Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
Dr. Paul H. Blackman writes:
The Annest et al. numbers are based on seeking medical treatment in emergency rooms. And the figure for gunshot wounds is roughly 100,000 (which Phil Cook upped to 150,000 for the June JAMA by counting all gun-related wounds including pistol whippings and air/BB/etc. guns).
Prior to that, estimates from (primarily anti-gunners) hovered in the 200-250,000 range (except for a few imaginative folk who assumed all gun-related crimes resulted in injuries).
Kleck would dispute the Annest et al. NEISS-based figure on the theory that criminals try to avoid medical treatment for gunshot wounds, since seeking such treatment tends to invite police inquiry. As a result, Kleck would assume that most minor injuries inflicted on criminals by citizens using guns for protection are statistically unmeasured, and that the lack of enough measured medical treatments does not undercut any Kleck projections on the numbers of criminals wounded by civilians.
You seem to agree with me that the Annest number contradicts Kleck and disagree with Lott & Mustard who believe that it confirms Kleck.
You write "Kleck would dispute". Are you sure that this is what he would do? In "Point Blank" he estimates the number of criminals wounded by civilians as 10,000-20,000. The numbers on which this estimate is based have not been overturned by any subsequent research to my knowledge.
Supporting the possibility of Kleck's being correct would be a couple of medical studies on hospitals treating gunshot wounds and finding that most are treat-and-release -- despite a certain medical penchant for keeping gunshot victims overnight as a precaution for possible shock -- and finding that most drive-by shootings (which one might suppose are comparable in shooting ability/distance to defensive shootings) involve injuries to extremities (arms and legs), and are thus minor.
I'll admit to a certain degree of ignorance about conditions in the US, but I find it hard to believe that drive-by shootings are similar to defensive shootings. Surely defensive shootings are not usually done from moving vehicles. Nor would I expect a 50% hit rate from a drive-by.
Criminals might well think, if it ain't life threatening, avoid doctors. So might non-criminals who note the high number of medically-caused ailments and fear medical research into medicine might be on a par to medical research into firearms, esp. if they note how the Journal of Trauma encourages invasive treatment of gunshot wounds where that might worsen the situation.
If you compare the death rate from gunshot wounds now with that of a century ago it is quite obvious that medical treatment (most notably the use of antibiotics) makes an enormous difference. If criminals never get their wounds treated then you would expect a much higher death rate from gun shot wounds than the 15% estimate that Kleck uses in "Point Blank". If we conservatively use that number for the death rate, it follows that at least 30,000 criminals are killed by civilians. Where do all the bodies go?
