dgu
tlambert | June 10, 1997What I want to know is: how many DGUs against alien abduction?
IMPLICATIONS OF THE ROPER ABDUCTION POLL
By Elaine Douglas
47 abductions per hour in the United States
A just-released Roper Poll of adult Americans, commissioned by a Las
Vegas real estate developer, estimates there are 3.7 million abductees
in the United States. This is the number extrapolated from Roper's
random sample of 6,000 respondents, 2 percent of whom answered "yes"
to at least four out of five key questions developed by UFO
investigators. The questions, relating to…
tlambert | April 28, 1997JB:
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…
tlambert | April 2, 1997The actual number is 34%, as I stated above. The survey didn't ask how
many times it had happened. An average of two for those that had been
thwarted is my guess based on assuming that the distribution of the
number of thwartings was Poisson (ie, each criminal was equally likely to
encounter an armed victim).
jmaraldo writes:
I have not had the pleasure of making Mr. Poisson's acquaintance - ie, I
know nothing of statistical methods :=) But why does he suppose that the
likelihood of encounter with an armed victim is equal for all criminals
though criminals choose the type of crime in which…
tlambert | January 5, 1997Steve D. Fischer writes:
First of all, you exaggerate the importance of burglary. From
Question B (pg 185) we find that 37,3% of the crimes occurred IN
the home.
and 35.9% near the home.
In Question C, we find that 33,8% of the respondents thought
that a burglary was in progress. So burglary accounts for at most 1
in 3 defensive events.
It is the most common of the crimes listed.
Non-home incidents represent 2 out of 3 crimes.
You seem to be classifying "near defender's home" as a non-home incident...
What's a major difference between crimes committed in the home
versus crimes committed…
tlambert | December 27, 1996p 168 Kleck says "only about 3% of DGUs among NCVS Rs are reported to
interviewers." On pp 154-6 he argues that this is because Rs are
worried they might get into trouble if the authorities find out about
the DGU. And yet 64.2% said that the police were aware of the
incident. (Table 3) Doesn't make sense...
Steve D. Fischer writes:
D'uh!!!! Since when does "police were aware of the incident"
translate into "I reported the incident to the police?" The Kleck
paper (page 186) says:
"L. Were Police Informed of the Incident OR OTHERWISE FIND OUT?"
You have to be assuming that most of those 64…
tlambert | December 27, 1996J. Neil Schulman writes:
If you start a survey by asking "Have you ever been a crime victim?"
and do not survey people who answer NO because (a) their DGU prevented
them from being damaged so they don't think of themselves as victims,
therefore they are telling the truth but don't get counted AND
The NCVS does not ask any question like "Have you ever been a crime
victim?". You haven't actually read the questions in the NCVS have
you?
This is the current screening used by the NCVS for their violent
crimes survey. It replaces one which was even more crime-oriented
than threat-oriented, in…
tlambert | December 22, 1996J. Neil Schulman writes:
When a dozen surveys which are specifically attempting to quantify
DGU's finds DGU's an order of magnitude larger than the NCVS, then
you have your answer.
None of those surveys other than Kleck's were designed to quantify
DGU's and they all have problems when used for that purpose. See
Kleck's paper.
And even if those surveys were designed like Kleck's, what you have
then is just a larger sample size, still much smaller than the NCVS.
since (a)
the NCVS wasn't properly designed to get an accurate count of DGU's
and
The professional criminologists in the BJS don't…
tlambert | December 20, 1996Kleck 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.
John Briggs writes:
Careful, please, I cite you in another post. Are you saying that Kleck
actually says this or are you interpreting his criticisms of the NCVS
as compelling this conclusion about his "reckonings".
p 168 Kleck says "only about 3% of DGUs among NCVS Rs are…
tlambert | December 16, 1996Ray 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…
tlambert | December 16, 1996J. Neil Schulman writes:
So this data has been peer-reviewed by a top criminologist in this
country who was prejudiced in advance against its results, and even
HE found the scientific evidence overwhelmingly convincing.
This is untrue. Wolfgang writes:
"The usual criticisms of survey research, such as that done by Kleck
and Gertz, also apply to their research. The problems of small
numbers and extrapolating from relatively small samples to the
universe are common criticisms of all survey research, including
theirs. I did not mention this specifically in my printed comments
because I…
tlambert | August 12, 1996Dr. Paul H. Blackman writes:
Yes, I'm sure [Kleck] would dispute Annest, because he would assume injuries
not treated in emergency rooms, and he'd probably stick with an
estimate starting around 150,000 -- unless I've misunderstood
non-peer-reviewed conversations.
So how does he reconcile this with his earlier estimate of
10,000-20,000 such woundings? That estimate was computed from his
estimate of 1400-2800 self-defence killings and the estimate of 15%
wound mortality. Does he know believe that there are 30,000
self-defence killings or that wound mortality for defensive shootings
is only…
tlambert | August 8, 1996Dr. 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…
tlambert | July 7, 1996Alternatively, a respondent making up a DGU, or describing a friend's
DGU as if it happened to someone in the respondent's household will
tend to make him or herself the defensive gun user.
Joel Friedman writes:
While I do not disagree, your estimate of 70% / 15% is just that an
estimate. It is also possible to argue that the numbers could be
50%/ 25% or 60 / 25% ? If this is not correct, please enlighten me
as to why the 70% / 15% is more correct?
Out of each 100 reported DGUs, 85 involved the respondent, and 15 some
other member of the household. The real numbers must be equal. Kleck…
tlambert | July 5, 1996Yes, the measure of shooting DGUs is inaccurate because of the small
number (16) of sample cases. A 95% confidence interval is 100,000
to 300,000 criminals are shot by armed citizens each year.
However, even allowing for the inaccuracy, the number does not seem
possible.
Eugene Volokh writes:
(2) Could it be that this figure is not that far off the mark
considering that a number of career criminal-career criminal
confrontations may accurately be called "defensive gun use"?
Criminals, after all, sometimes have to defend themselves, too, and
they might be quite honest when they say they…
tlambert | April 15, 1996Steve D. Fischer writes:
more threatening than a govt official sitting across a desk from you?
(1) not sitting across a desk
Irrelevant. The key is that they can look you in the eye and
read your body language.
Yet one more time: The NCVS used to be face to face but now most
interviews are conducted by phone (except for interviews of people
without phones, of course).
(2) 97% of the people cooperate with the census NCS survey
Co-operate does not mean tell truth. It simply means they agree
to answer the questions.
The sensible thing to do if you want to conceal something from the
NCVS is…
tlambert | April 15, 1996Steve D. Fischer writes:
I have no problem accepting the idea that respondents lie about
reporting incidents to the police. From my own experience, I know
that people tend to disbelieve a report of a DGU if you say you did
not report it. The tendency to lie on this question is high. Because
one lies about reporting to the police, it does NOT mean they made up
the DGU.
Yes, just because Kleck's DG users gave untruthful answers on the
questions of whether the incident was known to the police, on whether
the perp was wounded, on whether the perp was killed, on whether
someone would have died…
tlambert | April 15, 1996kebarnes writes:
Are Kleck's numbers concerning the self-reporting of robbery
and burglary incidences from this survey out of line with
the comparable NCVS results, for instance? Rs to Kleck's
survey reported that 5.5% (274/4977 Rs) had been a burglary
victim within the past year, and 2.5% (124/4977 Rs) had been
a robbery victim within the past year. This would imply
(if I'm correct) some 242,600 robberies and 533,800 burglaries.
You dropped a decimal: it's 2.4 million robberies and 5.3 million
burglaries. And 500,000 (20%) of robberies where a gun was used for
defence. And 850,000 (16…
tlambert | April 11, 1996Steve D. Fischer writes:
Now, you've got 100 lines to convince me WHY I should risk
getting myself into trouble with the law, when all I wanted to do
was report a crime that happened to me.
The trouble is that Kleck would have you believe that this accounts
for the discrepancy between his survey, that is, 97% of DGUs are by
people who think they would get in trouble for it AND that these
people would tell his interviewer but not one working for the NCVS.
That is 97% of the population simultaneously believe that the
government will lie to them (by promising confidentiality) and that
the…
tlambert | April 3, 1996Steve D. Fischer writes:
There are two kinds of lies to worry about. The first is making
up defensive gun usages (DGUs) which never occurred, or which did not
occur within the 1 year time period. The second is concealing DGUs that
did occur because you feared that your DGU might have been of question-
able legality. We've talked at length about the second circumstance.
Let's look only at the first, then.
Kleck reported 213 DGUs in a sample of 5,000. Assuming 59 million
gun owners, that leads to about 2.5 million DGUs per year.
The NCVS estimated 80,000 DGUs in that same gun-owning…
tlambert | March 27, 1996Pim van Meurs writes:
How can you claim it to be a better estimate when the same
data show inflated statistics (often 10 fold) in several
other areas as well ? How can you claim that at survey which
restricts definition of gun used in self defense ends up
finding far more than ever found before ? Not that much was
changed in the methodology to account for such a jump and
certainly the study should be compared to other surveys like
the NCS.
Kleck deals with the jump by "adjusting" the earlier estimates.
Apparently the Hart poll now implies exactly 1,797,461 defensive. gun uses.
(page 182 of…