Recently found CDC survey from 90's reveal guns used in defense 2.2M times per year

[phill4paul]

Many people who support gun control are angry that the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are not legally allowed to use money from Congress to do research whose purpose is "to advocate or promote gun control." (This is not the same as doing no research into gun violence, though it seems to discourage many potential recipients of CDC money.)

But in the 1990s, the CDC itself did look into one of the more controversial questions in gun social science: How often do innocent Americans use guns in self-defense, and how does that compare to the harms guns can cause in the hands of violent criminals?

Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck conducted the most thorough previously known survey data on the question in the 1990s. His study, which has been harshly disputed in pro-gun-control quarters, indicated that there were more than 2.2 million such defensive uses of guns (DGUs) in America a year.

Now Kleck has unearthed some lost CDC survey data on the question. The CDC essentially confirmed Kleck's results. But Kleck didn't know about that until now, because the CDC never reported what it found.

Kleck's new paper—"What Do CDC's Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses?"—finds that the agency had asked about DGUs in its Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System in 1996, 1997, and 1998.

https://reason.com/blog/2018/04/20/cdc-provides-more-evidence-that-plenty-o

Data with new findings found here....https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=9071170810250141271030160000651230 72026032046009065078108123108067127127070084000025 03205209612603901500111802402209400509611504205706 40080521000820810121190020840930460430050680870670 66023064083095117007076097026028080005100119064126 022068093085074118&EXT=pdf

[phill4paul]

Bump for all the 2.2 million times in which life, liberty and the property was protected. Every year.

[phill4paul]

That's over 6,000 times a day that firearms are used in defense of life, liberty and property.

[Dr.3D]

That's why I don't leave home without it.

[Danke]

John R. Lott, Jr. wrote about this, Control freaks hate him.

http://johnlott.org

http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html/

[oyarde]

That's over 6,000 times a day that firearms are used in defense of life, liberty and property.
120 per state , or in my home state about 1 1/3 ea day for ea county .

[Zippyjuan]

According to the link, over half a million of those who claimed they pointed a gun in self defense didn't even own a gun.

https://reason.com/blog/2018/04/20/cdc-provides-more-evidence-that-plenty-o


From Kleck's own surveys, he found that only 79 percent of those who reported a DGU "had also reported a gun in their household at the time of the interview,"

(that leaves 21% without a gun in their household or 516,000 people). (Actually the survey was about 5,000 people- they extrapolated it to get their total numbers for the entire US).



"During the last 12 months, have you confronted another person with a firearm, even if you did not fire it, to protect yourself, your property, or someone else?" Respondents were told to leave out incidents from occupations, like policing, where using firearms is part of the job.


Also worth noting that gun and violent crime have both decreased significantly since the early 1990s when the surveys took place.

http://www.project.org/images/graphs/Firearms-Crime.jpg

http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2012/06/img/violentcrime_fig1.jpg

[euphemia]

That's over 6,000 times a day that firearms are used in defense of life, liberty and property.

Thanks for breaking down the numbers. This is when *dry* statistics make the liberty point.

[Swordsmyth]

According to the link, over half a million of those who claimed they pointed a gun in self defense didn't even own a gun.

https://reason.com/blog/2018/04/20/cdc-provides-more-evidence-that-plenty-o



(that leaves 21% without a gun in their household or 516,000 people).





Also worth noting that gun and violent crime have both decreased significantly since the early 1990s when the surveys took place.

http://www.project.org/images/graphs/Firearms-Crime.jpg
Maybe they don't want to be put on a list for when confiscation time comes.

[Danke]

"Only cases that had been reported to the police or to a newspaper would end up in their report. Self-reflection on the part of any armed citizen who can imagine themselves having had to brandish or use their weapon would show it isn't necessarily in your best interest to call police attention to the matter.
After all, your possession or use of the weapon might be a matter of greater concern to the cops than whatever the intruder or criminal you were repelling was up to. They'll doubtless never lay hands on him; you are right there, for any investigation and harassment the cops might want to call forth. Many gun owners or gun users might see little good and much possible bad arising from calling the cops after a DGU (defensive gun uses) incident, and thus many or even most would never make a police blotter, never make a newspaper.
Kleck is confident even his initial estimates almost certainly understate DGUs. He believes even his anonymous pollsters might not have won the trust of everyone they talked to, that people may have discounted some incidents as unimportant, that some may have involved people under 18 (who were not polled), and that phoneless (usually poorer) households may be overrepresented among DGUs while obviously represented not at all in this phone poll."

[Danke]

All kinda pointless anyway. You have a natural right to be armed. Period.

[Anti Federalist]

We have been around and around on this, Zip.

A - People are reluctant to announce to strangers taking polls that they, in fact, have guns in the home.

B - The reduction in crime can be partially attributed to the fact that more people had guns and more people carried guns.



According to the link, over half a million of those who claimed they pointed a gun in self defense didn't even own a gun.

https://reason.com/blog/2018/04/20/cdc-provides-more-evidence-that-plenty-o

(that leaves 21% without a gun in their household or 516,000 people). (Actually the survey was about 5,000 people- they extrapolated it to get their total numbers for the entire US).





Also worth noting that gun and violent crime have both decreased significantly since the early 1990s when the surveys took place.

http://www.project.org/images/graphs/Firearms-Crime.jpg

http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2012/06/img/violentcrime_fig1.jpg

[Anti Federalist]

"Only cases that had been reported to the police or to a newspaper would end up in their report. Self-reflection on the part of any armed citizen who can imagine themselves having had to brandish or use their weapon would show it isn't necessarily in your best interest to call police attention to the matter.
After all, your possession or use of the weapon might be a matter of greater concern to the cops than whatever the intruder or criminal you were repelling was up to. They'll doubtless never lay hands on him; you are right there, for any investigation and harassment the cops might want to call forth. Many gun owners or gun users might see little good and much possible bad arising from calling the cops after a DGU (defensive gun uses) incident, and thus many or even most would never make a police blotter, never make a newspaper.
Kleck is confident even his initial estimates almost certainly understate DGUs. He believes even his anonymous pollsters might not have won the trust of everyone they talked to, that people may have discounted some incidents as unimportant, that some may have involved people under 18 (who were not polled), and that phoneless (usually poorer) households may be overrepresented among DGUs while obviously represented not at all in this phone poll."

Do Not Call Cops.

[phill4paul]

Do Not Call Cops.

Boom goes the dynamite! Absolutely spot on. Only through anonymous questioning did they get something closer to the truth. You've mentioned that you have pulled a weapon before. Did you report it? I have once. I didn't.

[phill4paul]

New addition to the article.


UPDATE: You will note the original link doesn't work right now. It was pointed out to me by Robert VerBruggen of National Review that Kleck treats the CDC's surveys discussed in this paper as if they were national in scope, as Kleck's original survey was, but they apparently were not. From VerBruggen's own looks at CDC's raw data, it seems that over the course of the three years, the following 15 states were surveyed: Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. (Those states, from 2000 census data, contained around 27 percent of the U.S. population.) Informed of this, Kleck says he will recalculate the degree to which CDC's survey work indeed matches or corroborates his, and we will publish a discussion of those fresh results when they come in. But for now Kleck has pulled the original paper from the web pending his rethinking the data and his conclusions.

It will be interesting to see the results. On first thoughts it looks like DGU's may be higher. It's up to a better man than me to parse such though.