Wednesday, December 5, 2012

How Many DGUs Are There? Further Explanation


Yet you have chosen to adamantly take exception to that observation. Well okay. No harm will come to you because of it. But surely you will concur that those cases in which a gun was fired generally make it into the media. No, wait – I’ll more than meet you halfway. Surely you’ll concur that those instances in which the offender is killed or wounded will generally make it into the media. Well, those add up to roughly 300 per year. But let’s continue to be generous and call it 500.

Now according to Kleck-Gertz, these comprise 8 percent of the total. As I’ve stated before, this figure is surely far too low, because Kleck and Gertz are extremely loose in their definition of a defensive gun use. But I don’t have a better figure to offer, so we’ll use it. If the generously high figure of 500 represents the generously low figure of 8 percent, then that makes the total around 6250. It’s simple grade school arithmetic. People who claim that my “math is off” are not only incorrect, they’re off track. It’s not exactly MY math that has become the basis of dogma.

Bottom line: extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof; but the only “proof” ever offered for the extraordinaily high DGU counts is that some people say so. Sorry, but I find that quite inadequate. The 2.5 million claim is a legendary beast of titanic proportions, and if it existed, it would leave an appropriately large footprint. But the only footprint in evidence so far is miniscule. Show me the behemoth footprints and I’ll consider it more likely that the beast itself exists. Until then, I must remain skeptical.

I'm not as reluctant to use speculation as the Professor is.  I believe that a significant percentage of those 300 to 500 reported DGUs each year are false.  And I believe an even higher percentage of the rest are false, the ones that don't get reported at all.

This brings us right back down to the 500 mark. 

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

25 comments:

  1. nra makes sure dgu is big news in the miami herald and we see it maybe once a month compared to 100 or so drive bys, murder suicides, kids, etc......
    tom webber
    miami

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    1. I think you're in the right ball park with that ratio. I've called it 200 to 1 in the past. But it's clear whatever the right number is.

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  2. Math has a well known anti-gunz bias.

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  3. Again I ask, what do you think we can do to bring that number up?

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  4. The flaw here is that you can't rely solely on media reports for an estimate of defensive gun uses. News organizations--particularly local T.V.--run to the spectacular in an effort to stay in business. We've also shown you how incompetent many reporters are when it comes to guns.

    I agree that the 2.5 million number feels high. But the most conservative estimates that I've seen put the number in the hundreds of thousands. That's still far above the 500 that your side is willing to accept.

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    1. Greg, how is it that for anything we say, you want proof and evidence. But, for this, you're willing to take the word of people that account for 90% of the DGUs?

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    2. Because I've given time to some of those studies. The methodology looks good, and the evidence appears sound. It could be wrong, but I'd need a lot to convince me of that. You offer nothing but speculation.

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    3. On the question of the validity of a defensive gun use, I'm willing to give the police credit for doing their jobs. They aren't stupid. Shootings get investigated. Assaults get investigated. Now, it's suggested that when a criminal is driven off with a gun, he doesn't run to the cops to file a complaint, and that makes sense. A person who was doing no wrong and gets threatened is more likely to report the incident.

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    4. Actually, Greg, if he or others are not injured NO, he is highly unlikely to report. How does HE know the local laws on confrontation with a deadly weapon? He might be just inside a school zone and not even know it. Or other proscribed area.

      There may be some detail about his gun that will make to LEs confiscate it, such as a larger capacity mag that will be outlawed if the gun grabbers have their way. He may be unable to prove he bought it outside the ban. There's more if you think about it. Just put yourself in that exact position.

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  5. I have considered this topic before. I am not ready to believe there are millions of defensive gun uses per year. I adamantly believe there are 10s of thousands or more. Even more importantly, I am absolutely convinced there would be 100s of thousands of defensive gun uses per year if most citizens carried everywhere, every day.

    I completely reject the notion that the number of events reported from news organizations indicates the number of annual defensive gun uses. For starters, news organizations -- especially in our large metropolitan areas (e.g. Miami, Chicago, Seattle, etc.) -- almost never report events where a citizen pointed a gun at a criminal and the criminal ran away. Unless there was something shocking or unusual about such an event, it won't make the news. And even if the citizen did fire at the criminal, some average jane or joe firing at some low-life criminal is rarely newsworthy.

    So what is a quick and dirty estimate based strictly on news coverage? Citizens only pull the trigger in something like 1 out of 20 (5%) of defensive gun uses. And of the times a citizen pulls the trigger, news organizations will cover something like 1 out of 10 (10%) of those events. (Small towns will cover such events almost every time and large metro areas -- which have most of the crime -- will cover only a select few events.) So if every event were reported to police, we see that news outlets will publish about 1 out of every 200 defensive gun use events. And if we are hearing about 600 events per year in the news, that means there are about 120,000 defensive gun uses per year.

    But we also know that lots of citizens will not report their event to police for various reasons. In some cases the citizen may figure it isn't worth the hassle since the police will probably not investigate nor actually capture anyone. In still other events the citizen may fear that the police will charge them with a crime. In yet other events, the citizen may not report the event to police for fear of retribution from other criminals or even neighbors in their area. When you add it all up, I can easily picture something like 1 out of 4 events are not reported to police. So we would have to increase the previous figure another 25%. Thus we can estimate that there are about 150,000 defensive gun uses per year in the U.S.

    And now for a reality check. If there are about 150,000 defensive gun uses per year in the U.S. that would average about 3000 per year per state. And that breaks down to about 8 per day in each state -- with only 6 being reported to police. That is certainly a plausible number. Another reality check. About 80 million adults own firearms in the U.S. If 150,000 people used them annually to defend themselves, that means about 1 out of every 533 armed adults use their firearms to defend themselves every year. That is a VERY plausible number.

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    1. Very plausible double talk, indeed.

      You're another one who demands proof and evidence from us (I'm assuming), but for 95% of the DGUs you're fine with people's word.

      The one thing you didn't cover is the percentage of false DGUs. I place that percentage fairly high. How about you?

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    2. MikeB I will try to find the data that about 19 out of 20 times (95%) an armed citizen merely brandishes or points their firearm without firing a shot to stop a violent attack. It certainly coincides with common sense, many accounts, and countless surveillance videos.

      As for your assertion about a high percentage of false defensive gun uses, please explain exactly what a false event is and your reasoning for why it discounts some substantial number of events. In my mind it is not a defensive gun use if an armed citizen uses a firearm to frighten a trespasser or to "settle an argument". Maybe you agree?

      A defensive gun use happens when an armed citizen stops an assault, robbery, rape, or attempted murder with their firearm. In all the events that I hear first hand or read second hand through news outlets, the armed citizen used their firearm for a true defensive gun use to stop an assault, robbery, rape, or attempted murder. I have not heard, read, nor seen any evidence to the contrary.

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  6. "But the most conservative estimates that I've seen put the number in the hundreds of thousands. That's still far above the 500 that your side is willing to accept."

    Provide those estimates, along with the data that backs them up. If it's anything by Kleck or Lott that might be a little hard to do. Here's a hint, "I wish" isn't empirical data.

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    1. You mean Mikeb's technique isn't allowed? Good enough. Here's some reading:

      http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html

      You'll see there that the Department of Justice estimated the number at 1.5 million in 1994. I haven't seen any studies from this or the last decade, but since crime is lower now, presumably the number of defensive gun uses is also lower. Still, the evidence says that Mikeb's estimate is off by a factor of at least 200.

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    2. And I have already provided you, in a previous thread, with the 1994 CDC study putting the number at about 500,000. Last time I checked, the government's bias wasn't on my side of this issue.

      How about this summation of various studies from Wikipedia:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concealed_carry_in_the_United_States):

      “The vast majority of defensive gun uses (DGUs) do not involve killing or even wounding an attacker, with government surveys showing 108,000 (NCVS) to 23 million (raw NSPOF) DGUs per year, with ten private national surveys showing 764,000 to 3.6 million DGU per year.”

      I know I know, it is wikipedia. But this is a forum - not a mid-term paper and it is still a good summary.

      But as I point out in my reply to the professor (currently awaiting moderation), the real proof is that the VPC and Brady bunch don't publish and studies on this particular number at all. Why do you think that is? Do you think they haven’t looked at it? Of course they have – but they don’t like the numbers. So they find studies that ask different questions that support their thesis – ones that count overall gun deaths and the number of people killed by concealed permit holders. I am not faulting them for this – the NRA and other pro-gun groups do the same thing. But the lack of contradicting data for this particular facet is proof that the numbers of DGU’s are higher than these groups care to admit.

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    3. Well DC asks for backup and it is provided again. No response DC?

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    4. Democommie never responds. He swoops in, accuses everyone he can see (while looking in the mirror) of being liars and cowards, then flees.

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  7. "I have considered this topic before. I am not ready to believe there are millions of defensive gun uses per year. I adamantly believe there are 10s of thousands or more. Even more importantly, I am absolutely convinced there would be 100s of thousands of defensive gun uses per year if most citizens carried everywhere, every day."

    I am ready to believe that I have a pink unicorn that shits kruger rands. I'm pretty sure that my belief has at least as much basis in reality as does yours.

    "So if every event were reported to police, we see that news outlets will publish about 1 out of every 200 defensive gun use events. And if we are hearing about 600 events per year in the news, that means there are about 120,000 defensive gun uses per year."

    This is complete conjecture.

    Here's a fact for you. You and your gunzloonzpalz WANT for there to be some huge number of DGU's (real ones) per year so you pull shit out of your ass to make it seem like there is one, it's just hidden by the liebral media and those lying cops.

    IF there were hundreds of thousands of DGU's every year--and they were verifiable--the NRA would be publishing a fucking weekly newsletter to let all of us know about it--and mailing it to every Chief of Police, other LEOs and the state and federal representatives. They don't, because it's a fiction that is complete and utter wishful thinking on yours and other gunzloonz' part.

    Assertions unaccompanied by data to back them up are just plain bullshit.

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    1. You can argue all you want about the precision of the estimate that I provided. It was just that, an estimate. The real number could be higher or lower.

      The fact of the matter is that your side rejects estimates, polls, and data. (You are not interested in numbers from Kleck, Lott, et. al. per your own statement.) All I was doing was explaining how and why news stories woefully under-report defensive gun use -- and providing a reasonable estimation of how much they under-report which provides a reasonable estimation of how many events happen.

      What is your estimate and reasoning behind it? How much do you think news outlets under-report defensive gun uses? Do you disagree with my assertion that news outlets will not report events where Jane or John Q public pointed a gun at some criminal lowlife who was attacking them in a parking lot?

      I personally know of two events in the past two years that were exactly as I stated: an armed citizen pointed their gun at their attackers and stopped the attack. Our local news outlets never reported those events.

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  8. I have already replied to the professor. It took him a while to finally approve my last comment from moderation and reply to it - so I expect it may take a while before you can all read the next chapter. But I can wait - I am patient.

    I would encourage many of you to read the conversation he (or perhaps she - I really don't know) and I are having. I know our back and forth's are lengthy - but that is exactly the kind of productive and civil discourse that I have advocated for here.

    Do I expect to convince him fully of my side? No. But we are beginning to find the minimal points in which we disagree. I point out in my reply that his primary flaw, IMO, is not his math but it is attempting to use the currents of media reports as the seed basis for his extrapolation. If I am unable to convince him of this error, then we will likely have to draw the line there -at least for that particular aspect.

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    1. News stories are anecdotal, not valid evidence in themselves without analysis. He also fails to recognize the declining budgets of many news organizations. They don't have the funds to chase down every story.

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    2. FL, do you think the media is deficient in reporting gun violence also? You realize the ratio is strongly in the gun violence favor. Perhaps, because they're so biased against you gun guys, they purposely under report DGUs and strive to catch every incident of gun misuse. Is that it?

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    3. Do I think there is some bias against reporting DGU's accurately? Sure. But let's be more on point. Do I think there is some bias against reporting possible DGU's as such remembering that many times the stories are first reported before most of the facts are known? Yes. And there are numerous examples of just such a thing - where a crime was stopped by someone pulling a gun (but no shots fired) but that detail did not make the cut of the story.

      But in the end - that's relatively minor. The big problem here is simply that the media is not capable of reporting each and every DGU any more than they are not capable of reporting every act of violence. It's just not physically possible.

      And if it was physically possible for them to report it all, we are not physically able to find and digest all of the stories. Using the media coverage as a pulse for DGU's and violence in general is akin to saying all restaurants in NYC suck because you stayed there for two days and ate at a couple of them.

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    4. I am going to take Frail Liberty's example one step further for an even better illustration. Can I conclude that there are only 105 restaurants in New York City because the local newspaper only wrote articles about 105 restaurants over the past year? Of course not.

      News outlets do NOT exist to provide exhaustive data sets for research purposes. News outlets exist to publish whatever they think will garner the most money from advertisers. Any claims that news organizations report nearly 100% of anything are foolish.

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    5. I don't think Frail Liberty needs you help, especially with that incredibly ridiculous comparison. A restaurant being present in a city is not news. A shooting is.

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