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.