Deltoid

Ray wrote:

They promise confidentiality, and back it up with a law that's at the top of every survey: "NOTICE: Your report to the Census Bureau is confidential by law (US Code 42, Sections 3789g and 3735). All identifiable information will be used only by persons engaged in and for the purposes of the survey, and may not be disclosed or released to others for any purpose."

John Briggs writes:

No doubt these data will be as secure as your FBI files and will be closely held by the BOC and DOJ and the White House security office...

(Well, there are people who don't particularly trust the government even when they get a guarantee in writing. Look what the government has done to the guarantee known as the 2nd Amendment.)

Kleck reckons that 97% of defensive gun users lie to the census bureau about it. Are we to suppose that 97% of the people don't believe legal guarantee of confidentiality? And yet those same people will tell a complete stranger (who may be a government agent posing as a pollster working for Kleck) about it? Come now.

Ray:

Schulman/Kleck would have us believe that it's poor technique to ascertain that a crime was attempted, before asking if the respondent resisted it. Actually, this technique cuts back on boastful respondents who want to exaggerate and lie about their use of guns defensively.

Briggs:

Ignoring your tendentious phraseology, the concern is that one who successfully defended oneself might not see oneself as a "victim" (even though they would qualify as a victim of an attempted crime or at least an assault). The technique may weed out those who lie but it should not weed out those who refuse to see themselves as victims.

You are evidently unfamiliar with the questions used by the NCVS. There are no questions which would weed out those who refuse to see themselves as victims. If you claim that there are, I suggest you post the exact wording.

Ray:

Schulman/Kleck begin by claiming that the NCVS must be wrong, because all other (pro-gun) surveys are right. This is the weakest argument of all. The fact is that the NCVS is the most comprehensive, complete, accurate crime survey ever done.

Briggs:

Even accepting your assertion, so what? As Kleck suggests, the NCVS is not designed to elicit information specifically about DGU's, although the NCVS is used (some would say, abused] for that purpose.

Used for that purpose by Kleck himself when it suits his purposes.

That is what Kleck focuses on. He notes that independent (of each other and of the government) surveys, some by pro-gun, some by pro-control, some by neutral groups, are all wildly at variance with the NCVS. These should at least raise questions about the NCVS, just as the NCVS should raise questions about the various DGU surveys.

Yes, it should, but it doesn't prove the NCVS to be wrong as Kleck claims.

Schulman quotes Kleck:

The health system cannot shed much light on this phenomenon either, since very few of these incidents involve anyone, defender or criminal, being injured.53 In the rare cases where anyone is hurt, it is usually the criminal, who is unlikely to seek medical attention for any but the most life-threatening gunshot wounds, since this would ordinarily result in a police interrogation. ...

Ray:

Lets see. Schulman/Kleck are claiming that criminals don't go to hospitals when they get shot (maybe they go to the North Pole instead?). How ridiculous. Besides, the NCVS does NOT use hospital data, so this claim is irrelevant as well.

Briggs:

Do you deny that criminals have strong incentives to avoid contact with doctors who will report the gunshot wound? It is not ridiculous at all. The question is how many wounds are so serious that the criminals overcome their fear of apprehension and seek medical care. Since gunshot wounds are often only flesh wounds they are often treatable with OTC antiseptics and bandages. Painkillers, OTC or more potent, are readily available without a doctor's prescription. Do all criminals go to the emergency room for all of their crime related injuries? You imply they do. Kleck argues, more reasonably, that all do not.

Let's look at some numbers: Medical data indicate that about 50,000 gun-shot wounds from assaults are treated in hospitals each year. The NCVS indicates that about 80% of people with gun-shot wounds get hospital treatment. That suggest there are about 60,000 gun-shot wounds altogether. With roughly 10,000 homicides that means that the death rate from gun-shot wounds is around 15%. If criminals avoid medical treatment, their death rate will be somewhat higher. Kleck's survey implies that 200,000 criminals are shot each year which should produce at least 30,000 dead criminals. Where are the bodies? ... Schulman:

And Kleck, in my September, 1993 interview with him, himself downplays that part of the database, saying: "Keep in mind that the 8 percent figure is based on so few cases that you have to interpret it with great caution."

Ray:

So Kleck admits that the individual pieces of his finding were wrong, but that the 2.4 million figure is right? Yeah, sure.

Briggs:

No, he doesn't admit any pieces are wrong; he says pieces are less certain, i.e., more likely to be other than he estimates, because they involve a smaller number of cases, thus suffer from greater uncertainty.

Yep. A 95% confidence interval is 100,000 to 300,000 wounded criminals. Even the lower end of the interval is flat out impossible.

Ray:

Kleck's survey also alleges that 23% of the 2.4 million self defenses were against robbery. Do the math, and you get 552,000 Kleckonian self defenses with guns against robbery a year. But according to FBI figures, there are only about 600,000 robberies of all types a year. Kleck would have us believe 90% of all robberies are defended with guns. >Impossible.

Kleck seems to be saying that there were hundreds of thousands more robberies than ANY survey has discovered. In fact, Kleck's excuse is that HE has discovered a huge NEW category of crime. Robberies no one else knew about.

Schulman:

Kleck already handled that question. Rapes are vastly underreported.

Ray:

Only in Kleck's dreams

Briggs:

It is widely accepted that rapes are indeed underreported. This may be due to fashion, political correctness, feminism or it may be true. Kleck is hardly alone in believing this. It is not just pulled out of thin air as are so many of your criticisms.

Of course, the quote above is about robberies. The NCVS was specifically designed to measure robberies and attempted robberies. The criminological community have helped refine the questions and methodology over the 25 years it has been operating. It seems unlikely that Kleck has discovered a whole New World of robberies that no other criminologist suspected existed.