop it down with all your generous cuts, you still seem to be saying ALL of them, the 20,000, would have died. The truth is ALL of them COULD HAVE died, but very few of them would have. That's the way it is with gun crimes.
Mikeb, you want a standard that says, unless you can prove that you would have died, you don't get to defend yourself with a gun. Fortunately, that's not the law. All those persons who used a gun in self defense have to show is that they were in reasonable fear of death or serious injury.
DeleteBy your standard, for example, a woman who uses a gun to fight off a would-be rapist doesn't count, unless she can prove that she would also have been killed. That's pathetic.
I apologize for being crass. I simply could not believe that three full back and forth postings later, you were still offering the same reasoning that we both agreed to factor in ... i.e. allowances for the study being conducted by Kleck.
DeleteAs far as ‘would have’ vs ‘could have’, that goes back to the study itself which, as I included in my very first post (see how tiring this is), was designed to determine the number of DGU where someone “almost certainly would have been killed”. So by the very nature of the study, we are looking at number of how many people WOULD HAVE been killed if not for the DGU.
We have been adjusting the figures down to account for those who, as you claim, are liars or have exaggerated the details. We have gone several rounds trying to determine how far you think we should adjust those figures and so I naturally thought we were already adjusting for that. At first you said 1/2, then you said 1/8. But apparently you were not yet done adjusting. Is there any figure you would be willing to use? I don’t mind having to make the adjustments … I just wish you would make up your mind on the size of that adjustment.
See the problem is that it is very difficult to prove a negative. With some digging, I could give you a fairly accurate number of how people are killed by vehicle airbags. But what I will never, ever, be able to do is give you an accurate number of how many people are protected from harm by airbags. I can’t give you a list of names; I can’t give you a number. Does that mean that airbags do not save lives? No, of course not. It just means that one must perform studies and estimations and use *critical thinking skills* to realize that airbags are more protective than harmful. And that is exactly what is done: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-01/esv/esv18/CD/Files/18ESV-000500.pdf
But gun control advocates refuse to attempt to perform the same evaluations when it comes to firearms. Of course I cannot say that every single one of the 162,000 people (or even 20,000) who said ‘someone would have died’ was indeed correct. But we have to start somewhere, don’t we? Perhaps the Kleck study is flawed, that is why I was attempting to adjust for those flaws. But nobody else is even attempting to discover the answers … are they? Is the Brady campaign looking into DGU to make sure their policies really do save lives?
Doctors used to bleed people to cure sickness and were convinced they were doing the right thing. Have you ever spent any time using critical thinking skills and consider your views on this topic? Are you sure you are on the right side of the issue? Will the fruits of your efforts really save lives? How can you be sure if you don’t look at both sides?
The Brady campaign gives a score rating to each state based upon it criteria of “lifesaving gun laws”. But if I have to be able to give you an (impossible) exact count of how many lives are saved via DGU; then I want to know exactly how many lives are saved each year in the states with the highest Brady scores. Can you provide that for me? Of course not. Yet you are still willing to believe, with blind faith, the laws that they promote would save lives.
Another thing you said which could be turned around on you is this gem. "It's pretty simple. You just have to open your mind and stop trying to make the world fit in with your world view."
DeleteThat’s the thing Mike, you can’t really turn that around on me because I actually try to look at the complete issue. I have frequently done soul searching on this issue. I know that gun violence claims innocent lives and it saddens me. But then I try to look at the whole picture:
How many lives saved by defensive gun uses
How criminals ignore gun laws
How much better people fair when resisting crime armed vs all other methods (including compliance)
What has happened in other places with increasing and decreasing gun control laws
The net effect of liberty on society, and I don’t just mean armed resistance to tyranny – but the overall relationship between the governed and government
I might not get it all right all of the time, but I try really hard to understand how this fits in with the world we live in. Can you say the same?
"That’s the thing Mike, you can’t really turn that around on me because I actually try to look at the complete issue. I have frequently done soul searching on this issue. I know that gun violence claims innocent lives and it saddens me. But then I try to look at the whole picture:"
DeleteWhat makes you think I don't do that too, and that I haven't done it all along?
How long have you been reading my stuff? How well do you really know me, where I've come from and what I've done in the past? Or, are you just jumping to conclusions?
Fine, that's fair enough. That why I was asking.
DeleteSo back to the topic at hand.
At first you said 1/2 were lairs so 81,000 DGU's per year where lives were saved.
Then you said 1/8 (half of my forth) so 20,000 DGU's per year where lives were saved.
Now you want to change it again. So how many do you think it would be? Are you willing to admit that at least one life in the U.S. has been saved by DGU from a citizen (i.e. not military or police)? What do you think a fair estimation would be given the Kleck study of 162,000 per year in 1993?
It's probably 500 a year max.
DeleteAnd how did you derive at this figure? What studies did you use and how did you adjust it?
DeleteFrail Liberty, he rejected 2.5 million as impossible for his cause, tossed out the numbers from Kleck because no number presented on the gun rights side can be good, and pulled a number of his own out of thin air.
DeleteHello ... Mike?
DeleteStill wondering how you came at your figure of 500/yr?
Sorry I meant to answer that yesterday.
DeleteIt's a guess. But, it's an educated one, an informed one. I've read many many arguments like yours and always with an open mind. That 500 is my best guess.
Informed by what? Have you performed your own studies? Have you spent time reading any stories of self defense (perhaps from the 3 sites I listed for you)?
DeleteBy your estimation, only .3% of the people in the Kleck study (one of the only one I am aware having ever been conducted for this one facet) who said a firearm most likely saved the life of someone, were indeed accurate.
So, by you estimation, 99.7% of the respondents were lying or mis-representing the facts of the incident?
Not necessarily lying or misrepresenting, just wrong about how necessary their actions were and to what extent their lives were in danger.
DeleteSome were lying and misrepresenting.
And you know this for a certainty, Mikeb? Perhaps we should throw out judges and juries. Hell, why even bother with trials. You know who's guilty already. We'll just ask you from now on--how about that?
DeleteI'll pass, thanks.
But over 99% of them? Really? That is so absurd and, in my humble opinion, the perfect proof of intellectual dishonesty.
DeleteSo care to offer any justification why you chose to base your decisions about a critical issue by the seat of your pants guess (a WAG) rather than at least using available studies as a starting point?
DeleteIn this thread: http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-questionable-defensive-gun-use.html
You accuse other of the following:
"I'm basing my negative opinions about the guy on what I saw in the video. You're basing your support of him on blind allegiance, one gun owner to another."
And yet, I find you here, basing your opinion on some gut feeling about the honesty of gun owners (which you frequently and vocally admit you have an extremely low opinion of) rather using the available facts on hand.
It seems to me that you accuse others of doing the things that you do. I think the psychology profession would call this projection. Comments?
Don't expect an answer, Frail Liberty. They never respond to logic and facts. They never address valid criticisms of their positions. Tyrants and would-be tyrants only want blind obedience.
DeleteFrail Liberty, you keep saying I don't base my opinions on facts, but it's just not true. It is a fact that some (too many) of you legitimate gun owners are complete fuck-ups.
DeleteNo one knows really how many, but I say the number is too high whatever it is. I say that because there are things that could be done which would not interfere in your life much at all, assuming you're not one of the fuck-ups.
But, you won't even consider it. You're the one ignoring facts, my friend.
How many defensive gun uses are legitimate? All of them.
ReplyDeleteNow, before you get histrionic, understand that this is by definition. A defensive use of a firearm is a use that follows the law. Other uses against our fellow human beings are crimes. The police are good about figuring those out, most of the time.
How many of those happen every year? Like any other number in social sciences, the answer is fuzzy. How many incidents happen without any report to the police? For example, good guy produces a gun, bad guy runs away, good guy prefers to avoid the paperwork and goes about his business.
But the larger point here is that you, Mikeb, are desperate to erode away the supports for gun ownership. You can't stand guns or gun owners. By contrast, it's enough to me to say that owning and carrying firearms is a right. Everything else is gravy.
I'm just tryin' to clarify that fuzziness a little bit.
DeleteClarifying is good. What you're trying to do is obfuscate. You need evidence to clarify, not guesses.
Delete