Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
JB:
Gun-control proponents of some stature (e.g., Wolfgang and Cook) have reluctantly acknowledged the quality of Kleck's survey methodology
Sorry, but Cook does have some problems with Kleck's methodology:
"The Gun Debate's New Mythical Number: How Many Defensive Gun Uses Per Year?" Journal of Policy Analysis and Management Spring 1997
Philip J. Cook, David Hemenway, and Jens Ludwig
In recent years the self-defense uses of personal firearms has become a central issue in the debate over gun control. A widely noted estimate, based on a national survey, is that guns are used in legitimate self-defense over 2.5 million times per year -- far more often than they are used in crime. Several subsequent surveys have found similar results on the volume of self- defense uses. We analyze these results, demonstrating that some of the respondents who report self-defense uses must be mistaken, and suggesting several reasons why these "false positives" might arise. More generally we argue that any screening method applied to the general population method to measure the prevalence of a rare event (such as self-defense with a gun) will tend to generate more false positives than false negatives. This fact is accommodated in medical screening methods but usually ignored in the methodology of social surveys. Further, it is not at all clear that "more is better" when it comes to defensive gun uses.
