Pim van Meurs writes:
and since you brought up the 2 M number I assume that you are
referring to Kleck's latest poll ? I assume that you realize that
other measures of crime as measured by this survey seem quite
inflated, 200,000 criminals injured or killed in self defense and
800,000 burglaries prevented for instance. Sounds like inflated
statistics to me.
C. D. Tavares said:
Well, Pim, the fact that you personally find this data hard to accept
is going to make me run right out and reconsider it from the ground up.
I mean, heavens --- it doesn't even come close to agreeing with the
stone tablets of NCS.
So, cdt, 200,000 criminals shot in self defence doesn't seem inflated
to you? Wouldn't most of them show up somewhere for treatment? Even
if they don't, wouldn't some of them die? Where do those tens of
thousands of dead criminals go? As for the supposed 800,000 defences
against burglaries, Kleck himself has given a (generous) upper bound
of 400,000 for this number.
We have no sure way of knowing how many of these defenses would have
otherwise resulted in victim fatalities or grievous bodily harm. We
can estimate it, though, from other crime completion rates in the
absence of a defense weapon,
And you get those rates from where? What! not that old "unreliable"
NCS? You can't have that cake --- you just ate it.
and the number exceeds even the dishonest
15,000 "murders" number quoted by the original poster.
Cheek. You compare defences with deaths, get called on it, and turn
around and compare deaths and injuries with deaths. Why not compare
deaths with deaths? How many homicides were prevented with guns
versus how many were caused with guns.
Since I'm such a nice person I'll even do it for you. And I won't even
use that dreadful "unreliable" NCS. According to Kleck's latest
survey, almost 400,000 homicides were prevented with guns. That's 30
times the number committed with guns. I'm surprised that you guys
haven't been shouting this from the rooftops. Just think, if it
weren't for guns, the homicide rate in the US would be over 150 per
100,000 population. There must be some sort of conspiracy in the
liberal media to suppress this information:-)