John Lott: why most of what you see in the media about guns is wrong [Archive]

Mr Manifesto

28th August 2003, 09:42 AM

Oops! (http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/2003/06/)

Does the reporting of the Appalachian Law School shootings demonstrate a bias against guns?
The centrepiece of Lott’s The Bias Against Guns is the story he tells about the shootings at the Appalachian Law School. According to Lott, after killing three people Peter Odighizuwa was almost out of ammunition and was on his way to his car to get more when he was confronted by two armed students, Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross. When Bridges aimed his gun at Odighizuwa Odighizuwa dropped his gun and was tackled by students. Lott opines that Bridges and Gross “undoubtedly saved many lives”. Lott says that the biased media mostly suppressed this story, with only four stories out of 208 in the week afterwards mentioning that the students were armed. He also tells us that he spoke to reporter after reporter who knew about Bridges and Gross’ actions but did not report them.

Lott’s claims were picked up by others, with commentators such as Larry Elder, James Eaves-Johnson and Donny Ferguson all seeing it as proof of media bias. In a Houston Law Review article Eric Luna thought it demonstrates

the willingness of certain individuals or groups to skirt the truth or disregard all other considerations when issues of guns and gun control are at stake.
Unfortunately, Lott’s counting methodology is flawed, his count missed half of the stories that mentioned the armed students, his version of what happened deliberately omits important facts and omits contradictory accounts from other eye witnesses and his version contains details that appear to have been invented by Lott.

First, let’s check Lott’s work in counting news stories.

I did my own search on Factiva of all the stories appearing in the week following the shootings. I found eight stories (twice as many as Lott found) that mentioned the students having a gun. Next, in his 208 stories, Lott has counted the same stories over and over again. Many papers printed the Associated Press story by Chris Kahn and Lott has counted it each time it appeared. He has also counted stories about completely different aspects of the matter—there is no reason for a story about one of the funerals to have mentioned a defender’s gun.

To address this problem I did my own count by reporter (so all stories by a particular reporter were only counted once), and only counted stories that mentioned how Odighizuwa had been apprehended.

The result? 28 different reporters wrote about the shootings and 8 mentioned the defender’s gun. There was also a striking pattern—stories on the 17th of January (the first day of coverage) tended not to mention a defender’s gun, whereas later stories did. In fact, four of the reporters who did mention a gun later also wrote stories on the 17th of January which did not mention the gun. Clearly those reporters did not leave out the gun in their first story because of a bias against guns—they simply did not know about it yet.

If you examine stories written on the 18th of January or later, there are ten stories, six of them mentioning a gun. That leaves only four stories that might have been expected to mention a defender’s gun. Let’s look at each of them:

Mike Oduniyi All Africa News
This story seems to have been written for Africa News because Odighizuwa was Nigerian. Oduniyi looks to have written his story from the news stories of 17 Jan and doesn’t seem to have talked to anyone himself. No evidence that Oduniyi knew about a defender’s gun.
Alfonso A. Castillo. Newsday
This story was about the murdered dean. Castillo just mentions in passing the police report of how Odighizuwa was apprehended. No evidence that Castillo knew about a defender’s gun.
Paul Dellinger Roanoke Times & World News
This story was about the memorial service. Dellinger talked to Mikael Gross about one of the murder victims and identified Gross as one of the students who tackled Odighizuwa. No evidence that Dellinger knew about a defender’s gun.
Maria Glod The Washington Post
Talked to Gross about the shootings. Did not mention that he was armed.
So there’s your bias. One reporter who didn’t mention the defender’s gun when she probably should have. Maybe she is biased, but you can’t conclude that from just one example.
Now let’s look at the facts Lott deliberately left out of his account of what happened: Rick Montgomery in an article in the Kansas City Star wrote:

The Star recently interviewed two students involved—Bridges and Besen. They gave differing accounts.
Bridges repeated that he pointed his weapon at Odighizuwa and ordered the suspect to put his own down, which he did.

According to Besen, the first student to tackle the suspect, nothing of the sort happened. He said Odighizuwa set down the gun and raised his arms—”like he was mocking everyone: ha, ha, what are you going to do now?”—before the students confronted him.

The two armed students had not yet arrived at the scene, Besen said: “Peter had no knowledge anyone had a gun.”

Virginia State Police confirmed Odighizuwa’s weapon was empty by then.

Police spokesman Stater said the armed students did assist after Besen and another student, Todd Ross, tackled the gunman. Bridges sat on the suspect while Gross, also armed, provided handcuffs he had gotten from his car.

But to Stater’s view, the biggest heroes were Besen and Ross—the unarmed men who lunged at Odighizuwa.

Alas, they weren’t the focus of attention when a writer and photographer for an NRA magazine came to the campus to interview the armed students.

Bridges said they took his picture; NRA spokesman Gregory said, “It was nobody from our staff.”

It’s all gotten way too political for Besen.

“I’m a gun advocate, but it really irritates me that people are trying to use this as a (political) plug,” he said. “The NRA is minimizing the tragedy that happened here. I don’t appreciate it.”

Lott is well aware of these facts because he selectively quotes from this very article. He knew that Besen contradicted Bridges account but did not mention this fact at all
And not only does he deliberately suppress inconvenient facts, he invents new ones to make his argument more compelling. Even though the Kansas City Star and many other stories report that Odighizuwa’s gun was empty, Lott specifically claims that Odighizuwa was not out of ammunition. That lets him claim that armed citizens “undoubtedly” saved many lives.

Lott also prints a quote from Kent Markus, taken from a Legal Times article:

“The gun lobby, without much sensitivity or attention, has distorted what actually happened for their own political benefits, I think it is a shameful exploitation of a tragedy.”
Lott writes:
“However, when I called up Markus to find out exactly which facts he was referring to, he was unable to provide me with any details.”
I contacted Markus to find out if Lott had accurately reported their conversation. Like everyone else who I have contacted about conversations reported by Lott, Markus informed me that Lott had greatly distorted what was said. Markus actually told Lott exactly what facts he was referring to—that witnesses had told him that Odighizuwa was disarmed before the armed students returned. He also refused to tell Lott the names of the witnesses because he felt that they had suffered enough unwanted attention and he did not want Lott badgering them. Presumably this refusal was translated into Lott-speak as “unable to provide me with any details”.
So again we see that Lott was well aware that Bridges story about using his gun to disarm Odighizuwa was in dispute, but he did not mention this.

This also explains why the stories published on 17th January did not mention the armed students—none of the other witnesses were aware of their guns, either because their guns played no role in the story, or all of these witnesses somehow did not notice them.

This isn’t the first time that Lott has omitted important details of this story to help his argument. In his original op-ed on the shootings Lott left out the fact that the students were police officers.

The tale Lott spins: “Armed citizens save many lives; media suppresses this fact” seems to resonate with pro-gunners and many seem to accept it, turning off their powers of scepticism. Trouble is, his tale isn’t true.

My thanks to Tom Maguire for sending me the link to the Kansas City Star article and prompting this investigation.

Nie Essen Stierscheiße

Corrected spelling mistake (I make spelling mistakes in English, too)

Nie Trink Wasser

28th August 2003, 09:43 AM

the media also doesnt talk about how knives and poison are misused and no one was hurt.

Nie Trink Wasser

28th August 2003, 09:44 AM

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto
Oops! (http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/2003/06/)

Nie Essen Stiersheiße

could you please translate the word 'Stiersheiße' because it seems like you've just pulled it out of thin air in an effort to impress.

Mr Manifesto

28th August 2003, 09:44 AM

Lott has been completely discredited, even by pro-gun advocates. He makes up stats to suit his own purposes. Face it, Trinky, you're backing a losing horse.

CFLarsen

28th August 2003, 09:44 AM

The 2.3 million defensive gun uses is highly questionable, especially when we look at Lott's own data:

A survey of 1,015 people I conducted during November and December 2002 indicates that 2.3 million defensive gun uses occurred nationwide in 2001.
...
Even though fewer than one out of 1,000 defensive gun uses result in the death of the attacker...

Wait....that should result in about 2,000 gun deaths from defensive gun uses only, right?

But since there was about 6,500 people shot in 1999 (close enough) (Source: US Census), that means that almost a third of all gun deaths come from defensive use? Even if it was 1 in 500, that would still mean that 1 in 6 gun deaths came from defensive use.

Is this what Lott claims? That's not what he claims, is it? Well, that's what his own numbers show.

I also have a few other problems with Lott's argumentation, e.g.:

Obviously anecdotal stories published in newspapers can't prove how numerous these events are, but they can at least deal with the question of whether these events even occur.

BEEP! In that case, Alien Abductions occur. People fly to Venus. Crop circles are made by UFOs. Psychics find missing children and dead bodies. Elvis lives.

Not so.

Though my survey indicates that simply brandishing a gun stops crimes 95 percent of the time...

BEEP! Lott can see into the future: He knows that a crime would have happened.

Big problems here.

However, that violence is news is not news. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. He shouldn't look at newspaper reports, but police reports.

EvilYeti

28th August 2003, 09:45 AM

My main problem with this story is that using survey data to make objective conclusions has been completely discredited in the scientific community. For example, the common myth that many obese people eat balanced diets yet continue to gain weight is due to survey data. It turns out if you measure the calorie intake of the obese it turns out that none of them are actually dieting. People simply can't be trusted as objective data sources.

Here's a little anecdote of my own:

A friend of my father was at a local bar when a couple trouble makers showed up. They were harrassing the patrons and became belligerent when asked to leave by the management. The police were called, in the interim my father's friend retrieved a (unloaded) handgun from his car which he displayed to the troublemakers.

The police eventually showed up and thugs claimed to have been minding their own business when my fathers friend pulled a gun on them. Despite the tesitimony of the other patrons and management, the police sent the thugs on their way and arrested my fathers friend. To make a long story short, he was tried, convicted and died in prision of a heart attack about a year into his sentence.

I wonder what Mr. Lott does with anecdotes like that?

Mr Manifesto

28th August 2003, 09:47 AM

Originally posted by Nie Trink Wasser

could you please translate the word 'Stiersheiße' because it seems like you've just pulled it out of thin air in an effort to impress.

What, you can't speak German? Why don't you ask the Mad Linguist.

You should be able to work it out. Think about what comes out of your mouth.

NightG1

28th August 2003, 09:47 AM

Originally posted by Wolverine
Fair enough? :)

Complete article (http://www.johnrlott.com/AEIarticle.html).
Fair enough. He claims there is a media cover-up of instances where a gun or guns were used to stop a crime but his citations of these instances are from newspaper archieves. :confused: Stupid media. They can't even cover up their own cover ups.

Kodiak

28th August 2003, 10:02 AM

Self defense articles involving a firearm are usually written locally and rarely carried nationally.

Why? I don't know.

Fortunately, my NRA has a website that gathers and archives these articles (http://www.nraila.org/ArmedCitizen.asp) .

Tricky

28th August 2003, 11:12 AM

Originally posted by Kodiak
Self defense articles involving a firearm are usually written locally and rarely carried nationally.

Why? I don't know.

Fortunately, my NRA has a website that gathers and archives these articles (http://www.nraila.org/ArmedCitizen.asp) .
Gun episodes are so common and boring that they never get reported nationally unless:
It is a mass shooting.
A minor is involved
A famous person is involved

Does your NRA website also show the number of people injured and killed by guns in domestic squabbles, bar fights, robberies, etc? I can read the local newspaper and find at least a dozen of these each week. There are also a couple of incidents a week where someone used a gun to protect themselves.

Of course, you never see:
Child finds father's loaded gun but doesn't shoot himself or a friend.
Drunken hunter fires at movement he "thought" was a deer, but doesn't injure anyone.
Drive-by shooting leaves bullet holes in wall.
Burglers steal guns from house.
Metal detector catches person trying to get gun into a place where they are illegal.
Person with road rage threatens another driver with gun, but doesn't shoot them (This happened to me. I didn't report it because the car was gone before I could get any info.)

In short, it is certainly true that legitimate uses of guns are underreported, but so are illigitimate uses. I still believe that the latter outnumber the former. All my anecdotal experience and conversation with others bears this out. If my anecdotal experience is unusual, then somewhere out there must be someone who has personal knowledge of several gun defensive gun incidents and zero illegal usages. ;)

Kodiak

28th August 2003, 11:38 AM

Originally posted by Tricky
Does your NRA website also show the number of people injured and killed by guns in domestic squabbles, bar fights, robberies, etc? I can read the local newspaper and find at least a dozen of these each week.

You've answered your own question.

Tricky

28th August 2003, 11:54 AM

Originally posted by Kodiak
You've answered your own question.
And the answer is, your NRA website only reports things that support their point of view. The newspapers report both sides.

Dancing David

28th August 2003, 12:01 PM

NTW try 'bullpoop" so don't eat it, or to qout McDonalds Essen mit spas.

There does need to be a better way to do research than the newspaper archives, I am not sure police reports would be that much more accurate.

I have a friend who believes he broke up a fight in his front yard. This fight probably was about to become a gunfight.

Wolverine

28th August 2003, 12:04 PM

Well, this is a prime reason I so very much enjoy participating on this forum. At first glance, I thought some of the above replies were attempting to take a familiar course all too common in these sorts of discussions -- attempts to discredit researchers and/or statistics, connotations of differing political ideologies, etc.

What I was not prepared for was learning that John Lott seems to have taken notable steps toward discrediting himself, and casting aspersion upon his own works (and perhaps those of others) through his actions.

Armed with top-notch credentials (including stints at Stanford, Rice, UCLA, Wharton, Cornell, the University of Chicago and Yale), Lott took on the entrenched anti-gun bias of the ivory tower with seemingly meticulous scholarship. His best-selling 1998 book, "More Guns, Less Crime," provided analysis of FBI crime data that showed a groundbreaking correlation between concealed-weapons laws and reduced violent crime rates.

...

But as he prepares to release a new book, "Bias Against Guns," next month, Lott must grapple with an emerging controversy -- brought to the public eye by the blogosphere -- that goes to the heart of his academic integrity.

The most disturbing charge, first raised by retired University of California, Santa Barbara professor Otis Dudley Duncan and pursued by Australian computer programmer Tim Lambert, is that Lott fabricated a study claiming that 98 percent of defensive gun uses involved mere brandishing, as opposed to shooting.

When Lott cited the statistic peripherally on page three of his book, he attributed it to "national surveys." In the second edition, he changed the citation to "a national survey that I conducted." He has also incorrectly attributed the figure to newspaper polls and Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck.

Lott claims to have lost all of his data due to a computer crash. He financed the survey himself and kept no financial records. He has forgotten the names of the students who allegedly helped with the survey and who supposedly dialed thousands of survey respondents long-distance from their own dorm rooms using survey software Lott can't identify or produce.

Assuming the survey data was lost in a computer crash, it is still remarkable that Lott could not produce a single, contemporaneous scrap of paper proving the survey's existence, such as the research protocol or survey instrument. After Lindgren's report was published, a Minnesota gun rights activist named David Gross came forward, claiming he was surveyed in 1997. Some have said that Gross's account proves that the survey was done. I think skepticism is warranted.

I heartily agree with Michelle Malkin (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20030205.shtml). And, though I'm not much of a fan of the Washington Post, they raise legitimate points in this article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A8884-2003Jan31&notFound=true) on the subject.

I was completely unaware of the "Mary Rosh" saga until now, as well as other pertinent pieces of info pertaining to Lott.

Having spent some time reading various sources exlporing the issues -- had I known, I never would have created this thread. Assuming a pseudonym to promote or discuss one's own work stands out as an egregious error, in this case of the poorest judgment, and is reminiscent of the sort of tactic I've come to expect from individuals like Nancy Lieder of Zetatalk, perpetuating her little Planet X fantasy.

To say the least, aside from the evidence at hand, logic dictates that I now review Lott's works with great scrutiny. Based upon these bits of new information, I'm now skeptical of Lott's claims. Moreover, I'm angered. Even if Lott had the most noble of intentions, even if there were some validity in any of his findings, his actions reflect quite negatively on credible representatives of the pro-gun community.

Though I'm somewhat embarrassed for having unwittingly served myself a slice of humble pie, confused by Lott's actions, and angered by his shortsightedness, I'm reminded of the positive experience that's yielded from participating on this board, and more importantly, how crucial it is for skeptics to regularly apply critical thought to their own beliefs and convictions.

Kodiak

28th August 2003, 12:14 PM

Originally posted by Tricky

And the answer is, your NRA website only reports things that support their point of view. The newspapers report both sides.

The NRA/ILA is a lobbying group that attempts to further the political and societal goals of its members, namely the narrow constructionist application of the Second Amendment. It is obvious what side of the gun control issue they sit on. In a debate on the subject, you wouldn't see them on the pro gun-ban side.

You yourself admitted that lawful and self defensive uses of firearms are underreported. The NRA/ILA wishes to do its part to remedy that inequity.

Tricky

28th August 2003, 12:27 PM

Originally posted by Kodiak

The NRA/ILA is a lobbying group that attempts to further the political and societal goals of its members, namely the narrow constructionist application of the Second Amendment. It is obvious what side of the gun control issue they sit on. In a debate on the subject, you wouldn't see them on the pro gun-ban side.
Of course, nor would I expect anything else. My point is that the NRA stories, when lumped together, may look impressive, but in no way do they provide an impartial view of reality. The same can be said of rabid anti-gun organizations.

Originally posted by Kodiak
You yourself admitted that lawful and self defensive uses of firearms are underreported. The NRA/ILA wishes to do its part to remedy that inequity.
But they do nothing to remedy the inequity of underreporting gun misuse. They try to convey the impression that only cases of defensive gun use are underreported. Such obvious dissembling shows only their prejudice, not what happens in the real world.

KelvinG

28th August 2003, 12:44 PM

Originally posted by Wolverine
Well, this is a prime reason I so very much enjoy participating on this forum. At first glance, I thought some of the above replies were attempting to take a familiar course all too common in these sorts of discussions -- attempts to discredit researchers and/or statistics, connotations of differing political ideologies, etc.

What I was not prepared for was learning that John Lott seems to have taken notable steps toward discrediting himself, and casting aspersion upon his own works (and perhaps those of others) through his actions.

I heartily agree with Michelle Malkin (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20030205.shtml). And, though I'm not much of a fan of the Washington Post, they raise legitimate points in this article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A8884-2003Jan31&notFound=true) on the subject.

I was completely unaware of the "Mary Rosh" saga until now, as well as other pertinent pieces of info pertaining to Lott.

Having spent some time reading various sources exlporing the issues -- had I known, I never would have created this thread. Assuming a pseudonym to promote or discuss one's own work stands out as an egregious error, in this case of the poorest judgment, and is reminiscent of the sort of tactic I've come to expect from individuals like Nancy Lieder of Zetatalk, perpetuating her little Planet X fantasy.

To say the least, aside from the evidence at hand, logic dictates that I now review Lott's works with great scrutiny. Based upon these bits of new information, I'm now skeptical of Lott's claims. Moreover, I'm angered. Even if Lott had the most noble of intentions, even if there were some validity in any of his findings, his actions reflect quite negatively on credible representatives of the pro-gun community.

Though I'm somewhat embarrassed for having unwittingly served myself a slice of humble pie, confused by Lott's actions, and angered by his shortsightedness, I'm reminded of the positive experience that's yielded from participating on this board, and more importantly, how crucial it is for skeptics to regularly apply critical thought to their own beliefs and convictions.

I don't think you should be embarassed. What would be embarassing is if you started to have doubts about the article you linked to, but steadfastly refused to budge even in the face of opposition. (that seems to happen every once in a while on this board!!)
Instead, you proved to have an open mind and did indeed apply critical thought to the issue.

An issue like this is never so black and white that one article or film (Bowling for Columbine perhaps) can be the end all be all.
You'll find certain political extremists embrace the most radical left or right wing position because they desperately want to be heard.

However, a seriously open minded person cannot read an article by John Lott or see a film by Michael Moore and scream "Now I know the truth!!" It's just not that simple.

Kudos again Wolverine for keeping an open mind.

DanishDynamite

28th August 2003, 01:48 PM

Originally posted by Wolverine
Let's not derail this thread into arguments for or against gun control, or other tangental issues.
Please feel free to participate -- I only ask that you read the article in full prior to posting, and stay on topic.

Fair enough? :)
Fair enough. However, using my supernatural powers I predict that this thread will indeed devolve to pro and con gun control arguments. :)

Mr Manifesto, thank you for your input. Skeptic sites are great. :)

In any case, the bottom line is that death, violence and carnage sells newspapers, while the prevention of a crime (let alone the method) doesn't. No need for evil agendas.

EvilYeti

28th August 2003, 02:59 PM

Originally posted by Wolverine

Though I'm somewhat embarrassed for having unwittingly served myself a slice of humble pie, confused by Lott's actions, and angered by his shortsightedness, I'm reminded of the positive experience that's yielded from participating on this board, and more importantly, how crucial it is for skeptics to regularly apply critical thought to their own beliefs and convictions.

Clap, clap, clap !!!

Way to go Wolvie! I'm adding you to my short list of top critical thinkers on this board.

The sad truth about gun violence in America is the facts portray the pro-gun lobby in a particularly bad light. For example, justifiable homicides with handguns account for about 1% of all handgun related deaths. Hence the interest in folks like Lott whom are willing to manufacture evidence to explain the discrepancy. There is nothing confusing about it.

NoZed Avenger

28th August 2003, 03:03 PM

WildCat

28th August 2003, 03:31 PM

Originally posted by CFLarsen
The 2.3 million defensive gun uses is highly questionable, especially when we look at Lott's own data:

Wait....that should result in about 2,000 gun deaths from defensive gun uses only, right?

But since there was about 6,500 people shot in 1999 (close enough) (Source: US Census), that means that almost a third of all gun deaths come from defensive use? Even if it was 1 in 500, that would still mean that 1 in 6 gun deaths came from defensive use.

Is this what Lott claims? That's not what he claims, is it? Well, that's what his own numbers show.
You're making the same mistake many anti-gun people make by assuming you have to kill an assailant/robber/burgler etc. in order to use a gun defensively. The overwhelming majority (probably 99+%) of the time the gun is not even fired, it's amazing how a .357 pointed at the head makes even a hardened criminal quite docile. My own father used his .38 several times to thwart people from breaking into his truck and stealing tools. Didn't have to kill a one.

Just watch the TV show cops often enough, you'll see defensive gun use by citizens quite often. Never saw one episode where the citizen fired his gun.

I don't know anything about Lott or his statistics.

DanishDynamite

28th August 2003, 03:44 PM

Originally posted by WildCat

You're making the same mistake many anti-gun people make by assuming you have to kill an assailant/robber/burgler etc. in order to use a gun defensively. The overwhelming majority (probably 99+%) of the time the gun is not even fired, it's amazing how a .357 pointed at the head makes even a hardened criminal quite docile. My own father used his .38 several times to thwart people from breaking into his truck and stealing tools. Didn't have to kill a one.

Just watch the TV show cops often enough, you'll see defensive gun use by citizens quite often. Never saw one episode where the citizen fired his gun.

I don't know anything about Lott or his statistics. Uhhh....Claus made his statement based on this excerpt from Lott's statement:
Even though fewer than one out of 1,000 defensive gun uses result in the death of the attacker...

Silicon

28th August 2003, 03:49 PM

Good for you, Wolverine.

In the spirit of Wolverine's openness to examining the arguments, I'd like to see actual statistics on this one.

I've based some of my belief in gun control on some of the old figures on the other side that have been debunked. I'm willing to re-examine my views as well.

Do we have any objective looks at the ratio of gun crime to defensive use of firearms?

Don't tell me nobody's done a study? Or is any study on any side just howled at by the other side so that there's never any way anyone can look at it.

corplinx

28th August 2003, 03:58 PM

I find these numbers highly suspect. In theory if you pull your gun for defensive purposes it means you are shooting to kill. You don't pull a gun for defense and just point it at a would-be attacker to scare them.

Tricky

28th August 2003, 04:15 PM

Originally posted by Silicon
Good for you, Wolverine.

In the spirit of Wolverine's openness to examining the arguments, I'd like to see actual statistics on this one.

I've based some of my belief in gun control on some of the old figures on the other side that have been debunked. I'm willing to re-examine my views as well.

Do we have any objective looks at the ratio of gun crime to defensive use of firearms?

Don't tell me nobody's done a study? Or is any study on any side just howled at by the other side so that there's never any way anyone can look at it.

It is a good question, but very difficult to answer. What constitutes using a gun in self-defense? Although Corplinx appears to be saying you actually have to fire your gun, I doubt that most gun supporters would agree. Is just showing a gun enough? What about just saying you have a gun? What if you are in a bar fight and both people pull guns?

Similar questions can be asked about what constitutes an improper use of a gun. Is it just keeping it loaded and within the reach of children? How about showing it in a place where guns are not allowed? How about hunting while drunk?

In the end, the outcome of such studies are going to be determined by how people define "defense" or "improper", making it likely that the results of the study will conform to the beliefs of the person or group making the study.

Mr Manifesto

28th August 2003, 04:15 PM

Thanks for taking the time to read the link, Wolvie. For my part, I don't actually treat Michael Moore or Al Franken as a source of information. Though I do think Moore raises some intresting issues in Bowling for Columbine. The issues have been raised before, to be sure, and by people who argued the points a lot better than Moore, but her brought the issues to the mainstream.

WildCat

28th August 2003, 04:34 PM

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
Uhhh....Claus made his statement based on this excerpt from Lott's statement:

My bad, that's what I get for posting in haste, my cat was screaming to go out at the time (and stepping all over my keyboard!). After actually reading the article, Lotts figures are probably far off.

CF Larsen didn't post a link to the 6,500 figure, but I suspect that this figure is for murders commited w/ a gun. Self-defense wouldn't count as a murder. I don't think any gov't agency keeps track of these things, so it's impossible to tell.

EvilYeti

28th August 2003, 05:19 PM

Originally posted by WildCat

CF Larsen didn't post a link to the 6,500 figure, but I suspect that this figure is for murders commited w/ a gun. Self-defense wouldn't count as a murder. I don't think any gov't agency keeps track of these things, so it's impossible to tell.

But they do, the FBI keeps detailed records of justifiable homicide, i.e. the use of lethal force in self defense as a last resort. For example, in 1993 there were 13,980 homicides with handguns, of which 251 were listed as justifiable. So thats about 1%.

Regarding nonfatal gun defenses, one needs to look to the National Crime Victimization Survey (from the Bureau of Justice Statistics). The statistics here aren't much better, it turns out guns are 19 more times likely to be used in a nonfatal crime than a nonfatal defense.

You don't hear about any of these studies from the NRA, as the logical conclusion is that more guns==more gun related crime. Hence their interest in fabricated reports from the likes of Lott and Kleck. Their statistics are the ones you hear from the gun lobby, not the official government ones.

The truth is, guns hurt far more people then they help. Why this is surprising to so many people, I don't know. :(

WildCat

28th August 2003, 07:02 PM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
Regarding nonfatal gun defenses, one needs to look to the National Crime Victimization Survey (from the Bureau of Justice Statistics). The statistics here aren't much better, it turns out guns are 19 more times likely to be used in a nonfatal crime than a nonfatal defense.

I can't find this info on their web site, could you provide a link? All I could find was from here, (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/hvfsdaft.txt), and that is over 10 years old. And the statistics seem a little skewed to me, for example:
On average in 1987-92 about 83,000 crime victims per year used a firearm to defend themselves or their property. Three-fourths of the victims who used a firearm for defense did so during a violent crime; a fourth, during a theft, household burglary, or motor vehicle theft.

Since the overwhelming majority of crimes are not violent, it seems likely that the use of firearms to defend against non-violent crimes are understated.

On the only example of the questionaire used for this survey (the 5/01 version) (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/ncvs1.pdf) I could not find one question which asked whether or not a firearm was used in defense of person or property. The question can't be answered if it isn't asked!

And if other places are like Chicago, you're not going to report using handgun to defend ones person or property unless you're willing to be charged w/ felony possesion of a weapon, as you will here.

And from here: (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/viort.htm)
Violent crime rates have declined since 1994, reaching the lowest level ever recorded in 2002.
If more guns = more crime, why the decline since the amount of guns have increased?

Maximwar

28th August 2003, 07:17 PM

Mr Manifesto, Lott has responded to the claims of the website you linked to. Below is what Lott says, and if you follow the link at the bottom he has Excel files people can download if they want to check his work.

7/04/03

I have been e-mailed a few questions about the discussion in my book The Bias Against Guns (pp. 24-27) regarding the press coverage of the Appalachian Law School attack. The attack was stopped by two students who had guns. The general question raised by the e-mailers is that there are nowhere near 208 unique stories and that in order to get that number I must have counted each time an AP story appeared as a separate story.

This is simply incorrect. There were indeed many separate stories. The claims seem to be based upon a very superficial recent re-examination of news stories. I had an RA double check the earlier Nexis search. The earlier search was correct, though in the intervening year plus since the original search was done some new stories have been added to the Nexis database (indeed nine mainly non-unique new stories have been added to the database in the last week). (Nexis is the most comprehensive source for these stories.) There are thus now 218 unique stories after duplicate AP and other stories have been substracted. A total of 294 stories, counting duplicates and reprinted stories, were found. An excel file provides a general overview of the stories (the stories in yellow were duplicates) and the accompanying file provides the specific stories. There is also an additional story that explicitly mentions using a gun defensively raising the total number from 2 to 3. The story that was previously not included in the earlier Nexis search was from the Asheville Citizen-Times. Two more stories have also been added to the file that mentioned that Bridges and Gross had guns, but these additional stories did not mention that they used the guns.

By any measure, whether the comparison is 3 stories actually mentioning that the students used their guns to stop the attacks out of the 218 separate news stories about the attack or 3 out of the 294 total news stories about the incident, virtually none of the stories actually mentioned that the students who used their guns to stop the attacks. Both the measures of unique versus total stories provide interesting information. The unique stories come from over 70 different writers or TV shows. Four additional stories mentioned that the students who stopped the attack had guns but did not mention that the guns were actually used to stop the attack.

One concern has been raised about whether virtually all the stories that left out the fact that students used guns to stop the attack were published right after the attack. In other words, perhaps the press had no knowledge of this fact until later. Specifically, I have been told by one e-mailer that there were only a few stories after the 17th, and that a large portion of those later stories indeed did mention that the students used guns to stop the attack. Thus the claim is apparently that once the press learned that guns had been used in stopping the attack, they supposedly were only too willing to include this in their stories. To answer this, again we use the Nexis search, and it indicates that there were 151 stories from the 18th to the 22nd, 106 of which were unique stories not republished elsewhere. Therefore about half the stories were run on the 16th (the day of the attack) and the 17th, and the other half were run from the 18th to the 22nd. The three stories actually mentioning that guns were used to stop the attack were run on the 18th (two stories) and the 19th (one story). None of the 60 stories that were run from the 20th to the 22nd mentioned this fact. However, many of these later stories (particularly on the 22nd) were different than the earlier ones in that they focused on the people who were released from the hospitals after the attack.

I was also asked about whether there is an inaccurate reference to the New York Times in my book The Bias Against Guns. I point out that the book notes (pp. 279): "The two Nexis hits that mentioned that the students retrieved guns from their cars but did not use them were from the New York Times and NBC's Today. One newspaper op-ed that I wrote on this topic incorrectly implied that the New York Times had completely ignored that the students who stopped the attack had a gun. The number 208 was also transposed so that it was listed incorrectly as 280."

To bring up another related issue that has not been raised by any of the e-mailers, Senate Democrats are delaying passage of legislation that would allow former police with at least 7 years experience or current police with at least five years experience to carry their guns with them when traveling across state lines. The threatened filibuster by Senator Ted Kennedy is preventing this legislation from even getting to the Senate floor for a vote. Kennedy claims that the legislation would "do great damage to the effort of state and local governments to protect their citizens from gun violence." He also argued the law would further "undermine the safety of law enforcement." One would think that cases such as the Appalachian Law School attack would have finally provided some impetus for passing less restrictive legislation.

http://johnrlott.tripod.com/postsbyday/7-4-03.html/

So you didn't really serve yourself a peice of "humble pie", wolverine. :)

shanek

28th August 2003, 07:49 PM

Okay, I've held off on answering this thread until I had a chance to read through all of the links people posted.

The Tim Lambert thing is old news, and as Maximwar pointed out, Lott has responded to him continually. Lambert seems to be employing the "spray-and-pray" attack method: If he posts enough things to his blog often enough, Lott won't be able to respond to them all. But most of them Lott has responded to quite admirably. If you want to see them, just do a Google search for "John Lott" and "Tim Lambert" together and you will be able to follow the whole long history between the two of them.

The Mary Rosh thing is old news. Most people I think suspected it was Lott before he came out and admitted it. Sure, it was in poor taste at best, outright fraud at worst, and it certainly reflects poorly on Lott's character, but it doesn't affect the data. And this is about the data, people.

The only thing that really bothers me is his claim to have run a survey showing that 98% of the time brandishing a gun was all that was necessary to stop a crime. I must have read the first edition of More Guns, Less Crime because I don't recall reading the claim in there, but apparently it is in the second edition. When asked for the data, Lott said he lost it all in a computer crash. If this is true, then 1) he's an idiot for not keeping a backup of such important data and 2) he should stop referring to it since he can't provide the data that would allow people to study his methodology.

Apparently, though, he's now backed off of this claim and he's now reporting that it's 90%, which is closer to what Lambert attacked him with, saying it was "only" 91%, not 98%. Strangely, instead of saying he's been vindicated, Lambert is instead blasting Lott for changing his finding. But isn't changing your findings to better fit the available evidence what any good scientist is supposed to do?

I really hope all this gets clarified in his new book.

a_unique_person

28th August 2003, 08:28 PM

Originally posted by shanek
Okay, I've held off on answering this thread until I had a chance to read through all of the links people posted.
The only thing that really bothers me is his claim to have run a survey showing that 98% of the time brandishing a gun was all that was necessary to stop a crime. I must have read the first edition of More Guns, Less Crime because I don't recall reading the claim in there, but apparently it is in the second edition. When asked for the data, Lott said he lost it all in a computer crash. If this is true, then 1) he's an idiot for not keeping a backup of such important data and 2) he should stop referring to it since he can't provide the data that would allow people to study his methodology.

Apparently, though, he's now backed off of this claim and he's now reporting that it's 90%, which is closer to what Lambert attacked him with, saying it was "only" 91%, not 98%. Strangely, instead of saying he's been vindicated, Lambert is instead blasting Lott for changing his finding. But isn't changing your findings to better fit the available evidence what any good scientist is supposed to do?

I really hope all this gets clarified in his new book.

The quality of Lotts work has to be questionable, though. All along, he knew that he had made false claims, and only admitted them when he was pinned down. Being wrong and admitting it is one thing, admitting to shoddy work only when it is been painfully extracted from you is something else again. The story that he lost the data is one thing, but to say he can't even track down those he worked with him once again raises the question of fraud.

a_unique_person

28th August 2003, 08:30 PM

As for the original point of the story, I do agree that the press must be taken with a grain of salt, they are, after all, primarily in the business of selling something, not providing news, so the adage that the truth musn't get in the way of a good story is very true.

Mr Manifesto

29th August 2003, 12:55 AM

Originally posted by Maximwar
Mr Manifesto, Lott has responded to the claims of the website you linked to. Below is what Lott says, and if you follow the link at the bottom he has Excel files people can download if they want to check his work.

http://johnrlott.tripod.com/postsbyday/7-4-03.html/

So you didn't really serve yourself a peice of "humble pie", wolverine. :)

The issue about the Appalachian law school isn't the only one in which Lott is found wanting. As shown in the link, there are many researchers who have criticised Lott's methodology. You can find the people criticsing them by entering 'john lott critique' in google. Or even 'john lott methodology'. Lott has never adequately responded to these claims, whatever shanek thinks (and telling shanek that Minister Lott has mislead the congregation is like telling an Alabama Baptist that Jesus was a homosexual).

armageddonman

29th August 2003, 01:37 AM

Originally posted by Nie Trink Wasser

could you please translate the word 'Stiersheiße' because it seems like you've just pulled it out of thin air in an effort to impress.

Actually, this is the correct german translation for ********. However, this is not a common german word.
But he got the special character right.
Germans usually use simply "*******"

Kodiak

29th August 2003, 07:57 AM

Originally posted by Tricky

Of course, nor would I expect anything else. My point is that the NRA stories, when lumped together, may look impressive, but in no way do they provide an impartial view of reality. The same can be said of rabid anti-gun organizations.

But they do nothing to remedy the inequity of underreporting gun misuse. They try to convey the impression that only cases of defensive gun use are underreported. Such obvious dissembling shows only their prejudice, not what happens in the real world.

Fair enough on all counts... :)

Wolverine

29th August 2003, 08:53 AM

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto
Thanks for taking the time to read the link, Wolvie.

Thanks for sharing it. I didn't base my conclusion solely on the writings of Tim Lambert; it's quite common that pro-gun advocates undergo a fair amount of character assassination, and as a result I was rather skeptical of the URL you provided. I then discovered corroborative evidence from other sources I considered accurate, and the overall picture painted is not pretty in Lott's case. When you get busted by a member of the CATO Institute and are scrutinized by TownHall columnists, cries of left-wing conspiracy evaporate post-haste. ;)

I will continue to support the second amendment, and this new inromation has not altered my perception of the ineffective nature of gun control in the US. However, I can say without reservation that I won't be citing any of Mr. Lott's "works" from this point forward.

Kodiak

29th August 2003, 09:00 AM

Originally posted by armageddonman

Actually, this is the correct german translation for ********. However, this is not a common german word.
But he got the special character right.
Germans usually use simply "*******"

I was under the impression that the german for B.S. was oxenscheisse (sp?)?

Ist das richtig?

Wolverine

29th August 2003, 09:04 AM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
Hence their interest in fabricated reports from the likes of Lott and Kleck.

In Lott's case I would not argue that his credibility is suspect. However, is there reputable evidence that Gary Kleck has fabricated anything, or is this your opinion? I'm aware that some have taken issue with Kleck's methodologies, but claiming he deliberately manufactured data to support his position is a bit different.

shanek

29th August 2003, 09:07 AM

Originally posted by Wolverine
When you get busted by a member of the CATO Institute and are scrutinized by TownHall columnists, cries of left-wing conspiracy evaporate post-haste.

Conversely, it also puts to rest accusations of collusion among the second amendment supporters. It takes men of integrity to expose someone who's on their side.

However, I can say without reservation that I won't be citing any of Mr. Lott's "works" from this point forward.

Myself, I'm going to reserve judgement until I read his new book. Apparently, he has done a new survey and as long as the information isn't "lost" like the last one was it should yield valuable results if his methodology holds up. And I still think his study of FBI Uniform Crime Reports holds up marvellously well, and is possibly the best evidence anyone on either side has ever presented. I don't care who Lott is or what kind of person he is; I care about the data, and how well that data holds up under scrutiny.

Tmy

29th August 2003, 09:11 AM

MAN BITES DOG!!!!

Really, whos gonna cover a boring story about a theif being caught by an armed citizen. Thats not news. Shooting in a home invasion..........THATS NEWS!!!

On the other hand, in gun stories they never make note if the gun used as legally owned.

Wolverine

29th August 2003, 09:13 AM

Originally posted by Maximwar
Mr Manifesto, Lott has responded to the claims of the website you linked to. Below is what Lott says, and if you follow the link at the bottom he has Excel files people can download if they want to check his work.

So you didn't really serve yourself a peice of "humble pie", wolverine. :)

Hi Maximwar, welcome to the board. :)

I've read Lott's responses to Lambert's criticisms (and others'). I'm not claiming that all of Lott's data is invalid; rather, I think it's fair to say that in light of the evidence that's surfaced about his methodologies and inexplicably poor judgment (detailed earlier), his overall credibility has become so questionable that I certainly would be skeptical of any study or publication that relied on his findings. See where I'm coming from?

shanek

29th August 2003, 09:18 AM

Originally posted by Wolverine
his overall credibility has become so questionable that I certainly would be skeptical of any study or publication that relied on his findings.

Shouldn't you be skeptical about them anyway?

Wolverine

29th August 2003, 09:19 AM

Originally posted by a_unique_person
As for the original point of the story, I do agree that the press must be taken with a grain of salt, they are, after all, primarily in the business of selling something, not providing news, so the adage that the truth musn't get in the way of a good story is very true.

:eek:

Holy crap... I... a... ag... agree with AUP on something (sorry for stuttering, that just felt so... foreign).

Wonders never cease. ;)

Wolverine

29th August 2003, 09:33 AM

Originally posted by shanek
Myself, I'm going to reserve judgement until I read his new book. Apparently, he has done a new survey and as long as the information isn't "lost" like the last one was it should yield valuable results if his methodology holds up. And I still think his study of FBI Uniform Crime Reports holds up marvellously well, and is possibly the best evidence anyone on either side has ever presented. I don't care who Lott is or what kind of person he is; I care about the data, and how well that data holds up under scrutiny.

Fair points. I won't be unreceptive to fresh research in this case, and confess I'll be curious to see whether or not it holds any validity. I'm sure you can appreciate what I've been trying to express in this thread though, which, if you'll pardon for being crude, amounts to don't piss down my back and tell me it's rainin'. ;)

Shouldn't you be skeptical about them anyway?

I suppose I should have worded that a tad better.
Damn you. :p :D

EvilYeti

29th August 2003, 12:59 PM

Originally posted by WildCat

I can't find this info on their web site, could you provide a link? All I could find was from here, (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/hvfsdaft.txt), and that is over 10 years old.

I haven't researched this topic actively since 1995, so I will have to do a bit of digging to find more recent examples. If I have time this weekend I will do some research. The data is still valid, even if 10 years old.

And the statistics seem a little skewed to me, for example:

Since the overwhelming majority of crimes are not violent, it seems likely that the use of firearms to defend against non-violent crimes are understated.

In most states, using firearms to defend against non-violent crimes is illegal. Should a store owner be able to shoot a teenager for shoplifting? If your life is not in immediate danger, the correct (and legal) course of action is to call the police. You may disagree, but thats the law and in my opinion, a different topic.

On the only example of the questionaire used for this survey (the 5/01 version) (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/ncvs1.pdf) I could not find one question which asked whether or not a firearm was used in defense of person or property. The question can't be answered if it isn't asked!

I can't load the url for some reason, so I will have to try and answer that later.

And if other places are like Chicago, you're not going to report using handgun to defend ones person or property unless you're willing to be charged w/ felony possesion of a weapon, as you will here.

And many gun related crimes go unreported nationally, especially by men, because they are too macho to call the cops. Why not focus on facts we KNOW instead of imagining hypothetical situations? This reminds me of pseudoscientists that claim that psychic powers only manifest themselves when they are not being tested.

And from here: (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/viort.htm)

If more guns = more crime, why the decline since the amount of guns have increased?

Total gun ownership is not what you should be looking at, its new gun sales. There is a direct correlation between firearms sales and the homicide rate, see:

Murder Firearm
Year Rate Sales
----------------------
1985 7.9 $1,548
1986 8.6 1,647
1987 8.3 1,667
1988 8.4 1,810
1989 8.7 1,777
1990 9.4 1,602
1991 9.8 1,859
1992 9.3 1,829
1993 9.5 2,095

Handgun sales have been in steep decline since 1993, down 52% by 1999. Its no surprise violent crime is down as well!

shanek

29th August 2003, 01:23 PM

Originally posted by EvilYeti

Total gun ownership is not what you should be looking at, its new gun sales.

Why? Especially considering that many new gun sales are people replacing their old guns. Why is that so much better than total gun ownership?

EvilYeti

29th August 2003, 02:27 PM

Originally posted by Wolverine

In Lott's case I would not argue that his credibility is suspect. However, is there reputable evidence that Gary Kleck has fabricated anything, or is this your opinion? I'm aware that some have taken issue with Kleck's methodologies, but claiming he deliberately manufactured data to support his position is a bit different.

I'm a scientist, so when statistics and analysis are involved, their are certain standards and protocols that MUST be adhered to in order for the data collected to be valid. If you ignore those standards and protocols and present the data as valid, then you are fabricating data. The scientific method is not a matter of opinion.

Kleck asked leading questions to arrive at his famous 2.5 millions DGU figure. His methodology was extremely sensitive to false-postives, meaning if only a handful of the respondents responded dishonestly it would skew the stats wildly upwards in his favor.

Kleck's data also implies that 200,000 criminals are shot each year. Since the fatality rate for gunshots is around %15, there should be around 30,000 dead criminals yearly. Where are the bodies? The FBI stats for justifiable homicide are in the low hundreds each year, are we to believe that homeowners are burying criminals in their back yards?

More information debunking Kleck's claims can be found here (http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/guns/archive/dgu/)

Maximwar

29th August 2003, 02:45 PM

I've read Lott's responses to Lambert's criticisms (and others'). I'm not claiming that all of Lott's data is invalid; rather, I think it's fair to say that in light of the evidence that's surfaced about his methodologies and inexplicably poor judgment (detailed earlier), his overall credibility has become so questionable that I certainly would be skeptical of any study or publication that relied on his findings. See where I'm coming from?
Yeah. And as shanek said, everyone should be skeptical of studies no matter who they are by. But I would argue that Lott's studies and data are still fine. Like, after he lost the data for the 98% survey he ran it again. When coding errors were found in one of his studies, he ran that again after fixing the errors. :)
Of course, the maryrosh incident was certainly "inexplicably poor judgment", but everyone makes mistakes.

Hi Maximwar, welcome to the board.

Thanks, Wolverine. :)

EvilYeti

29th August 2003, 02:47 PM

Originally posted by shanek

Why? Especially considering that many new gun sales are people replacing their old guns. Why is that so much better than total gun ownership?

Because most gun crime is commited with new, recently obtained weapons. Criminals are not like casual gun owners or collectors. They purchase a weapon when they need one to commit a specific crime and its easier to purchase a new one than a used one. Most criminals obtain new weapons through gun runners that make large, legal purchases in states with lax gun laws or at gun shows. Another common scam is for crooked gun shop owners to sell their inventory to a runner then report it stolen and collect insurance.

The NRA claim that most criminals steal their guns is a myth. Why take the risk when you can buy a fenced new one?

EvilYeti

29th August 2003, 03:07 PM

Originally posted by Wolverine

I will continue to support the second amendment, and this new inromation has not altered my perception of the ineffective nature of gun control in the US. However, I can say without reservation that I won't be citing any of Mr. Lott's "works" from this point forward.

Thats fine, as long you understand that guns are used far more often for the commission of crimes rather then the prevention. I agree that current gun control is ineffective, as for all intents and purposes there isn't any.

shanek

29th August 2003, 03:49 PM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
Kleck asked leading questions to arrive at his famous 2.5 millions DGU figure. His methodology was extremely sensitive to false-postives, meaning if only a handful of the respondents responded dishonestly it would skew the stats wildly upwards in his favor.

Kleck has refuted both of these accusations.

Section III here is where he disputes the false positives:

http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/KleckAndGertz2.htm

Here's his rebuttal to several criticisms:

http://www.rkba.org/research/kleck/md-rebuttal.3sep95

And an interview with him where he explains his methodology:

http://www.ssaa.org.au/kleck.html

Kleck's data also implies that 200,000 criminals are shot each year.

Kleck covers this in Part V of the above reference.

More information debunking Kleck's claims can be found here (http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/guns/archive/dgu/)

That's Lambert's page again.

shanek

29th August 2003, 03:53 PM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
Because most gun crime is commited with new, recently obtained weapons. Criminals are not like casual gun owners or collectors. They purchase a weapon when they need one to commit a specific crime and its easier to purchase a new one than a used one. Most criminals obtain new weapons through gun runners that make large, legal purchases in states with lax gun laws or at gun shows. Another common scam is for crooked gun shop owners to sell their inventory to a runner then report it stolen and collect insurance.

The NRA claim that most criminals steal their guns is a myth. Why take the risk when you can buy a fenced new one?

Evidence?

Silicon

29th August 2003, 03:56 PM

Evil Yeti,

PLEASE give me data on that!

I'm on the fence on this one, looking for REPUTABLE data on EITHER side.

Gun crime vs. Lawful defense with firearms.

What are the numbers, and what is the methodology?

John Harrison

29th August 2003, 06:29 PM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
Total gun ownership is not what you should be looking at, its new gun sales. There is a direct correlation between firearms sales and the homicide rate,see:

Murder Firearm
Year Rate Sales
----------------------
1985 7.9 $1,548
1986 8.6 1,647
1987 8.3 1,667
1988 8.4 1,810
1989 8.7 1,777
1990 9.4 1,602
1991 9.8 1,859
1992 9.3 1,829
1993 9.5 2,095

Handgun sales have been in steep decline since 1993, down 52% by 1999. Its no surprise violent crime is down as well!

but you actually said:

You don't hear about any of these studies from the NRA, as the logical conclusion is that more guns==more gun related crime. Hence their interest in fabricated reports from the likes of Lott and Kleck. Their statistics are the ones you hear from the gun lobby, not the official government ones.

In this report from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics at: http://usgovinfo.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/ there were 12,740,000 pre-purchase handgun checks between 1994 and 1998 of which 312,000 were rejected for all causes. This would mean that the number of handguns in circulation in the U.S. increased by 12,428,000 over that five year period. In the United States there are approx. one million firearms of all types confiscated every year of which ~65% are handguns or 3,250,000 in the five year period. That would mean that the approx. overall increase in the number of handguns in the United States would be 9,178,000 for the five year period.

It is estimated that there are ~65 million handguns in the U.S. so the net increase of handguns was 9.07%. In the same period, homicide rates dropped 2.7%. Source: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

1994 9.0
1995 8.2
1996 7.4
1997 6.8
1998 6.3

a_unique_person

29th August 2003, 06:39 PM

In Melboure, Australia, crime is down as well, along with gun ownership.

As I have often said, since there is a clear link between crime and economic conditions, don't be surprised if, when the is a fall in joblessness, for example, general crime goes down as well. This should also roughly correlate with a fall in gun crime. However, in the US, the rate of gun crime is still way above other, comparable, (ie, Western, democratic) countries.

EvilYeti

29th August 2003, 07:55 PM

Originally posted by shanek

Kleck has refuted both of these accusations.

Section III here is where he disputes the false positives:

Here's his rebuttal to several criticisms:

And an interview with him where he explains his methodology:

Kleck covers this in Part V of the above reference.

His methodology is flawed, ergo the data he has collected is suspect. A rebuttal at this point is meaningless, as the only recourse is to redo the experiment with the proper controls.

Wolverine

29th August 2003, 08:11 PM

Originally posted by a_unique_person
As I have often said, since there is a clear link between crime and economic conditions, don't be surprised if, when the is a fall in joblessness, for example, general crime goes down as well. This should also roughly correlate with a fall in gun crime.

Funny to note that in the US, the latest overall violent crime rates have dropped to the lowest levels since the DOJ National Crime Victimization Survey (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cv02.htm) began keeping records, while we've experienced significant increases in unemployment spanning the same period.

*** Edited for clarity.

shanek

29th August 2003, 08:12 PM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
His methodology is flawed, ergo the data he has collected is suspect. A rebuttal at this point is meaningless, as the only recourse is to redo the experiment with the proper controls.

If you'd bother to read Kleck's responses, you'd see that he refutes the assertions of flawed methodology.

Now, how about that evidence I asked for?

EvilYeti

29th August 2003, 08:12 PM

Originally posted by shanek

Evidence?

I learned this from conversations with law enforcement officials, whom were involved in breaking up these type of operations in New York and New Jersey.

A recent example from the media would be the Maryland sniper shootings, the gun was traced to a Washington gun store that had no record of the sale. This store had previously been citied by the ATF when a 1999 compliance audit discovered 150 gun missing. Where do you think they went, into thin air?

shanek

29th August 2003, 08:26 PM

From Kleck:

Vernick claims that it was "difficult to address the methodology" of the survey I did because the results were not published in peer-reviewed literature. This is no excuse for Vernick's shoddy efforts, since he could have obtained a copy of the report directly from me, just as over a hundred different people have already done. The details of this survey are one of the least guarded secrets in the scholarly world, having been presented in detail last year at the annual meetings of the American Society of Criminology. The full written report has been available for over a year.

In any case, Vernick's remark about the publication status of this report is soon to be outdated, as it will be published at the end of September in the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, the oldest journal of criminology in the nation, and one of the most prestigious scholarly publications in the field.

Vernick makes a number of completely conjectural and erroneous criticisms of this research, which I have seen before in material written by employees of Handgun Control. Wittingly or not, Vernick appears to have uncritically accepted the speculations of gun control advocates and activists who have little reason to be objective about this topic. These speculations have all been addressed at length, and disposed of, in my report, which is enclosed, should any of the commissioners be interested in the details.

Vernick refers to "a relatively small sample size" used in my research, noting that "about 5,000 respondents" were interviewed. This was substantially correct (it was 4,977), but this is in fact an unusually large sample for survey research. Most national surveys have samples in the 600-1600 range. The number of persons who reported a DGU is not "the sample size." Rather, the sample size is the number of persons who were asked the DGU question, i.e. 4,977. It is this number which influences the precision of the estimates, not the number who answer "Yes" to the DGU question. In any case, Vernick's guess that only 50 people reported a DGU is incorrect. A total of 194 persons (weighted; 213 unweighted cases) reported a DGU involving either themselves or someone else in their household, 165 reported a DGU in which they had personally participated in the previous five years, and 66 reported a personal DGU in the past one year preceding the survey (see Table 2, p. 54 of the report).

Vernick speculates that some substantial number of survey respondents who reported a defensive gun use (DGU) were actually describing "distant-in-time events" and that this resulted in enormous overstatement of the frequency of DGUs. This problem, known as "telescoping," does occur but in surveys of this type its effects are cancelled out by problem~ in the opposite direction (i.e. problems tending to make estimates of DGU frequency too small) of respondents forgetting DGU events which really did occur in the period that was asked about. In any case, effects of telescoping are far too weak to account for the results we obtained. These issues are discussed on pp. 34-35 of the report.

Vernick speculates that respondents "may have not understood what would qualify as a 'defensive use' of a firearm - perhaps including events where the gun was carried for 'self- defense' but never actually displayed in response to a specific threat" (my emphasis). In addition to the highly conjectural nature of these remarks, they are also wrong. Contrary to Vernick's rather elitist assumption that members of the general public are too stupid to know the simple distinction between merely carrying a gun for protection and actually using it for self-defense, none of the respondents who initially answered "yes" to our DGU question were describing instances of merely carrying guns for protection.

In any case, our estimates of DGU frequency were based solely on cases that qualified as bona fide DGUs. Two of the conditions needed for incidents to qualify as genuine DGUs were that (1) there had to have been an actual confrontation between the defender and an adversary, and (2) the defender had to have actually used the gun in some way, some as pointing it at their adversary in a threatening manner, or using it in a verbal threat (e.g. 'Stop, I've got a gun.") None of the cases that went into our estimation of 2.5 million annual DGUs involved person who merely owned or carried a gun for protection.

Vernick hints that this estimate somehow must be unreliable because "prior work by Kleck using similar methodology" yielded the very different estimate of 1 million. I have not done any "prior work" using "similar methodology." In past publications I have merely noted the number of annual DGUs that are implied by the results of surveys previously done by other people, including the 1 million estimate. The Spring, 1993 National Self-Defense Survey is the only survey I have conducted on this topic.

Indeed this is the only survey ever designed by anyone specifically to estimate the frequency of DGU. Given the technical flaws of prior surveys yielding DGU estimates, there is no reason why my survey should have yielded the same, presumably erroneous, estimates as previous surveys. Indeed, there would be something seriously wrong if, despite my considerable efforts to improve the methodology, I just got the same results as the previous, seriously flawed surveys yielded.

http://www.rdfrost.com/Reference/RKBA/Kleck.html

And from one I referenced earlier:

Much of H's paper is a red herring in that it implicitly misstates the central technical question about our estimates. Much of it is devoted to elaborate speculations about why people might falsely claim to have used a gun defensively, as if it were somehow in dispute that there are some false positives.[12] He inaccurately hints that we unreasonably ignored the possibility that some of our respondents (Rs) provided false positives.[13]

We assume as a matter of course that our survey is like all other surveys in that some RS give inaccurate responses to questions, and that these errors include both false positives and false negatives. The central question is not whether there are false positives, nor even how many false positives there are, but rather what the relative balance is between false positives and false negatives. Because H makes no effort to assess the frequency of false negatives,[14] it is logically impossible for him to draw meaningful conclusions about whether our estimates were too high or low.

It is hard to discern exactly what kinds of false positives H thinks most often show up in all these gun use surveys. He waffles on the issue of whether people are: (1) consciously inventing nonexistent events; (2) consciously but honestly misrepresenting accounts of real events that did not really involve DGU (e.g., they involved aggressive use of a gun); or (3) unconsciously distorting real events. He seems to have doubts himself about possibility (1) occurring very often, hastening to assure readers that false responders do not necessarily have to lie,[15] but is otherwise unwilling to commit himself to the relative frequency of these types of misreports.

It is worth emphasizing how difficult it was for our RS to falsely report a completely nonexistent event as a DGU. Unlike the UFO example that H insists is somehow parallel to reports of DGUs,[16] a respondent who wanted to falsely report a nonexistent DGU could not qualify as having had such an experience merely by saying "Yes." Rather, respondents had to provide as many as nineteen internally consistent responses covering the details of the alleged incident. In [Page 1450] short, to sustain a false DGU claim, RS had to do a good deal of agile mental work, and stay on the phone even longer. On the other hand, all it took to yield a false negative was for a DGU-involved R to speak a single inaccurate syllable: "No." The point is not that false positives were impossible, but rather that it was far harder to provide a false positive than a false negative.

Consider also the context in which H imagines all these false reports to have occurred. Randomly selected people were called unexpectedly, and questioned rapidly by total strangers, for no more than fifteen minutes, with one question immediately following another. There was no prolonged opportunity to invent a nonexistent event, rehearse inaccurate details, or to otherwise get an false story straight. RS providing a false positive had to be not only dishonest but very quick-witted as well.

Regarding possibility (2), we noted that most of the DGUs were linked with the types of crimes¾burglaries, robberies, and sexual assaults¾where there is little opportunity for participants to be honestly confused about who was the victim and who was the offender.[17] While a few RS may well have consciously misrepresented aggressive actions as defensive, and a very few might have consciously invented entirely fictitious events, it is hard to see how RS could report an account of a real burglary, robbery, or sexual assault in which they were aggressors and somehow honestly distort it into a DGU incident.

This kind of misunderstanding of real events in a way that falsely qualifies them as DGUs is more plausible in connection with male-against-male assault incidents, such as when people prefer to characterize their partly aggressive, partly defensive behavior in "mutual combat" incidents as purely defensive in character. We addressed this latter possibility in our article and showed that it could not account for more than a small fraction (probably less than a tenth) of the incidents we counted as DGUs.[18] H does not rebut that evidence.

http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/KleckAndGertz2.htm

Kleck has rebutted every argument of flawed methodology levelled against him that I'm aware of, particularly that of false positives.

shanek

29th August 2003, 08:28 PM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
I learned this from conversations with law enforcement officials, whom were involved in breaking up these type of operations in New York and New Jersey.

A recent example from the media would be the Maryland sniper shootings, the gun was traced to a Washington gun store that had no record of the sale. This store had previously been citied by the ATF when a 1999 compliance audit discovered 150 gun missing. Where do you think they went, into thin air?

I asked if you have evidence. Unverifiable anecdotes do not count as evidence.

EvilYeti

29th August 2003, 08:28 PM

Originally posted by John Harrison

It is estimated that there are ~65 million handguns in the U.S. so the net increase of handguns was 9.07%. In the same period, homicide rates dropped 2.7%. Source: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

1994 9.0
1995 8.2
1996 7.4
1997 6.8
1998 6.3

You missed my point, I also said:

"Handgun sales have been in steep decline since 1993, down 52% by 1999"

So in that 5 year period, the rate at with guns were bought dropped compared to the previous 5 years. Of course the total is going to go up, the old guns dont vanish when new ones are made.

EvilYeti

29th August 2003, 08:52 PM

Originally posted by shanek

I asked if you have evidence. Unverifiable anecdotes do not count as evidence.

The evidence (for me) is from my interactions with local law enforcement in the New York area. This is verifiable, by you, if you wish, by contacting the same. By all means do not take my word for it.

My example from popular media is from the Maryland sniper shootings, which were covered extensively by many different media sources. The name of the store that from which the rifle used in the shooting's originated was "Bull's Eye Shooting Supply". They had no record of the sale, nor did they report it stolen (which they surely would have if that was the case, as that type of rifle is worth about $1000). The gun wasnt stolen, it was purchased illegally from the gun store or a fence, like most criminal weapons.

Since you are not in America, please refrain from harping about "evidence" for things which we have first-hand knowledge about. If you are that interested in the topic, fly over here and go on a fact-finding mission. If you are not going to do that, at least be specific about what you want and I will provide it as best I can. Until then, shut yer pie-hole.

DavidJames

29th August 2003, 09:21 PM

"I asked if you have evidence. Unverifiable anecdotes do not count as evidence"

Kleck's entire survey is nothing but Unverifiable anecdotes. Good day, hypocrite

EvilYeti

29th August 2003, 09:27 PM

Originally posted by shanek

Kleck has rebutted every argument of flawed methodology levelled against him that I'm aware of, particularly that of false positives.

Kleck can rebut all he wants, he's still wrong and his methodology is still flawed. Why don't you find some independant experts to rebutt him?

If you had a background in science, statistics and psychology it would be very apparent how biased his study was. You accept his conclusions because your own pseudo-intellectual Libertarian bias dictates it. I'm agnostic on the issue, I'm only interested in the facts, analyzed from a scientific point of view. Kleck's survey methodology lacks the proper controls, it is internally inconsistent and at odd's with other similar studies, including some of his own! If you want a logical, scientific independant analysis of the flaws in the methodology, read the following:

"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

As far as I know it is not online, so you will have to go to a college or library to find it.

The truth is no one knows, exactly, how many instances of DGU occur anually in America. I suspect the true answer is higher than the NCVS would indicate but much lower than Klecks number (which, incidently, is larger than the number of crimes committed each year a firearm).

EvilYeti

29th August 2003, 09:38 PM

Originally posted by Silicon
Evil Yeti,

PLEASE give me data on that!

I'm on the fence on this one, looking for REPUTABLE data on EITHER side.

Gun crime vs. Lawful defense with firearms.

What are the numbers, and what is the methodology?

Hi Silicion,

Could you be more specific? This is a very broad topic.

One quote I find very telling interesting is the following:

"Of handgun homicides in 1997, only 2.3% were classified as justifiable homicides by civilians. And for each justifiable homicide, there were 139 lives ended by murder, suicide and unintentional shootings."

Russ

30th August 2003, 12:01 AM

EvilYeti, since when is North Carolina not part of the USA? Click on Shanek's web link so you know a little more about him.
I'm a scientist, so when statistics and analysis are involved, their are certain standards and protocols that MUST be adhered to in order for the data collected to be valid.
Later followed by this:
please refrain from harping about "evidence" for things which we have first-hand knowledge about
Just exactly what kind of "scientist" are you?

EvilYeti

30th August 2003, 12:49 AM

Originally posted by Russ
EvilYeti, since when is North Carolina not part of the USA? Click on Shanek's web link so you know a little more about him.

Later followed by this:

Just exactly what kind of "scientist" are you?

I saw Australia under his avatar, plus his galactic ignorance of life in America led me to believe he was non-native. I'm actually frightened that he's a citizen.

I'm the "mad" kind.

shanek

30th August 2003, 08:15 AM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
So in that 5 year period, the rate at with guns were bought dropped compared to the previous 5 years. Of course the total is going to go up, the old guns dont vanish when new ones are made.

Except that, as I pointed out, many people buy new guns to replace old ones.

shanek

30th August 2003, 08:19 AM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
The evidence (for me) is from my interactions with local law enforcement in the New York area. This is verifiable, by you, if you wish, by contacting the same.

That's hardly a comprehensive study.

My example from popular media is from the Maryland sniper shootings, which were covered extensively by many different media sources.

ONE example does not tell you anything. I'm unaware of anyone claiming that criminals never buy their guns legally.

Since you are not in America, please refrain from harping about "evidence" for things which we have first-hand knowledge about. If you are that interested in the topic, fly over here and go on a fact-finding mission. If you are not going to do that, at least be specific about what you want and I will provide it as best I can. Until then, shut yer pie-hole.

Listen, Nimrod, I live in North Carolina and have all my life! So you shut YOUR pie-hole until you can provide EVIDENCE for what you're talking about! :mad:

shanek

30th August 2003, 08:20 AM

Originally posted by DavidJames
Kleck's entire survey is nothing but Unverifiable anecdotes.

A survey is not the same as anecdotes. How desperate can you get?

Mr Manifesto

30th August 2003, 08:25 AM

Originally posted by shanek

Listen, Nimrod, I live in North Carolina and have all my life! So you shut YOUR pie-hole until you can provide EVIDENCE for what you're talking about! :mad:

Geez, he admitted he made a mistake. And you have to admit, the fact the word "Australia" appears on your avatar can lead someone to make an honest mistake. Take a breath.

shanek

30th August 2003, 08:26 AM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
Kleck can rebut all he wants, he's still wrong and his methodology is still flawed.

You can't evade that way. Kleck responded to and rebutted each and every point, showing how his methodology was not flawed after all. Since you insist that it was, why don't you respond to his rebuttals? (Or why doesn't Lambert, for that matter?)

I'm agnostic on the issue, I'm only interested in the facts, analyzed from a scientific point of view.

Well, that's an obvious lie! You have presented NOTHING in the way of facts and done NOTHING to respond to the facts presented to you. You only weasel out of it by repeating your claims and then cast disparaging remarks on me saying that I can't have an opinion since I don't live in America, when in actuality I've lived here all my life!

Kleck's survey methodology lacks the proper controls,

Kleck showed that it didn't.

it is internally inconsistent/quote]

Kleck showed that it wasn't.

[quote]and at odd's with other similar studies,

Kleck showed why, and showed why his study was really the best measure of DGUs.

including some of his own!

Wrong. Kleck had referenced other studies, but had done none of his own. You're just blindingly accepting what Lambert is throwing out with no regard for Kleck's responses.

If you want a logical, scientific independant analysis of the flaws in the methodology, read the following:

"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

If you'd bother to read the links I posted, you'd notice that one of them is Kleck respondibg to this very article.

But you aren't interested in the real facts, are you?

The truth is no one knows, exactly, how many instances of DGU occur anually in America.

But Kleck has shown why his numbers are the most accurate anyone has ever counted.

shanek

30th August 2003, 08:32 AM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
I saw Australia under his avatar,

My avatar's from Australia, if you've seen the movie.

plus his galactic ignorance of life in America

:rolleyes:

EvilYeti

30th August 2003, 10:27 AM

Originally posted by shanek

Except that, as I pointed out, many people buy new guns to replace old ones.

I have no idea what this is supposed to prove. My point is that during years where new gun sales drop gun crime drops.

shanek

30th August 2003, 10:32 AM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
I have no idea what this is supposed to prove.

It proves that your claim, "the old guns dont vanish when new ones are made," is false.

CFLarsen

30th August 2003, 10:44 AM

shanek,

According to Lott & Kleck, how many were killed in 2001 from defensive gun use?

EvilYeti

30th August 2003, 10:53 AM

Originally posted by shanek

That's hardly a comprehensive study.

So what, its true. Why don't you call up your local law enforcement and inquire about the current status-quo of gun running in America. Or ask them about "straw purchases".

ONE example does not tell you anything. I'm unaware of anyone claiming that criminals never buy their guns legally.

The worst mass shooting in our countries history was done with legally purchased handguns:

http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/nation/guns/part2/gunsmassacre.html

The columbine massacare was done with legally purchased then resold (straw purchase) guns.

http://www.vpc.org/studies/wgun990420.htm

I can do this all day.

The NRA position is that most guns used in crimes are "stolen", Charlton Heston says this all the time. They perpetuate this myth in order to rationalize their opposition to gun control.

What do you care anyways? As a Libertarian you should the support the right of criminals to purchase weapons and for dealers to sell them to them.

Listen, Nimrod, I live in North Carolina and have all my life! So you shut YOUR pie-hole until you can provide EVIDENCE for what you're talking about! :mad:

And it shows. I'm sure your idea of continuing education is re-runs of "The Dukes of Hazzard".

There is currently NO hard evidence, at all, that guns are used more often for defense then in the commision of crimes. You are making the extra-ordinary claim, the burden of proof is on YOU.

And again, what do you care? As a Libertarian you should be pro-gun, regardless of how many innocent people are murdered. Why is this even an issue for you?

shanek

30th August 2003, 11:08 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen
shanek,

According to Lott & Kleck, how many were killed in 2001 from defensive gun use?

I'm unaware of Kleck doing any studies covering the year 2001. Lott has done a new study, but I don't know anything about it other than what he wrote in his article quoted at the start of this thread:

A survey of 1,015 people I conducted during November and December 2002 indicates that 2.3 million defensive gun uses occurred nationwide in 2001... fewer than one out of 1,000 defensive gun uses result in the death of the attacker...

That doesn't give us any real details to find out what Lott claims about this. Note he says fewer than 1 in 1000, not 1 in 1,000. So, it would be at most, 2,300. But I don't know how much fewer that is, and I also don't know how much lower the number would be due to repeat offenses—say, a would-be attacker is shot but wounded only to be shot and killed in another attempted assault later in the year; he would account for two of the 2.3 million DGUs but only one of the deaths.

I haven't had a chance to read his new book, though; that information may be in there.

EvilYeti

30th August 2003, 11:13 AM

Originally posted by shanek

You can't evade that way. Kleck responded to and rebutted each and every point, showing how his methodology was not flawed after all. Since you insist that it was, why don't you respond to his rebuttals? (Or why doesn't Lambert, for that matter?)

I'm not playing your game nimrod. Pick a point that you feel is important and I'll respond. I don't have enough time to respond all his BS. Collecting anecdotes is not, and has never been a scientifically valid method of doing research. If you understood science and the scientific method, you would be able to understand that.

Well, that's an obvious lie! You have presented NOTHING in the way of facts and done NOTHING to respond to the facts presented to you. You only weasel out of it by repeating your claims and then cast disparaging remarks on me saying that I can't have an opinion since I don't live in America, when in actuality I've lived here all my life!

Hey dude, all my stats come from FBI and other Government databases. THOSE are facts. A bunch of tall tales from hillbillies claiming to have warded off an invading army with their AR-10 is not.

Kleck showed why, and showed why his study was really the best measure of DGUs.

Kleck is not a valid source of his own validity. Have you ever heard of peer-review? Do you know what that is? Do you understand that in order for research to be accepted in the scientifc community it must past public scrutiny? Are you aware that many, many other researchers have issues with Kleck's methodology?

If you'd bother to read the links I posted, you'd notice that one of them is Kleck respondibg to this very article.

But you aren't interested in the real facts, are you?

No, you are not interested in facts. You are only interested in anecdotes that favor your own pseudo-intellectual fundamentalist Libertarian bias. You have no interest in the truth.

But Kleck has shown why his numbers are the most accurate anyone has ever counted.

Har, har, har, har.... and John Edwards has shown he is the best medium to ever converse with the dead. Just ask him!

EvilYeti

30th August 2003, 11:20 AM

Originally posted by shanek

That doesn't give us any real details to find out what Lott claims about this. Note he says fewer than 1 in 1000, not 1 in 1,000. So, it would be at most, 2,300. But I don't know how much fewer that is, and I also don't know how much lower the number would be due to repeat offenses—say, a would-be attacker is shot but wounded only to be shot and killed in another attempted assault later in the year; he would account for two of the 2.3 million DGUs but only one of the deaths.

Here goes Shanek, hoisting himself with his own petard.

Justifiable homicides by the POLICE only number in the low hundreds each year. Justifiable homicides by citizens are much less.

Why the discrepency shanek? How did Lott determine the "fewer than 1/1000 figure" anyway? Like his others, pulling it out of a hat?

Where are the bodies shanek? Where is the EVIDENCE????

shanek

30th August 2003, 11:28 AM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
So what, its true.

YOU DON'T KNOW THAT! It's anecdotal and unscientific. A nonrandom "poll" with a hideously small sample size limited to only a single area tells you nothing.

Here are a couple of more scientific findings:

Law Enforcement Technology magazine in March 1991 conducted a poll of police nationwide and reported the results in the July/August 1991 issue. They found that 75% do not favor gun control legislation, with street officers opposing it by as much as 85%. 78.7% opposed a ban on "assault weapons."
The National Association of Chiefs of Police has done a survey every single year for the last 15 years of police chiefs and sheriffs all over America. In their latest results (http://www.aphf.org/surveyresults.pdf) (PDF file), they found that 93.2% agreed that "any law-abiding citizen be able to purchase a firearm for sport or self-defense," 70.1% did NOT agree that "law-abiding citizens should be limited to the purchase of no more than one firearm per month," 96.4% agreed that "criminals currently are able to obtain basically any type of firearm by illegal means," and 68.2% agreed that "a national concealed handgun permit would reduce rates of violent crime as recent studies in some states have already reflected."

It sounds to me like most police all over the country don't agree with you. In fact, 96.4% disagreed with your basic claim!

The worst mass shooting in our countries history was done with legally purchased handguns:

Again, ONE example tells you nothing.

(BTW, straw purchases are illegal. So the handguns were obtained illegally.)

And it shows. I'm sure your idea of continuing education is re-runs of "The Dukes of Hazzard".

Your inability to debate without resorting to ad hominem attacks has been noted.

CFLarsen

30th August 2003, 11:28 AM

shanek,

But as I understand it, the 2.3 million number is before 2002, right?

There seems to be a substantial amount of dead bodies lying around somewhere. I'd like to know where they are.

I'm sure the police would, too.

Martin

30th August 2003, 11:35 AM

Originally posted by shanek
Note he says fewer than 1 in 1000, not 1 in 1,000Do you have a source for this figure? Presumably, it didn't come from the survey you quote, since there were only 1015 respondents.

shanek

30th August 2003, 11:37 AM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
'm not playing your game nimrod.

It's not my game. It's how skeptical thought works. You are making statements about Kleck that have been rebutted by Kleck. I presented you with Kleck's rebuttals; it is up to YOU to respond to them.

(And BTW, Nimrod was a person. He was a king who controlled his people with bad information and wouldn't listen to anyone who told him what he was doing was wrong. I called you by his name because you are wanting to control people under the same situation. So, now you ignorantly turn the comparison around on me. But how am I wanting to control anybody? Geez, you could at least have capitalized it...)

I don't have enough time to respond all his BS.

Oh, but you have the time to spew out Lambert's BS about him! Give me a break!

Collecting anecdotes is not, and has never been a scientifically valid method of doing research.

And conducting a scientific poll is NOT the same thing as "collecting anecdotes," no matter how much the poll's results may disagree with your little delusions.

Hey dude, all my stats come from FBI and other Government databases.

Nice try. I've presented statistics from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports all through these threads. Lott's main study was a study of these same reports.

Kleck is not a valid source of his own validity.

Blah blah blah. It isn't about the source; it's about the data. And Kleck has presented the data showing that the accusations against his methodology are unfounded.

Have you ever heard of peer-review?

Yes, and Kleck's study was peer-reviewed.

No, you are not interested in facts.

Then why are YOU the one ignoring them?

Har, har, har, har.... and John Edwards has shown he is the best medium to ever converse with the dead. Just ask him!

Your complete inability, and even unwillingness, to respond to Kleck's rebuttals has been noted.

shanek

30th August 2003, 11:41 AM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
Here goes Shanek, hoisting himself with his own petard.

I'm not hoist by anything; I simply answered a question. You seem to have such a big stake in a position you claim to be "agnostic" about...

Justifiable homicides by the POLICE only number in the low hundreds each year. Justifiable homicides by citizens are much less.

They're not MUCH less...according to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, they're about 2/3rds as much.

Why the discrepency shanek?

What discrepancy?

How did Lott determine the "fewer than 1/1000 figure" anyway?

That was the result of his survey. Why are you insisting I provide details about a survey I said I haven't read? What kind of cheap points are you trying to score here?

shanek

30th August 2003, 11:48 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen
But as I understand it, the 2.3 million number is before 2002, right?

Apparently, according to the article it covers the year 2001. If you read the article then you know as much about it as I do at this point.

There seems to be a substantial amount of dead bodies lying around somewhere.

The 2.3 million is not dead bodies; they're the total number of times a gun is used defensively. But there's so many things we don't know right now:

How much less than 1 in 1,000 are the deaths resulting from DGUs? Presumably this exact figure is in the study, and it's ridiculous to speculate on it without actually seeing the study.

Whatever the number may be, it may still be larger than the number of justifiable homicides in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports since, in order for it to show up under those figures, the person committing the justifiable homicide would have to be arrested first. Many if not most times, these situations are so clear-cut that the officer doesn't arrest the would-be victim. It's only if there's a question about the situation that they're arrested; then they may be released after the investigation, or they may be found not guilty by a jury; both of these cases should show up in the crime reports. How do you figure out how many people who commit justifiable homicide are actually arrested for it? I confess I don't have a good answer for that one. Do you?

In either event, this is what we would need to know in order to properly evaluate Lott's numbers with regards to the number of justifiable homicides every year.

shanek

30th August 2003, 11:50 AM

Originally posted by Martinm
Do you have a source for this figure?

It's from Lott's article. I don't know any more details than what he said.

CFLarsen

30th August 2003, 11:59 AM

shanek,

Whoa...let's back up a little, shall we? There is something terribly wrong here.

The 2.3 million figure was derived from how many respondents? 1.015, right?

Less than one in a thousand were killed, right? That means that not more than one of the 1.015 answered "yes", right? Otherwise, it would be two in a thousand. One must have answered "yes".

Does the "less than 1 in 1000" strike you as a particularly strong piece of information, considering that only 1.015 people answered?

The number of killed from defensive gun use could have been either zero, if 1 person less had answered "yes".

Or twice as high, if just 1 more person had answered "yes".

Right?

EvilYeti

30th August 2003, 12:09 PM

Originally posted by shanek

YOU DON'T KNOW THAT! It's anecdotal and unscientific. A nonrandom "poll" with a hideously small sample size limited to only a single area tells you nothing.

Feh, your assertation that you have lived in America your entire life is based on a hideously small sample size of one. It tells you nothing. For all you know you are living in Australia right now.

Gun running in america exists, if you don't believe me contact your local law enforcement and ask them. Don't take my word for it.

Here are a couple of more scientific findings:

It sounds to me like most police all over the country don't agree with you. In fact, 96.4% disagreed with your basic claim!

Opinion polls aint science buddy, do I have to explain to you why?

Your complete lack of reading comprehension skills is noted. I've always said criminals often obtain their weapons through illegal means; just usually not stolen. The reason its so easy for the criminals to obtain these guns illegally is due to the gun lobby blocking restrictions on gun sales. The NRA argues that its pointless to restrict gun sales as criminals steal their guns. That is not true; they take advantage of lax laws to purchase their handguns in black market deals though proxies. Thanks to the gun lobbies, these proxies can purchase dozens of guns at a time with little chance they will ever be prosecuted.

Again, ONE example tells you nothing.

(BTW, straw purchases are illegal. So the handguns were obtained illegally.)

I didn't give you one, I gave you three, all VERY high profile cases. Why don't you provide three high-profile cases of mass shootings committed with stolen weapons? According to Kleck twice as many crimes are STOPPED with guns as are commited with guns, so for every mass shooting that ends with a suicide or police interdiction TWO should be stopped by civillians! Why don't you list six examples of that, for my three?

I never claimed guns werent obtained illegally, just that they WERE NOT STOLEN!

[/B]
Your inability to debate without resorting to ad hominem attacks has been noted. [/B]

You called me a nimrod first, bird brain.

Martin

30th August 2003, 12:09 PM

Originally posted by CFLarsen
Does the "less than 1 in 1000" strike you as a particularly strong piece of information, considering that only 1.015 people answered?

The number of killed from defensive gun use could have been either zero, if 1 person less had answered "yes".

Or twice as high, if just 1 more person had answered "yes".

Right?Assuming that it came from the same survey, yes. Looking at the article in the OP, it's not at all clear that it does.

shanek

30th August 2003, 12:13 PM

Originally posted by CFLarsen
shanek,

Whoa...let's back up a little, shall we? There is something terribly wrong here.

The 2.3 million figure was derived from how many respondents? 1.015, right?

Less than one in a thousand were killed, right? That means that not more than one of the 1.015 answered "yes", right?

Except that I don't know if the "less than 1 in 1,000" figure is from the same study or not. Lott doesn't make that clear in his article, which is really not much more than a summary of a summary of a summary. Again, hopefully that information is in his book, and, as a skeptic, I am loathe to comment on it without more information.

CFLarsen

30th August 2003, 12:20 PM

shanek,

Where does that number come from, then? That would be nice to find out. A "summary of a summary of a summary" does not exactly make one believe in Lott's claims.

EvilYeti

30th August 2003, 12:33 PM

Originally posted by shanek

It's not my game. It's how skeptical thought works. You are making statements about Kleck that have been rebutted by Kleck. I presented you with Kleck's rebuttals; it is up to YOU to respond to them.

You do not have a science eductation, you have no idea what the scientific method entails and you have displayed total ignorance of the concept of peer-review. Do not lecture me on skepticism. Kleck's survey fails peer-review, so its conclusions can not be considered valid. Kleck cannot peer-review his own work. Kleck is making an extra-ordinary claim, that twice as many crimes are stopped with guns as committed with them (which is at odds with all law enforcement statistics on the subject) based on a collection of anecdotal phone interviews. It is not up to me to prove Kleck WRONG, the burden of proof is on Kleck to provide hard evidence to back up his anecdotal survey data.

This could include:

1. Police reports where it has been noted a crime was averted by an armed civillian.

2. Medical treatment of criminals wounded by DGU.

3. Total justifiable homicides.

That is EVIDENCE, not anecdotal survey data.

Oh, but you have the time to spew out Lambert's BS about him! Give me a break!

Lambert is a computer scientist, like me, so he is smart enough to see through Kleck's and Lott's pseudoscience; which so easily fools Libertarian's like yourself eager to validate your particular lunatic belief system.

And conducting a scientific poll is NOT the same thing as "collecting anecdotes," no matter how much the poll's results may disagree with your little delusions.

Kleck didn't run a scientific poll, he collected anecdotes. Can he provide hard evidence (i.e. police reports, photographic evidence, dead bodies) for even a fraction of his respondents? NO!!! All he did was ask leading questions, which some of the respondents picked up on and told him what he wanted to hear.

Nice try. I've presented statistics from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports all through these threads. Lott's main study was a study of these same reports.

Why do murders outnumber justfiable homicides by 100 to 1 then? Are citizens really that bad shots?

Blah blah blah. It isn't about the source; it's about the data. And Kleck has presented the data showing that the accusations against his methodology are unfounded.

There IS NO DATA! There are anecdotes, like UFO and ghost sightings. Do you believe in those as well? There is plenty of anecdotal evidence for them! Kleck can present nothing because he has collected nothing verifiable.

Yes, and Kleck's study was peer-reviewed.

And it failed, the majority of responses were critical of his methodology.

Your complete inability, and even unwillingness, to respond to Kle
ck's rebuttals has been noted.

You complete, utter and total ignorance of the scientific method has been noted.

shanek

30th August 2003, 12:42 PM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
Feh, your assertation that you have lived in America your entire life is based on a hideously small sample size of one.

It was made only to refute your attack on me as a non-American, when in fact I am a lifelong, natural-born American.

For all you know you are living in Australia right now.

To my knowledge, Australia has not annexed the rural areas surrounding Stanley, NC. Therefore, I feel I am safe in asserting that I am not in Australia right now.

Gun running in america exists, if you don't believe me contact your local law enforcement and ask them. Don't take my word for it.

When did I deny that it did?

Opinion polls aint science buddy,

They're more scientific than your claim, which was based on you personally speaking to a handful of policemen in one area.

Your complete lack of reading comprehension skills is noted. I've always said criminals often obtain their weapons through illegal means; just usually not stolen.

Well, what's the point? If they're obtained illegally then they're already breaking the law and so more laws aren't likely to change that.

I didn't give you one, I gave you three,

So? It's still a pathetic sample size.

all VERY high profile cases.

What does the amount of media coverage have to do with it?

Don't you think it's interesting that they didn't mention the school shooting in Pearl, MI, where SEVEN students planned a massive school shooting that was put down after two students were shot when the Vice Principal stopped the initiator with a gun he had in his car (in violation of gun laws, BTW)? Or the case at Appalachain Law School in VA, where a school shooting was stopped by two students who had guns in their cars?

You can't lay any claims like that based on how much a story is covered. It's the unusual ones, or the more sensational ones, or the more intense ones, that get covered. They're covered precisely because they're unusual, not because they're at all typical.

Why don't you provide three high-profile cases of mass shootings committed with stolen weapons?

Because I'm not making any claims regarding shootings with stolen weapons.

According to Kleck twice as many crimes are STOPPED with guns as are commited with guns, so for every mass shooting that ends with a suicide or police interdiction TWO should be stopped by civillians! Why don't you list six examples of that, for my three?

Okay, well, there's two above...Then there's the case of Tom Beiting, a criminal defense lawyer who enocuntered a stranger in his apartment upon returning home; the stranger pulled out a knife and Beiting pulled out his gun and stopped the intruder. That's from memory. I need three more, right?

Well, looking around I found this story (http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/082903/met_burglary.shtml) about a man who shot an intruder who tried to get in his home through a bedroom window after being told to leave, there's this Albuquerque resident (http://www.kobtv.com/index.cfm?viewer=storyviewer&id=3912&cat=HOme) who shot and killed an intruder, and [urk]http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/2436236/detail.html]this story[/url] about a blind man who successfully defended himself against two attackers with his gun. There's your six...but heck, I just can't help pulling ahead:

http://www.modbee.com/local/story/7339722p-8262096c.html (A 3-for-1 deal)
http://www.nbc4columbus.com/news/2435170/detail.html
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/fortwayne/news/local/6629317.htm
http://www.10tv.com/news/archive/082603local5757.php?story=082603local5757
http://www.dpa.xtn.net/index.php?template=news.view.subscriber&table=news&newsid=103157
http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=29ADBF4B-3952-4766-B6D6-5DC7A7CF1198
http://www.delmarvanow.com/news/stories/20030827/localnews/135637.html
http://www.indystar.com/print/articles/9/068770-6069-127.html
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~1591706,00.html
http://www.avpress.com/n/westy2.hts
http://www.charleston.net/stories/082003/loc_20gates.shtml
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/news/81403_local_homeinvasion.html
http://www.news-observer.com/front/story/2777982p-2574281c.html
http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=1401023&nav=23iiHRxE
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2043526
http://www.beaufortgazette.com/state_news/regional/story/2760908p-2559394c.html
http://libpub.dispatch.com/cgi-bin/documentv1?DBLIST=cd03&DOCNUM=33836&TERMV
http://www.charleston.net/stories/080603/loc_06defense.shtml
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2003/aug/06/080610094.html
http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?nid=5&sid=41371
http://www.charleston.net/stories/080203/loc_02shootingx.shtml
http://archive.redding.com/story.asp?StoryID={2258BDD4-F50D-4849-A0B2-0C1FFAEF80DC}

I think that's probably enough to make the point...

I never claimed guns werent obtained illegally, just that they WERE NOT STOLEN!

Again, what's the point in claiming that?

You called me a nimrod first, bird brain.

I compared you to Nimrod because you were espousing an attitude much like that of that notorious historical figure. Maybe it was out of line of me, but it didn't stop me from rebutting your data. You use insults in lieu of doing so, however.

shanek

30th August 2003, 12:51 PM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
You do not have a science eductation, you have no idea what the scientific method entails and you have displayed total ignorance of the concept of peer-review.

You forgot: "You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny," "My dad can beat up your dad," and "My d**k is bigger than yours."

Kleck's survey fails peer-review,

No, it didn't. The peer review held up on publishing.

Peer review does NOT mean that nobody disagrees with it; just that his methodology is sound. And it is, and the later aspersions on it cast by others have been properly addressed by Kleck. None of your childish whining has changed that.

This could include:

1. Police reports where it has been noted a crime was averted by an armed civillian.

2. Medical treatment of criminals wounded by DGU.

3. Total justifiable homicides.

That is EVIDENCE, not anecdotal survey data.

Except that, if you really were the towering example of scientific brilliace you claim to be, you would realize that this would not include the entire gamut of DGUs, since many would go unreported.

Lambert is a computer scientist, like me, so he is smart enough to see through Kleck's and Lott's pseudoscience;

He's a computer scientist, so that gives him the ability to address criminology? Come on! There are scientists and engineers outside the field of biology who espouse Creationism and ID. That doesn't make it right.

And for the record, I'm a computer scientist.

Kleck didn't run a scientific poll,

Yes, he did, and you make yourself look ignorant and biased to deny it.

All he did was ask leading questions,

This point has already been refuted. Do not repeat it without first responding to those refutations.

Why do murders outnumber justfiable homicides by 100 to 1 then?

I don't know. What does that have to do with anything?

Are citizens really that bad shots?

Maybe normal citizens are less inclined to kill if they can get away with not doing so than criminals. Ever thought of that, Dr. Hawking?

There IS NO DATA!

Yes, there are (data is plural), and again you make yourself look foolish by denying it.

And it failed,

No, it didn't.

the majority of responses were critical of his methodology.

Evidence? Remember, we're talking about responses during the peer-review process prior to publication, not what pundits have written about it afterwards.

You complete, utter and total ignorance of the scientific method has been noted.

Your willingness to without hesitation make unfounded accusations against your opponent has been noted.

shanek

30th August 2003, 12:52 PM

Originally posted by CFLarsen
Where does that number come from, then?

I already said I didn't know. Presumably, the answer is in his new book, but again I haven't read it.

That would be nice to find out. A "summary of a summary of a summary" does not exactly make one believe in Lott's claims.

Nor should it. That's why, as I said, I'm loathe to discuss about it until I read the book. Why do you have such a problem with that? Why do you insist that I give you data I've already told you I don't have?

EvilYeti

30th August 2003, 01:24 PM

Originally posted by shanek

They're more scientific than your claim, which was based on you personally speaking to a handful of policemen in one area.

If you don't think gun running exists in America then your head is in the sand, its as simple as that.

Well, what's the point? If they're obtained illegally then they're already breaking the law and so more laws aren't likely to change that.

If you restricted the number of weapons that can be purchased at one time it would at least slow the rate at which illegal guns reached the street? Why are the NRA and Libertarians so opposed to that legisilation? Maybe because they are pro-criminal?

Don't you think it's interesting that they didn't mention the school shooting in Pearl, MI, where SEVEN students planned a massive school shooting that was put down after two students were shot when the Vice Principal stopped the initiator with a gun he had in his car (in violation of gun laws, BTW)? Or the case at Appalachain Law School in VA, where a school shooting was stopped by two students who had guns in their cars?

You can't lay any claims like that based on how much a story is covered. It's the unusual ones, or the more sensational ones, or the more intense ones, that get covered. They're covered precisely because they're unusual, not because they're at all typical.

Based on Kleck's claims, for every mass shooting that ends in suicide or law enforcement interdiction, two or more should be stopped by citizens. You (plus Kleck & Lott) should easily be able to provide DOZENS of examples, not two. Im aware of both the examples you provide. Unfortunately, for you, they are the only examples I know of. Kleck's survey indicates there should be many, many more. In fact, it should happen several times a year. Why doesn't it?

Okay, well, there's two above...Then there's the case of Tom Beiting, a criminal defense lawyer who enocuntered a stranger in his apartment upon returning home; the stranger pulled out a knife and Beiting pulled out his gun and stopped the intruder. That's from memory. I need three more, right?

I think that's probably enough to make the point...

God you are dense. I said MASS SHOOTINGS. Not breaking and entering. I'm talking about taking a gun to public place and opening fire. Here's fifteenexamples (http://www.cnn.com/interactive/us/9911/multiple.shootings/frameset.exclude.html)

According to Kleck there should be 30 to 45 mass shootings, at least, in that time period that were averted or stopped by an armed civillian. Where's the evidence of that? Kleck wouldnt need his bogus survey if he could just point to hard data like that.

Regular gun homicides are so commonplace they usually don't even get reported. If anything, its the murders that are underreported, not the defense.

I readily admit that tens of thousands of crimes are averted yearly with firearms. The issue is hundreds of thousands more are committed. Guns are used much more often in assault then defense. There is no evidence to contrary.

EvilYeti

30th August 2003, 02:25 PM

Originally posted by shanek

No, it didn't. The peer review held up on publishing.

Peer review does NOT mean that nobody disagrees with it; just that his methodology is sound. And it is, and the later aspersions on it cast by others have been properly addressed by Kleck. None of your childish whining has changed that.

Enough people questioned his methodology and conclusions to make his research suspect. Your persistent nattering that research methodology is open to opinion and interpretation does nothing more than display your ignorance of the scientific method. Kleck's critics aren't even disputing his conclusions, if the methodology is questionable, the data is suspect and the conclusions are invalid, regardless of what they may be.

Except that, if you really were the towering example of scientific brilliace you claim to be, you would realize that this would not include the entire gamut of DGUs, since many would go unreported.

If you were anything but a total scientific ignoramus you would not make an absolute statement like "many DGU's go unreported". How do you know they go unreported if no one reports them? Are you claiming special knowledge? Science is not concerned with the unknowable.

And for the record, I'm a computer scientist.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiight... you have B.S. in computer science? Do you do research? Are you published? Having a microsoft cert. does not a scientist make.

Yes, he did, and you make yourself look ignorant and biased to deny it.

Trying to determine if a phenomenon is real by conducting phone interviews is not science. The absolute MOST Kleck's study could be used for is to try convince someone to fund more detailed research. In and of itself it is meaningless. Considering the amount of negative reviews he's recieved its not surprising he hasn't been able to follow up with more usefull research.

Maybe normal citizens are less inclined to kill if they can get away with not doing so than criminals. Ever thought of that, Dr. Hawking?

Again you are claiming absolute knowledge of something you cannot know. In real, documented cases of DGU's (like the links you provided above) the citizen often shoots the criminal. If there really are 2+ million DGU's annually, there should be tens of thousands of dead and wounded criminals.

Yes, there are (data is plural), and again you make yourself look foolish by denying it.

No there is not. There is a collection of interviews with people, whom (surprise, surprise) not considered accurate data sources when doing scientific research. If you consider the Kleck report valid, then you must also consider the Roper report valid, which discovered that there are 47 alien abductions per hour in the United States. He used the same methodology!

Your willingness to without hesitation make unfounded accusations against your opponent has been noted.

As a rule I don't accept phone surveys as scientific data. I give studies like the NCVS some weight over folks like Kleck as they have a more robust methodolgy, bias control and a much larger sample size, but I still don't consider it hard data. You are still just talking to people, whom are unreliable as data sources.

Your willingingness to uncritically accept without hesitation anything that reinforces your political ideology is noted. You are no skeptic. Can you even admit to yourself that Kleck MIGHT be wrong?

shanek

30th August 2003, 02:31 PM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
If you don't think gun running exists in America

I ask you again: Show me where I claimed this. If you can't, then kindly do not attrribute this strawman to me again.

If you restricted the number of weapons that can be purchased at one time it would at least slow the rate at which illegal guns reached the street?

Why would it? You cannot stop all of the illegal methods, and so stopping one simply means they will resort to the others. That's exactly how it worked with the War on Drugs.

Based on Kleck's claims, for every mass shooting that ends in suicide or law enforcement interdiction, two or more should be stopped by citizens. You (plus Kleck & Lott) should easily be able to provide DOZENS of examples, not two.

I just gave you thirty! And you only asked for six!

God you are dense.

I see you fall back on your favorite resort...But since you've suddenly decided that mass shootings are what's really important, let me ask you this: Why do the lion's share of these mass shootings take place in schools, post offices, and other places where the carrying firearms is restricted?

By the way, here's the link to the full Lott/Landes study on mass shootings. You're free, of course, to rebut the data therein:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=161637

shanek

30th August 2003, 02:46 PM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
Enough people questioned his methodology and conclusions to make his research suspect.

Argumentum ad populum. The point is not how many people questioned it, but how valid those suspicions are. As Kleck showed, they aren't that valid.

Your persistent nattering that research methodology is open to opinion and interpretation

When did I say that?

If you were anything but a total scientific ignoramus you would not make an absolute statement like "many DGU's go unreported".

That's just plain stupid! How could I use the word "many" and it be an absolute statement?

Keep talking...you're making me look good!

How do you know they go unreported if no one reports them? Are you claiming special knowledge? Science is not concerned with the unknowable.

This is quite knowable. DGUs include someone scaring someone off by brandishing a weapon or even yelling out, "I have a gun!" If that person then successfully flees, then what is there to report?

Riiiiiiiiiiiiight...

Deny, deny, deny. I'm Senior Partner in a technologies firm. I've been active in the development of web sites, applications, and internet protocols. I've worked with computer security, including encryption cyphers and actually did some very early work in steganography. I submitted data used in the legal defense of Eric Corley when he was put on trial for distributing DeCSS. I could go on, but I doubt your pigheaded little mind will allow you to believe any of this anyway...

Again you are claiming absolute knowledge of something you cannot know.

No, I am not. I am rebutting YOUR claim of absolute knowledge: That every single DGU would go reported to the police and that in every case police would make an arrest and therefore it would be accounted for in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, and that the ratio of criminals killed to DGUs would necessarily be the same as that of murder victims to attempted murders.

In real, documented cases of DGU's (like the links you provided above) the citizen often shoots the criminal.

No, those are just the ones that the news media tends to cover. If you check your local police blotter, you'll probably see several examples of criminals getting wounded, or even no shots fired, and only rarely will there be an example of one even being shot. The news reports do not comprise representative samples, and if you were one tenth the scientist you claim to be you would have noticed that.

If there really are 2+ million DGU's annually, there should be tens of thousands of dead and wounded criminals.

THIS is the absolute claim I rebutted above, when you accused ME of making absolute claims. YOU are a poor scientist, if indeed you even are one at all.

RSLancastr

30th August 2003, 03:09 PM

This is shocking...

Most of what I see about guns in the media is wrong?

Let's see... I often see that:

- They can make a loud noise when you pull the trigger-thingy.
- They are generally made so that some sort of projectile comes out the far end.
- You should try no to be in front of the far end when that happens.
- Police here in the USA carry them on the job.
- Some bad guys do too.
- And hunters.
- Cowboys used to use them.
- So have soldiers, for some time now.
- You shouldn't mess with one unless you know how to respect and use it.
- You should always assume that one is loaded.
- If you have one in your home, you should keep it where young children cannot get to it.
- Some people think they should be outlawed.
- Others disagree.

So, most of this is wrong?

EvilYeti

30th August 2003, 03:23 PM

Originally posted by shanek

Why would it? You cannot stop all of the illegal methods, and so stopping one simply means they will resort to the others. That's exactly how it worked with the War on Drugs.

I would rather live in a world with cheap, legal drugs and expensive, illegal guns and ammunition. No one is going to shoot up a MacDonalds with a loaded bong. They might go to town on the McNuggets though...

I just gave you thirty! And you only asked for six!

MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS!!!
MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS!!!MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS!!!MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS!!!MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS!!!MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS!!!MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS!!!MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS!!!MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS !!! MASS SHOOTINGS!!!

Whats so hard to understand? You provided two examples, that I'm already aware of. I'm discussing a specific crime, taking a loaded weapon to a public venue with the intent to kill as many people as possible.

I've said MANY TIMES that justifiable homicides are about 150-250 per yer. So there is NO SURPRISE AT ALL from your links, WHICH I NEVER ASKED FOR AND DO NOT DISPUTE. STOP EVADING THE QUESTION.

PROVIDE 30-45 DOCUMENTED CASES OF MASS SHOOTINGS DURING THE PERIOD OF 1999 TO 2001 WHERE THE ASSAILAINT WAS STOPPED BY AN ARMED CIVILIAN.

If Kleck's data is accurate should have no problem doing the above. Until then put up or shut up.

I see you fall back on your favorite resort...But since you've suddenly decided that mass shootings are what's really important, let me ask you this: Why do the lion's share of these mass shootings take place in schools, post offices, and other places where the carrying firearms is restricted?

Sorry, dude, I call' em like I see 'em, and you be WAY dense. I.E. ideas, facts and logic seem to be unable to penetrate the think, viscous Libertarian membrane thats encased your skull. I'm openmined enough to admit Kleck might be right, but being a skeptic I need to see independant coraborating evidence. So far their isnt any. What would it take for you to admit Kleck was wrong? Why do you accept his findings without actual, real documented evidence to back it up? Is it because it reinforces your illogical political agenda?

Mass shootings take place where there are masses of people. Are you admitting that most mass shootings are not aborted by armed civillians? If so, why are you so convinced all other crimes are different, ESPECIALLY with the lack of any evidence to the contrary?

By the way, here's the link to the full Lott/Landes study on mass shootings. You're free, of course, to rebut the data therein:

Lott's a liar and fraud, I trust his research on DGU's as much as I trust Sylvia Brown's opinion on James Randi.

EvilYeti

30th August 2003, 03:53 PM

Originally posted by shanek

Argumentum ad populum. The point is not how many people questioned it, but how valid those suspicions are. As Kleck showed, they aren't that valid.

Oh, I get it now. When Kleck call people up on the phone and asks them questions, they are always right. When people quesion his methodology, they are always wrong. Thanks for clearing that up.

Keep talking...you're making me look good!

You can't polish a turd. If you think you are doing anything other than circling the rhetorical drain you are delusional.

This is quite knowable. DGUs include someone scaring someone off by brandishing a weapon or even yelling out, "I have a gun!" If that person then successfully flees, then what is there to report?

And how, praytell, can one be sure the DGU's reported are accurate? Do you really think people always tell the truth during phone surveys? Hell, 2% of the US population has claimed to be abducted by aliens according to a phone survey! Thats more than have defended themselves with a gun!

Deny, deny, deny. I'm Senior Partner in a technologies firm. I've been active in the development of web sites, applications, and internet protocols ..... blah blah blah

So you are a computer consulant, big whoopie. I work for a research institution, I'm partially paid out of NSF grants and I work on REAL SCIENCE PROJECTS. Stop trying to lecture me on a topic you have admitted to have zero experience with.

No, I am not. I am rebutting YOUR claim of absolute knowledge: That every single DGU would go reported to the police and that in every case police would make an arrest and therefore it would be accounted for in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, and that the ratio of criminals killed to DGUs would necessarily be the same as that of murder victims to attempted murders.

Do you realize your entire argument hinges on the assumtion of a phenomena in the absense of evidence of the phenomena? That is a textbook description of the supernatural. You assume DGU's happen all the time, its just not reported. You further make the claim of special knowledge of the ratio of reported DGU's to unreported ones. How can you, or anyone else possibly know this? Some DGU's go unreported, I would assume, as well as some crimes go unreported. I see no evidence that one occurs vastly more often than the other.

No, those are just the ones that the news media tends to cover. If you check your local police blotter, you'll probably see several examples of criminals getting wounded, or even no shots fired, and only rarely will there be an example of one even being shot. The news reports do not comprise representative samples, and if you were one tenth the scientist you claim to be you would have noticed that.

15% of gun shots are fatal, so if even a fraction of a fraction of Kleck's claimed DGU's resulted in the shooting of a criminal, there should be thousands of fatalities. The NCVS estimates (which, in my opinion are the best we currently have) put the number of annual DGU's above 80,000, which is a perfectly acceptable, believable and non-trivial number. It is not contra-indicated by other, more verifiable data sources. Unlike Kleck's data, which is at odds with all other data and common sense to boot.

YOU are a poor scientist, if indeed you even are one at all.

Your are not and have never been a scientist so you are not in a position to judge mine, or anyone elses, scientific qualifications.

shanek

30th August 2003, 04:54 PM

Originally posted by EvilYeti

[What can only be described as insane ranting excised]

PROVIDE 30-45 DOCUMENTED CASES OF MASS SHOOTINGS DURING THE PERIOD OF 1999 TO 2001 WHERE THE ASSAILAINT WAS STOPPED BY AN ARMED CIVILIAN.

That...would...prove...NOTHING!!!!

Sorry, dude, I call' em like I see 'em, and you be WAY dense. [rant rant rant rant rant]

If you can't answer the question, just say so.

I'm openmined enough to admit Kleck might be right,

Then why do you refuse to even consider his rebuttals of those who claim his methodology is flawed?

What would it take for you to admit Kleck was wrong?

Evidence, duh.

Mass shootings take place where there are masses of people.

So? There are masses of people at gun shows and other places where people are better armed. And according to the gun control advocates, these places should be haven for things like mass shootings as they say that any little tiff is going to be enough to set these people off into a frenzy of gunfire. So why do mass shootings not occur at places like this? Why are they almost always in white, middle-class settings, in places where people are less likely to be armed?

Are you admitting that most mass shootings are not aborted by armed civillians?

I have no statistics on that. But given that in the cases I mentioned the guns were actually there in violation of the law, indeed, the only reason the Pearl, MI Vice Principal had it is that he went to the firing range the night before and forgot to take it out of his car, you have NO cause to insist that they must happen at the same ratio as DGUs to firearm murders; in fact, that information would suggest the opposite, that it is less likely that people would have guns in these situations and therefore less likely to be able to defend against these perputrators with a gun.

Lott's a liar and fraud,

So you say, but what about Landes? And what about the data in the study? Scientists aren't supposed to dismiss data just because of the source. That was the problem Carl Sagan had with other scientists who lambasted Velikovsky—Sagan said they should expose the data as nonsensical and not go after the man himself. You would do well to be more like Sagan if you fancy yourself a scientist.

shanek

30th August 2003, 05:06 PM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
Oh, I get it now. When Kleck call people up on the phone and asks them questions, they are always right. When people quesion his methodology, they are always wrong. Thanks for clearing that up.

Those are blatant lies! I QUOTED Kleck saying how he had to allow for the fact that people made mistakes, how they remembered things incorrectly, how they sometimes gavce testimony that showed something to be an example of a DGU when it was not, or vice-versa. I showed you examples of Kleck REBUTTING the people who were questioning his methodology—and all you can come back with is some pathetic LIE that I'm saying his methodology is always right!!!

You, sir, are below spite, below contempt. You have now shown youself to be nothing but a blatant LIAR!

You can't polish a turd. If you think you are doing anything other than circling the rhetorical drain you are delusional.

There is a turd in the drain here, but I don't think it has to do with my arguments. I think you're looking in a mirror here.

And how, praytell, can one be sure the DGU's reported are accurate?

Your answers are in the links I provided to Kleck's rebuttals, which you so stubbornly ignore.

Do you really think people always tell the truth during phone surveys?

Of course they don't...and if you'd bother to actually read what Kleck has to say, you'd see how he allowed for it!

I work for a research institution, I'm partially paid out of NSF grants

Ah, so you're on the government dole...

and I work on REAL SCIENCE PROJECTS. Stop trying to lecture me on a topic you have admitted to have zero experience with.

:rolleyes: Yes, only government does science, and you are the final arbiter of what "real" science is. I guess steganography and encryption isn't science. Developing protocols isn't science. And so on.

You will have to show me all of your Nobel Prizes someday...

Do you realize your entire argument hinges on the assumtion of a phenomena in the absense of evidence of the phenomena?

My "argument" is merely a rebuttal of yours; I'm showing how your assumptions are flawed. You have yet to respond to ANY of that. Absence of evidence has NOTHING to do with it. YOU made the claim. YOU find the evidence!

You assume DGU's happen all the time,

No, I don't. I just don't claim that 100% of them are always reported as you do...WITHOUT EVIDENCE.

You further make the claim of special knowledge of the ratio of reported DGU's to unreported ones.

I made no such claim! STOP LYING!!!

15% of gun shots are fatal,

So? Guns are not fired in all instances of DGUs, and in many cases where they are it's just a warning shot. As I said, citizens defending themselves may be more reluctant to kill than criminals. Do you deny all of this?

so if even a fraction of a fraction of Kleck's claimed DGU's resulted in the shooting of a criminal, there should be thousands of fatalities.

That would depend on what those fractions are, now, wouldn't it?

Your are not and have never been a scientist so you are not in a position to judge mine, or anyone elses, scientific qualifications.

I can judge your behavior on this board...and it has been NOTHING like what I would expect from even a mediocre scientist.

Silicon

30th August 2003, 06:14 PM

Wow,

I don't think there was any new data in the last 20 or so posts!

Having fun on the merry-go-round, you two?

Yeah, evilYeti, that was the data I was looking for (21 posts back or so).

Gun homicides vs. Justifyable homicides. A big enough gap for me to see that even with a bunch of unreporteds, we're talking about an order of magnitude here, just in successful shootings. That's just in bodies on the pavement.

If someone has better data on this, I'd like it. I wonder how many citizen's arrests are made at gunpoint? That might give me a better idea of how many non-lethal defenses are made with firearms. Anyone track that data?

Maybe just the data on citizen's arrests. If the number is too low to make up the difference, it might sway me further.

Right now, I see no real self-protection need for firearms. That could change.

Oh, and Shanek, making a website is hardly computer science. In fact, I'd probably have more respect for you if you DIDN'T make a website!

Tony

30th August 2003, 06:17 PM

Originally posted by Silicon

Right now, I see no real self-protection need for firearms.

Then dont buy one, just dont force other people to conform to your world view. I dont see a real need for the legalization of gay sex, but I support it anyway.

Silicon

30th August 2003, 06:43 PM

I'm leaving it up to the libertarians to change my world-view on this.

Looking for data here, not dogma.

Data?!!

Tony

30th August 2003, 06:47 PM

What kind of data?

shanek

30th August 2003, 06:54 PM

Originally posted by Silicon
Wow,

I don't think there was any new data in the last 20 or so posts!

With the exception of my posting of the link to the Lott/Landes study, sadly, I'm afraid not.

I wonder how many citizen's arrests are made at gunpoint?

Not a bad question...I'll have to look into it. How many states and municipalities even allow for citizen's arrests anymore?

Oh, and Shanek, making a website is hardly computer science.

It wasn't a website...It was a full relational database protocol with the web as its front-end.

Silicon

30th August 2003, 07:06 PM

Originally posted by Tony
What kind of data?

The data you seem to think I don't need, instead I should just agree with you!

I'm actually looking for data, hopefully better data than the first post in this thread, showing gun crime vs. gun self-defense.

Like, even in any one particular part of crime. Like convienence-store-hold ups.

Or things like citizen's arrests. Numbers tracked by law-enforcement.

Not really looking for anecdotes or news stories, because those run the danger of under-reporting. Maybe lots of things we could count under-report on any given side.

Looking for data like police statistics, mortality rates, etc.

I'm trying to form an informed opinion on where I stand vis-a-vis the possible pro-gun effects on society.

In an old post, I posted, much like Wolverine, a number I found to be faulty data. I was challenged on it by some libertarian types here, and found it didn't meet my own standards.

So I opened my mind to the possibility that in-fact, folks with guns stop more crimes than they commit.

But Tony, you seem to think I should just agree, in absense of data.

I'm giving you a shot here, convince me.

shanek

30th August 2003, 07:15 PM

Doing a Google News search for recent citizen's arrests in the news...Here's one that went slightly awry, nevertheless the man was caught and is a successful DGU:

http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/1062235360308400.xml

Apparently, anyone other than the police, even a security guard, making an arrest is a citizen's arrest:

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/scn-sa-nor.passportbust6aug30,0,4232659.story?coll=stam-news-local-headlines

Although the security officers carry guns, they have no power to make anything more than a citizen's arrest.

Here's one, albeit in England. It doesn't say if they used guns:

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=66056&command=displayContent&sourceNode=65583&contentPK=6777202

I found several links saying that, although you could make a citizen's arrest, you could not detain the person by force. Well, if you can't detain them by force, then it's not an arrest, is it? They also said you have to be a direct witness to the act, which makes sense.

Here's an interesting statement:

http://www.theworldlink.com/articles/2003/08/19/news/news05.txt

This is the prosecutor, saying why he didn't charge someone involved in a knife fight when he chased the fleeing knife-wielder down and punched him:

"When your friend's assaulted with a deadly weapon, you have the right to make a citizen's arrest and to use reasonable force," he said.

So, you can use force to make a citizen's arrest?

Here's one that says you can tell them to stay put, but had a problem with them being handcuffed:

http://yumasun.com/artman/publish/articles/story_6619.shtml

Anyway...it seems a case of DGU where the person brandishes a gun and the perp flees, whereupon the person calls the cops and the cops get the guy, would be a citizen's arrest. But how willing do you think people are to tell the cops they had pulled a gun on the guy? And what of the cases when they think it's not worth the bother?

Silicon

30th August 2003, 07:22 PM

Yeah, I don't know.

I guess if the owner of the firearm was a lawful owner with a permit to carry, they wouldn't have any problem telling the officer that they pulled a gun.

Either way, the perp would tell the officer. You might as well come clean on that one.

"Gee, how'd you get the perp to stick around while you called the police?"

"Uuuuuh... I just asked him really nice...."

Yeah, those articles seem to show that citizen's arrests still happen. I wonder what the numbers are like.

Can anyone think of a number that would be tracked by law enforcement that would eliminate some of the underreporting dangers?

shanek

30th August 2003, 07:39 PM

Originally posted by Silicon
I guess if the owner of the firearm was a lawful owner with a permit to carry, they wouldn't have any problem telling the officer that they pulled a gun.

Unless they just don't want to answer all of the questions they know would be forthcoming.

Either way, the perp would tell the officer.

Why would he? If he had any sense, he wouldn't say a thing unless his lawyer told him to. Besides, that would only be a case of he said-she said.

"Gee, how'd you get the perp to stick around while you called the police?"

Well, that wasn't the scenario I was positing. In a case like that, the would-be victim would probably still be holding the perp at gunpoint when the police arrived.

Can anyone think of a number that would be tracked by law enforcement that would eliminate some of the underreporting dangers?

If you find a good answer off-thread, by all means post it here. I know of no way that could be reliably tracked. Most of the time, if you want to find out how many instances of a certain crime happen but don't get reported, you run a poll, but that's exactly what so many people here are objecting to.

Tony

30th August 2003, 07:47 PM

Originally posted by Silicon

The data you seem to think I don't need, instead I should just agree with you!

I'm actually looking for data, hopefully better data than the first post in this thread, showing gun crime vs. gun self-defense.

Like, even in any one particular part of crime. Like convienence-store-hold ups.

Or things like citizen's arrests. Numbers tracked by law-enforcement.

Why does it matter?

Rights aren't, nor should they be subject to necessity.

But Tony, you seem to think I should just agree, in absense of data.

I'm giving you a shot here, convince me.

I dont think you should necessarily agree, just like I dont think pro-life people should support abortion. But I think they are wrong to try to impose their world-view on the rest of us.

shanek

30th August 2003, 08:14 PM

Check this out!

http://www.constitution.org/grossack/arrest.htm

In the most crime ridden spot in the country, our nation's capitol, District of Columbia Law 23- 582(b) reads as follows:

A private person may arrest another - who he has probable cause to believe is committing in his presence - a felony, or an offense enumerated in section 23-581 (a)(2); or in aid of a law enforcement officer or special policeman, or other person authorized by law to make an arrest. Any person making an arrest pursuant to this section shall deliver the person arrested to a law enforcement officer without unreasonable delay. (July 29, 1970, 84 Stat. 630, Pub. L. 91-358, Title II, § 210(a); 1973 Ed., § 23-582; Apr. 30, 1988, D.C. Law 7-104, § 7(e), 35 DCR 147.)

In Tennessee, it has been held that a private citizen has the right to arrest when a felony has been committed and he has reasonable cause to believe that the person arrested committed it. Reasonable grounds will justify the arrest, whether the facts turn out to be sufficient or not. (See Wilson v. State, 79 Tenn. 310 (1833).

Contrast this to Massachusetts law, which while permitting a private person to arrest for a felony, permits those acquitted of the felony charge to sue the arresting person for false arrest or false imprisonment. (See Commonwealth v. Harris, 11 Mass. App. 165 (1981))

Kentucky law holds that a person witnessing a felony must take affirmative steps to prevent it, if possible. (See Gill v. Commonwealth, 235 KY 351 (1930.)

Indeed, Kentucky citizens are permitted to kill fleeing felons while making a citizen's arrest (Kentucky Criminal Code § 37; S 43, §44.)

Utah law permits citizen's arrest, but explicitly prohibits deadly force. (See Chapter 76-2-403.)

Making citizen's arrest maliciously or without reasonable basis in belief could lead to civil or criminal penalties. It would obviously be a violation of a suspect's civil rights to use excessive force, to torture, to hold in unsafe or cruel conditions or to invent a reason to arrest for the ulterior motive of settling a private score.

Civil lawsuits against department stores, police departments, and even cult deprogrammers for false imprisonment are legend. Anybody who makes a citizens arrest should not use more force than is necessary, should not delay in turning the suspect over to the proper authorities, and should never mete out any punishment ... unless willing to face the consequences.

peptoabysmal

30th August 2003, 09:12 PM

Originally posted by armageddonman

Actually, this is the correct german translation for ********. However, this is not a common german word.
But he got the special character right.
Germans usually use simply "*******"

Du bist ein Klugscheißer!

How about Bulle Kacke? :D

:usa:

Silicon

30th August 2003, 09:20 PM

Originally posted by Tony

Why does it matter?

Rights aren't, nor should they be subject to necessity.

I dont think you should necessarily agree, just like I dont think pro-life people should support abortion. But I think they are wrong to try to impose their world-view on the rest of us.

That argument isn't likely to convince me.

Maybe in one person's vision of a perfect world, there is no gun control, and a private citizen can own anything the Goverment has, (including nukes! Merely as a deterrent to tyranny!), and in another's perfect world, there are no guns except in the hands of law enforcement and the military.

In the real world, private citizens can't own bombers, tanks, anthrax, etc.

And in the real world, private citizens can own better firearms than are generally issued to police officers, including armor-piercing rounds.

So as far as that goes, I'm not really going to be won over by an absolutist argument.

I'm looking for an argument based on the data, not based on any side's perfect world scenario. I know what those are, and If I wanted to pick one based on dogma, I could have chosen either without having a discussion here.

I want to come to an opinion based on data, not dogma. I have no desire to join a political party and have them dictate my views on everything without judging the data.

EvilYeti

31st August 2003, 02:06 AM

Originally posted by Silicon

I'm looking for an argument based on the data, not based on any side's perfect world scenario. I know what those are, and If I wanted to pick one based on dogma, I could have chosen either without having a discussion here.

I want to come to an opinion based on data, not dogma. I have no desire to join a political party and have them dictate my views on everything without judging the data.

Hello Silicon,

I would first like to welcome you to the debate and thank you for your input. I'm glad you are taking the high ground and looking for hard data to base your opinion. I am a kindred spirit.

Please understand, first and foremost, that Libertarians have an authoritarian, fundamentalist belief system from which they base all their opinions. They will reject anything that challenges this. This is also called "dogma". You might notice that in our current debate, the only person that has offered any hard numbers is myself. Shanek has nothing but "soft" numbers, i.e. anecdotal data.

By all means PLEASE, if you have the interest, research this topic yourself. PM me if you would like some links to Justice Department data on this. Google is your friend, do not take our word on it.

Myself, I've done the research and I currently see no evidence that the predominant modality of firearm use amongst civilians is in the enforcement of the common good. This is completely and totally at odds with the Libertarian mindset, so it is no surprise that the poster boy is up in arms.

Guns enpower the individual, good or bad. That is not open to debate. Unfortunately, most of the time a firearm is used for what it is intended, i.e. the termination of a human life, that life belongs to a victim, not an assaliant. When I say most, that is over 98% of time.

Again, I don't have a problem with those that chose to support the second amendment. I myself am a patriot and support it, as it was written. I object to those that try to rewrite the facts to support their own Pollyanna-ish fantastical worldview. Guns kill, most of the time innocent people. I cannot imagine a worse form of disrespect then to deny the dead the reality of their sacrifice.

--EvilYeti

Tim Lambert

31st August 2003, 06:50 AM

I'd like to correct some of shanek's false statements.

Originally posted by shanek

The Tim Lambert thing is old news, and as Maximwar pointed out, Lott has responded to him continually. Lambert seems to be employing the "spray-and-pray" attack method: If he posts enough things to his blog often enough, Lott won't be able to respond to them all.

I like the way you characterize my criticisms as missing the target without actually engaging with the substance of any of them. Lott has responded to some of them, though without acknowledging that he is responding to my criticisms. Instead, he pretends that he is responding to an email. This lets him avoid parts of what I say for which he has no answer. For example, consider the response to my comments on the Appalachian Law School shooting that Maxim Lott posted here. Even though one of my key points was his selective quoting from the Kansas City Star article that had an eyewitness report that insisted that the killer dropped his (empty) gun before the armed off-duty police arrived, Lott continues to pretend that it is a fact that armed students stopped the shooting, when it is not a fact at all.

Apparently, though, he's now backed off of this claim and he's now reporting that it's 90%, which is closer to what Lambert attacked him with, saying it was "only" 91%, not 98%. Strangely, instead of saying he's been vindicated, Lambert is instead blasting Lott for changing his finding. But isn't changing your findings to better fit the available evidence what any good scientist is supposed to do?

The three numbers Lott has given are wrong, but for different reasons. The 98% is based on a fictitous survey. He claims that the 95% is based on his 2002 survey, but if you calculate the number from the 2002 survey you get about 90%. He has given a number of 90% a couple of times, but he has never explained where that comes from or admitted that the other numbers might be wrong. If this is the number from the 2002 survey then it is dishonest to present it as if it means something, since he only had seven defensive gun users in the 2002 survey and that is far far too small a sample to draw any conclusions about the percentage who fire their guns.

The NCVS and Kleck's survey give radically different estimates of the number of DGUs but actually agree that the percentage who don't fire their guns is about 75%. Lott just will not acknowledge this.

shanek

31st August 2003, 06:54 AM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
Please understand, first and foremost, that Libertarians have an authoritarian, fundamentalist belief system

http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/happy/roflmao.gif

Libertarianism is diametrically opposed to Authoritarianism.

And I'll leave it to the lurkers to decide here which of us has acted more like a fundamentalist...

This is also called "dogma". You might notice that in our current debate, the only person that has offered any hard numbers is myself. Shanek has nothing but "soft" numbers, i.e. anecdotal data.

Oh, you mean like when you suggested I call up and talk to a handful of policemen in one area as "evidence"?

Tim Lambert

31st August 2003, 07:04 AM

Originally posted by shanek

So you say, but what about Landes? And what about the data in the study? Scientists aren't supposed to dismiss data just because of the source.

If the source is unreliable then you can't trust the data that comes from that source unless it is independently verified. In the case of the mass public shootings we have Lott and Landes unpublished paper versus a later paper by Duwe et al published in a peeer reviewed journal, that found that carry laws had no effect and which was unable to reproduce Lott's results. More details are here (http://timlambert.org/2003/07#0722).

shanek

31st August 2003, 07:11 AM

Originally posted by Tim Lambert
I'd like to correct some of shanek's false statements.

First, might I say, welcome to the forum!

I like the way you characterize my criticisms as missing the target without actually engaging with the substance of any of them.

That wasn't the criticism. The criticism was, and this may be more by the people who quote you than anything you've done, but you seem to write blog entry after blog entry on the subject, and the impression is given that Lott isn't responding to "all" of your criticism. But I'm sure that he has better things to do than keep track of everything you say. He does seem to have responded to the meat of them, though.

For example, consider the response to my comments on the Appalachian Law School shooting that Maxim Lott posted here. Even though one of my key points was his selective quoting from the Kansas City Star article that had an eyewitness report that insisted that the killer dropped his (empty) gun before the armed off-duty police arrived, Lott continues to pretend that it is a fact that armed students stopped the shooting, when it is not a fact at all.

Apparently, the Kansas City Star website doesn't archive stories older than 180 days, so I can't check this out for myself right now. Can you produce the source that shows this is not the case? And are you denying that Gross and Bridges got their guns, or merely that them getting their guns did nothing to stop the shooting?

I can do a LexisNexis search from the office, so I'll research more about this incident when I go back on Tursday. Lott says that only four of them mentioned the guns, so I should be able to find those four and verify what role, if any, they really did play.

The three numbers Lott has given are wrong, but for different reasons. The 98% is based on a fictitous survey.

I've already acknowledged this above.

He claims that the 95% is based on his 2002 survey, but if you calculate the number from the 2002 survey you get about 90%. He has given a number of 90% a couple of times, but he has never explained where that comes from or admitted that the other numbers might be wrong.

That would be a fair criticism. Have you read his new book to know if he clarifies it in there?

If this is the number from the 2002 survey then it is dishonest to present it as if it means something, since he only had seven defensive gun users in the 2002 survey and that is far far too small a sample to draw any conclusions about the percentage who fire their guns.

Can you provide a link or any other reference to more comprehensive data about this survey?

The NCVS and Kleck's survey give radically different estimates of the number of DGUs but actually agree that the percentage who don't fire their guns is about 75%. Lott just will not acknowledge this.

So, let me ask you this, since I don't think I've read it in any of your web entries: What do you think of Kleck's survey?

And again, welcome to the forum!

shanek

31st August 2003, 07:24 AM

Originally posted by Tim Lambert

If the source is unreliable then you can't trust the data that comes from that source unless it is independently verified. In the case of the mass public shootings we have Lott and Landes unpublished paper versus a later paper by Duwe et al published in a peeer reviewed journal, that found that carry laws had no effect and which was unable to reproduce Lott's results. More details are here (http://timlambert.org/2003/07#0722).

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but it seems to me in reading the passage you quoted from DKM dealt with "mass public shootings." Their finding was that places with RTC laws saw more fatalities in mass public shootings. Lott's response:

As I noted in my LA Times piece, the evidence in chapter 6 in my book, The Bias Against Guns, shows that multiple victim public shootings fall dramatically once right-to-carry laws are passed. Whether one looks at two or more people killed or injured as well as three or more people killed, the drops are huge and quite statistically significant. Only when you examine multiple victim public shootings involving four or more people killed is the number of deaths so small that the drops are no longer statistically significant (for a recent paper that gets the same lack of results I do when this much more narrow definition is used see Duwe, Kovandzic and Moody, “The Impact of Right-to-Carry Concealed Firearm Laws on Mass Public Shootings,” Homicide Studies, November 2002), they obtain a similar result when examining the few cases where four or more people are killed, though it would have been more useful if they had looked at cases where there were more observations).

So what he's saying is that the more people you have killed in a single incident, the less prominent the protections from RTC are. I don't know how DKH defined "mass public shootings," but if they defined it as a shooting resulting in four or more deaths, then Lott would seem to have a point here. I'll grant you that it absolutely does not agree with the LL finding that:

We find that right-to-carry laws reduce the number of deaths, and that these deaths were increasing before passage of the law and falling thereafter.

But that doesn't seem to be what he's talking about anyway. According to Lott's letter that you quoted, he was referring to the decrease in reliability of the data as you considered events with more and more deaths. That does at least seem consistent with DKM.

Mr Manifesto

31st August 2003, 09:18 AM

Originally posted by shanek

Apparently, the Kansas City Star website doesn't archive stories older than 180 days, so I can't check this out for myself right now. Can you produce the source that shows this is not the case? And are you denying that Gross and Bridges got their guns, or merely that them getting their guns did nothing to stop the shooting?

Oops! Can't prove a negative. The person presenting the case has to provide the evidence.

Tim Lambert

31st August 2003, 09:37 AM

Originally posted by shanek
the impression is given that Lott isn't responding to "all" of your criticism. But I'm sure that he has better things to do than keep track of everything you say. He does seem to have responded to the meat of them, though.

No, he hasn't. For example, it took him four months to admit to making hundreds of errors in coding his data for "more guns, less crime". He still hasn't responded to questions about why when he corrected his errors, his standard errors mysterously shrunk.

Apparently, the Kansas City Star website doesn't archive stories older than 180 days, so I can't check this out for myself right now. Can you produce the source that shows this is not the case? And are you denying that Gross and Bridges got their guns, or merely that them getting their guns did nothing to stop the shooting?

The KC Star story is linked from my comments here (http://timlambert.org/guns/Lott/Appalachian#0618).
You can see all the stories that Lott is talking about here (http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/apla/index.index)

Can you provide a link or any other reference to more comprehensive data about this survey?

Yes (http://timlambert.org/guns/Lott/survey)

So, let me ask you this, since I don't think I've read it in any of your web entries: What do you think of Kleck's survey?

See this (http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/guns/archive/dgu/).

DavidJames

31st August 2003, 09:43 AM

"A survey is not the same as anecdotes. How desperate can you get?"

Telephone surveys, by definition are anecdotal. The answers (anecdotes) provided by those surveyed were based on events the respondents claim have occurred. Were the answers (anecdotes) ever verified? If not, then it is you who are desperately grasping for anything to support your faith.

The claim of millions of DGU's per year is completely unsupported by facts and evidence. As I and other have pointed out, the logic you are using is exactly the same as those professing belief in God, crop circles, dowsing and other paranormal beliefs.

When you can come back with verifiable facts and evidence which support this claim, present it here for discussion, otherwise, Kleck's survey should be filed with the alien abduction surveys.

Tim Lambert

31st August 2003, 09:46 AM

Originally posted by shanek

According to Lott's letter that you quoted, he was referring to the decrease in reliability of the data as you considered events with more and more deaths. That does at least seem consistent with DKM.
A smaller sample size means that your estimates are more uncertain. Lott implies that was the reason that Duwe et al did not find a significant effect. But if there had been a dramatic reduction of the size Lott claims, then it would have been significant. The size of the effect that Duwe found on the smaller data set was very different from what Lott found on his larger data set. Shootings with four or more deaths are very extensively reported. Duwe can be pretty sure that he got all of them. Coverage of shootings with no deaths is far more spotty, so Lott may well have missed some. The smaller data set is more reliable. (Without even considering how the survey and coding error problems affect Lott's credibility.)

Silicon

31st August 2003, 10:41 AM

Wow,

Fascinating fascinating stuff folks.

Tim, thanks for coming here and sharing this stuff with us. It really is an eye-opener.

I don't have an education in the methodology of doing these kinds of studies, so I glaze over when you talk about poisson distributions and binomials.

I recognize the terms as being bell-curves (poisson) and something out of algebra, (something about two different terms in parenthesis), but I'm pretty shaky as to their application in collecting data.

I wish I knew more about the process of doing these kinds of studies correctly, as I tend to merely read attacks and counterattacks of studies. They mostly seem to be politically motivated, as if they have a hoped-for result, and they build their methodology (or cherry-pick their evidence) to find the answer they want.

I really get the picture that Lott isn't the guy to go to for reputable data.

What studies would be a good place to look at, as far as using more scholarly methods?

Wolverine

31st August 2003, 11:02 AM

Originally posted by Silicon
And in the real world, private citizens can own better firearms than are generally issued to police officers, including armor-piercing rounds.

May I ask what you mean by "better firearms?" Not trying to nitpick (or am I? ;) ), but I'm curious.

Armor-piercing ammunition is illegal to import, manufacture or sell under federal law (http://www.atf.treas.gov/firearms/legal/armor.htm), and illegal to possess on the state level.

e.g. (Sect. 46.05, Texas Penal Code, emphases mine):

PROHIBITED WEAPONS. (a) A person commits an offense if he intentionally or knowingly possesses, manufactures, transports, repairs, or sells:
~ ~ (1) an explosive weapon;
~ ~ (2) a machine gun;
~ ~ (3) a short-barrel firearm;
~ ~ (4) a firearm silencer;
~ ~ (5) a switchblade knife;
~ ~ (6) knuckles;
~ ~ (7) armor-piercing ammunition;
~ ~ (8) a chemical dispensing device; or
~ ~ (9) a zip gun.
~ (b) It is a defense to prosecution under this section that the actor's conduct was incidental to the performance of official duty by the armed forces or national guard, a governmental law enforcement agency, or a correctional facility.
~ (c) It is a defense to prosecution under this section that the actor's possession was pursuant to registration pursuant to the National Firearms Act, as amended.
~ (d) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under this section that the actor's conduct:
~ ~ (1) was incidental to dealing with a switchblade knife, springblade knife, or short-barrel firearm solely as an antique or curio; or
~ ~ (2) was incidental to dealing with armor-piercing ammunition solely for the purpose of making the ammunition available to an organization, agency, or institution listed in Subsection (b).
~ (e) An offense under this section is a felony of the third degree unless it is committed under Subsection (a)(5) or (a)(6), in which event, it is a Class A misdemeanor.

EvilYeti

31st August 2003, 12:04 PM

Originally posted by Wolverine

May I ask what you mean by "better firearms?" Not trying to nitpick (or am I? ;) ), but I'm curious.

Armor-piercing ammunition is illegal to import, manufacture or sell under federal law (http://www.atf.treas.gov/firearms/legal/armor.htm), and illegal to possess on the state level.

e.g. (Sect. 46.05, Texas Penal Code, emphases mine):

Hi Wolvie,

In some states it's possible to get a license to purchase and own military-type ordinance, including fully-automatic machine guns, silencers and AP rounds. These licenses are tightly regulated by the BATF and require an expensive tax stamp (something like $300 per weapon). Do to the high cost of entry and tight regulation these weapons are very rarely, if ever used in crimes.

There might be some sort of loophole to the AP rounds law, as I've seen Raufoss rounds (which are combo AP, HE & incendiary) for sale online. This is rifle ammo, so maybe the AP law only applies to handguns. Or it could be the law is just not being enforced.

Wolverine

31st August 2003, 12:27 PM

Originally posted by EvilYeti

Hi Wolvie,

In some states it's possible to get a license to purchase and own military-type ordinance, including fully-automatic machine guns, silencers and AP rounds. These licenses are tightly regulated by the BATF and require an expensive tax stamp (something like $300 per weapon). Do to the high cost of entry and tight regulation these weapons are very rarely, if ever used in crimes.

Hi Evil Yeti,

Is your name Silicon? ;)

* Edited for clarity and the addition of a smiley.

Wolverine

31st August 2003, 12:40 PM

Originally posted by EvilYeti
There might be some sort of loophole to the AP rounds law, as I've seen Raufoss rounds (which are combo AP, HE & incendiary) for sale online. This is rifle ammo, so maybe the AP law only applies to handguns. Or it could be the law is just not being enforced.

Well, if it was on the Internet, it must be true.

Troll

31st August 2003, 12:48 PM

Originally posted by Tricky
The media also doesn't cover all the times where guns were misused, but nobody was hurt. It balances out.

I take that your post was sarcastic or do you have some sort of reference. Those that would post gun use that prevented crime could merely refer you to sites that display those news stories. But the last time that was tried here it was blown off becuase the sites are pro gun. Like me being pro kitten would be blown off if I linked to a cat site. :rolleyes:

Maximwar

31st August 2003, 12:51 PM

By the way, Wolvie, Lott has a point by point response to Michelle Malkin's article (http://johnrlott.tripod.com/malkinsoped.html).

Might as well hear his defense on that.

Silicon

31st August 2003, 01:13 PM

As far as civilians being able to purchase better firearms than are typically issued to police officers, here's my evidence.

My evidence was anecdotal, but it was a pretty strong anecdote, from an incident that happened at MY BRANCH of Bank of America in North Hollywood.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9702/28/shootout.update/

Police borrow guns, ammo from a gun shop
Officers who initially responded to Friday's robbery, carrying standard-issue 9 millimeter Baretta handguns, were in trouble.

"Tactically, the first officers that arrived were at a severe disadvantage," weapons expert and former LAPD officer Dave Butler said. "Police carry 15 rounds. They would need to re-load."

Stunned officers were out-gunned to such a degree that at one point they burst into a gun store, and walked out with more powerful guns and ammunition.

Police "came in a panic because their weapons weren't good enough to fight these people," said the store's president, who would identify himself only as Bob.

"These people had body armor and they needed something that would break body armor," he said. "We supplied them with slugs that would at least break bones on someone wearing body armor."

So bullets that break body armor are sold in gun stores (or were at the time). And the officers responding to the emergency did not have those, and needed them.

WildCat

31st August 2003, 01:35 PM

Originally posted by Silicon

So bullets that break body armor are sold in gun stores (or were at the time). And the officers responding to the emergency did not have those, and needed them.
If you knew anything at all about guns & ammo, you would know that just about any center-fire rifle cartridge will penetrate body armor, even the paltry .223 Remington cartridge used in the AR-15 "assault" rifle. While able to penetrate body armor, this is hardly an adequate caliber to drop a mule deer!

Body armor is designed to stop handgun cartridges, and shrapnel for soldiers. Police are isued handguns since long guns are inconvenient to carry around all day. Also, rifle bullets travel many times the distance a handgun bullet will, not the type of thing you want cops shooting in populated areas.

So it's not an issue of "better" arms, just arms that are better suited to police work. And 99.99% of the time bank robbers are not wearing body armor.

Silicon

31st August 2003, 02:30 PM

Wildcat,

I think you just agreed with me.

I'm not saying "should" about anything, I'm saying in actual fact, civilians can get their hands on more powerful firearms than are standard issue to Police.

You pointed out the reasons why that's the case. They make sense as reasons.

But it doesn't falisify my point, which is, a civilian can buy guns legally which can out-gun a cop.

Maybe to preserve hunting, or to preserve the safe shooting record of police, these things are the way they are for a reason.

I didn't say it was a bad thing. I said it to paint a picture of relativism in gun laws. As opposed to an absolutist position, which would be to ban all civilian guns, or allow all civilian ownership of any projectile weapon.

Wolverine

31st August 2003, 03:00 PM

Originally posted by Maximwar
By the way, Wolvie, Lott has a point by point response to Michelle Malkin's article (http://johnrlott.tripod.com/malkinsoped.html).

Might as well hear his defense on that.

Thanks, I'd not seen this response.

One of the factors that raises red flags in my book (not to be confused with his response to Malkin) is statements like the following:

Originally posted by John Lott
While I am not going to take the time to respond to all the claims, I have written up a short response to Lambert’s central claims.

Why this approach?

I can certainly appreciate the possibility that someone like Mr. Lott doesn't have a vast surplus of free time. However, if Mr. Lambert had made purely fallacious or incorrect claims or conclusions about Lott and his methodologies/data, why won't he take the time to address them all? Why does Lott take the time to offer a full rebuttal to Malkin but not Lambert? It's one of those things that makes me go "Hmm."

Wolverine

31st August 2003, 03:18 PM

Originally posted by WildCat

If you knew anything at all about guns & ammo...

I don't disagree with your position, but I think you could make your point more delicately. Sorry for singling you out... I just feel that this sort of confrontational phrasing adds fuel to the proverbial fire which separates gun control supporters from the gun rights advocates. Hope you understand.

shanek

31st August 2003, 04:33 PM

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto
Oops! Can't prove a negative.

Oh, come on! I'm just asking him for his source!

The person presenting the case has to provide the evidence.

And in this case, it is Mr. Lambert presenting the argument, so it's up to him to provide the source for it.

shanek

31st August 2003, 04:36 PM

Originally posted by Tim Lambert
He still hasn't responded to questions about why when he corrected his errors, his standard errors mysterously shrunk.

Fair enough.

The KC Star story is linked from my comments here (http://timlambert.org/guns/Lott/Appalachian#0618).
You can see all the stories that Lott is talking about here (http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/apla/index.index)

Yes (http://timlambert.org/guns/Lott/survey)

See this (http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/guns/archive/dgu/).

Thanks! (See, Mr. M? He didn't have any trouble.)

shanek

31st August 2003, 04:38 PM

Originally posted by DavidJames
Telephone surveys, by definition are anecdotal.

There is all the difference in the world! Anecdotes are not representative samples, they're not properly selected. Surveys, when properly done, will get you a good representation of all people in the country without you having to ask each and every one.

shanek

31st August 2003, 04:43 PM

Originally posted by Tim Lambert

A smaller sample size means that your estimates are more uncertain. Lott implies that was the reason that Duwe et al did not find a significant effect. But if there had been a dramatic reduction of the size Lott claims, then it would have been significant. The size of the effect that Duwe found on the smaller data set was very different from what Lott found on his larger data set.

If the sample sizes are indeed smaller, then isn't this what we would expect? More of a variation in different studies? I would think it's obvious that, given the smaller sample sizes, the data regarding mass shootings involving four or more fatalities shoult be more suspect. There's really not much of a way we can tell as reliably with them.

We also can't tell how many cases of DGU would have resulted in four or more deaths had it not been for a good guy with a gun. That's the problem with trying to support things like this: the benefits are often transparent.

For example: Let's say there had been someone on the planes on 9/11 with a gun, and they had shot the terrorists before they were able to do anything. It might show up on the back of page 3 somewhere; we would have no way of knowing that these people would have saved over 3,000 lives and two of the world's tallest buildings and part of the Pentagon.

Shootings with four or more deaths are very extensively reported.

Do we know that for certain?

shanek

31st August 2003, 04:46 PM

Originally posted by Silicon
I really get the picture that Lott isn't the guy to go to for reputable data.

I'm starting to agree, but I don't want to throw out the proverbial newborn dependent with the unhygenic hydrogen hydroxide.

shanek

31st August 2003, 04:49 PM

Originally posted by Wolverine
I can certainly appreciate the possibility that someone like Mr. Lott doesn't have a vast surplus of free time. However, if Mr. Lambert had made purely fallacious or incorrect claims or conclusions about Lott and his methodologies/data, why won't he take the time to address them all? Why does Lott take the time to offer a full rebuttal to Malkin but not Lambert? It's one of those things that makes me go "Hmm."

Good point.

Mr Manifesto

31st August 2003, 05:14 PM

Originally posted by shanek

Oh, come on! I'm just asking him for his source!

And in this case, it is Mr. Lambert presenting the argument, so it's up to him to provide the source for it.

I thought you were asking him to provide proof that a different course of events occured, rather than proof that the evidence supporting a certain course of events was faulty. My bad.

shanek

31st August 2003, 05:43 PM

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto
I thought you were asking him to provide proof that a different course of events occured, rather than proof that the evidence supporting a certain course of events was faulty. My bad.

Spoken like a gentleman, sir.

EvilYeti

31st August 2003, 08:33 PM

Originally posted by WildCat

If you knew anything at all about guns & ammo, you would know that just about any center-fire rifle cartridge will penetrate body armor, even the paltry .223 Remington cartridge used in the AR-15 "assault" rifle. While able to penetrate body armor, this is hardly an adequate caliber to drop a mule deer!

This is irrelvant to the incident being discussed.

In LA (and the rest of California I think), police officers are issued subsonic 9mm pistol ammuntion, which limits the range, accuracy and lethality of their sidearms. When up against body armor at a distance they were about as usefull as spitballs.

The gun shop lent the police officers shotguns with slug type ammuntion, which while it didnt pierce the armor packed enough of a wallop to knock the assailents down.

I'm not sure why the officers wouldnt have borrowed rifles from the gun store, perhaps only shotguns were available or there was a concern about using rifles in an urban environment.

WildCat

1st September 2003, 09:48 AM

Originally posted by Wolverine
I don't disagree with your position, but I think you could make your point more delicately. Sorry for singling you out... I just feel that this sort of confrontational phrasing adds fuel to the proverbial fire which separates gun control supporters from the gun rights advocates. Hope you understand.
You're right, my apologies! :rub:

I just get in so many of these arguements w/ gun-control types who don't understand the nature of different types of ammo. If it's hollow-point ammo (which won't penetrate body armor) they shout "dum-dum bullets!". Solid-point ammo then becomes "cop-killer bullets". And the media often erroneously calls semi-automatic rifles automatic rifles, etc. It just muddies up the debate unnecessarily.

I guess most people didn't read the Shooter's Bible cover-to-cover as a kid like I did. :D

Tim Lambert

1st September 2003, 10:02 AM

Originally posted by shanek

If the sample sizes are indeed smaller, then isn't this what we would expect? More of a variation in different studies? I would think it's obvious that, given the smaller sample sizes, the data regarding mass shootings involving four or more fatalities shoult be more suspect. There's really not much of a way we can tell as reliably with them.

However, the uncertainty introduced by a small sample size is well understood and should be preferred to a larger sample with an unknown bias.

We also can't tell how many cases of DGU would have resulted in four or more deaths had it not been for a good guy with a gun. That's the problem with trying to support things like this: the benefits are often transparent.

The way to deal with this is to look at before and after rates. If they are a lot of cases like your example above then this would appear as a reduction after the law passed

shanek

1st September 2003, 11:44 AM

Originally posted by Tim Lambert

However, the uncertainty introduced by a small sample size is well understood and should be preferred to a larger sample with an unknown bias.

The way to deal with this is to look at before and after rates. If they are a lot of cases like your example above then this would appear as a reduction after the law passed

But if we're dealing with small sample rates to begin with, then the change would be even smaller, and probably wouldn't show up as any statistically significant effect (which appears to be the case—we just can't tell if either gun control or concealed carry laws are having a quantifiable effect on mass shootings). They'd have to have a major influence to have an effect large enough to show up reliably, and I don't think either side is claiming it makes that much of a difference.

The angle I'm examining this from is, if it can be shown that gun ownership allows people to defend themselves against violent crimes, how is the situation any different in mass shootings? Is there anything about mass shootings that would cause the effect not to apply to them?

Wolverine

1st September 2003, 12:39 PM

Originally posted by Silicon
But it doesn't falisify my point, which is, a civilian can buy guns legally which can out-gun a cop.

There was nothing legal about the primary firearms used by the perpetrators in the North Hollywood incident you referenced (full-auto AK-47s, or "machine guns" if you prefer, which have been illegal to possess in the US since 1934). It'd be quite a task to compile a list of every law broken by the criminals in commission of this crime, whether related to firearms or not.

As Wildcat touched on, it'd be a gross oversimplification to reach the conclusion you've stated above based upon relatively little information. Is a .30-06 rifle more powerful than an average patrol officer's duty weapon (9mm/.40S&W/.357/.357Sig/.45ACP/etc)? Sure. There's just no comparison when it comes to ballistics data. Does this simple comparison demonstrate that police are outgunned by those legal purchases? No; the overall picture is more complex.

This paints a bit more accurate picture of what officers procured that day in North Hollywood:
Police-issue 9mm pistols are hardly a match for fully automatic firepower. So as the bullets flew, the outgunned cops headed not to the local precinct but to nearby B&B Sales, a private gun store.

The owner recognized some of the officers as previous customers and, overlooking the 15-day waiting period a typical civilian would face before being able to legally obtain firearms, quickly supplied them with four 5.56mm Bushmaster XM-15 semi-automatic rifles with high-capacity magazines and two Remington shotguns with rifled slugs. Once the officers were on a more equal footing, they plunged back into the fray, taking down the bad guys with no loss of innocent life.
Source (http://reason.com/9708/ci.kb.storebought.shtml)

Further insight from an experienced perspective is provided in this article (http://www.student.oulu.fi/~hmikkola/shootout.html) by Ron McCarthy (http://www.safariland.com/ronbio.htm).

So, in this case, yes, the LAPD officers were able to purchase firearms and ammunition which is available for legal sale to the public. It's important to note, though, that there is a great deal on the market in terms of firearms and ammunition that is not made available to the public. A number of companies, like SIG (http://www.sigarms.com/le-military/index.asp) and Heckler & Koch (http://www.hecklerkoch-usa.com/pages/military/mlepstlframeset.html) have specific law-enforcement-only product lines; ammunition manufacturers such as Winchester (http://www.winchester.com/law/) and Federal (http://le.atk.com/) produce high-octane ammunition specifically for law enforcement use.

There are many widely-held misconceptions about firearms, legal issues, and technical matters pertaining to guns and ammunition, and it's most important to consider all aspects of the issue before adopting a specific position. :)

Tricky

1st September 2003, 03:19 PM

Originally posted by shanek
The angle I'm examining this from is, if it can be shown that gun ownership allows people to defend themselves against violent crimes, how is the situation any different in mass shootings? Is there anything about mass shootings that would cause the effect not to apply to them?
I don't have any statistics on this, although I cannot recall any instances where a private citizen has prevented a mass shooting with his own guns. (Several have been prevented by having alert citizens notify the police).

But it seems logical that it is much less likely for a private citizen to outgun a person intent on a mass shooting, for several reasons.
The "mass shooter" is heavily armed, often with multiple guns. He may even be prepared with body armor, or at least protective clothing. Quite likely the "hero" is going to be outgunned.
The mass shooter is already aware that a shooting is going to occur, thus has the jump on the "hero". This is unlike the case in many single homicides where the killing is a "crime of passion", or at least not planned far in advance.
The mass shooter has been planning for this in advance and is aware of contingencies. He (it is almost always male) has staked out the battleground and knows what to expect. He may have even practiced at length.
The mass shooter is often fearless about his own life. While this can be a positive or a negative, it is more likely that the non-insane person is going to make a greater effort to protect his own life, thus less likely to take the offensive.

These are just my own attempts at logic, and have no data to back them up. In truth, the number of deaths due to mass shootings is nearly insignificant compared to total homicide deaths, and even moreso compared to total gun deaths, so even if statistics are available, they are likely to have too small of a sample to be useful.

But other than the suicidal nature of mass shooters, I can't see any reasons why an armed citizen would have the same opportunity against them than they would against an armed robber or other criminal using a gun. Anybody have ideas to the contrary?

shanek

1st September 2003, 03:47 PM

Originally posted by Tricky
But it seems logical that it is much less likely for a private citizen to outgun a person intent on a mass shooting, for several reasons.
The "mass shooter" is heavily armed, often with multiple guns. He may even be prepared with body armor, or at least protective clothing. Quite likely the "hero" is going to be outgunned.

But I would think this would be offset by the fact that the shooter is going to be going for more people, making the legal gun owner more desperate to save his life and the lives of those around him.

The mass shooter is already aware that a shooting is going to occur, thus has the jump on the "hero". This is unlike the case in many single homicides where the killing is a "crime of passion", or at least not planned far in advance.

But not in the case of robberies and premeditated murders. So this point would predict that the rate of DGUs is lower in those cases than it is in crimes of passion. Is there any data, from Lott, Kleck, or anyone, to show that that is or is not the case?

The mass shooter has been planning for this in advance and is aware of contingencies. He (it is almost always male) has staked out the battleground and knows what to expect. He may have even practiced at length.

That doesn't mean he's accounted for armed opposition. In fact, as I posted earlier, these shooters always seem to pick places where there is less of a likelihood that people will have guns.

The mass shooter is often fearless about his own life. While this can be a positive or a negative, it is more likely that the non-insane person is going to make a greater effort to protect his own life, thus less likely to take the offensive.

But a DGU, by definition, is defensive, not offensive.

In truth, the number of deaths due to mass shootings is nearly insignificant compared to total homicide deaths, and even moreso compared to total gun deaths, so even if statistics are available, they are likely to have too small of a sample to be useful.

That's true. And since relatively fewer lives would be saved, I don't think it's wise to worry about stopping mass shootings over the more everyday variety.

Tricky

1st September 2003, 04:22 PM

Originally posted by shanek

But I would think this would be offset by the fact that the shooter is going to be going for more people, making the legal gun owner more desperate to save his life and the lives of those around him.
Dunno. Desperate versus insane. It's a hard call. But the case where the pistol-wielding hero get's a bullseye on the automatic weapon-wielding bad guy seems like the scenario that works a lot better in the movies than in real life.

Originally posted by shanek
But not in the case of robberies and premeditated murders. So this point would predict that the rate of DGUs is lower in those cases than it is in crimes of passion. Is there any data, from Lott, Kleck, or anyone, to show that that is or is not the case?
In most robberies, the criminal would much prefer not to use his gun. If the victim goes for a gun, then the criminal is more likely to shoot him. As for premeditated murders, there's probably not a lot you can do anyway. Unless you have a clue that the guy is coming for you, then you are shot before you are even aware that someone is trying to shoot you. A whole lot of 'premeditated murders' happen in bar fights. Some guy gets his a*s kicked and comes back with a gun. Sometimes the intended target figures this out and is prepared, sometimes not. It is safest just to get the hell out of there after a fight. Not nearly as macho though. Other premeditated murders tend to be gang or "hit-man" killings with the occasional jealous husband/wife scenario. In virtually all of these cases, the only way to have a DGU is to know they are coming. If you do know, then your first move should be to call the police. The presence of a cop car will deter as many potential murderers as the knowledge that their intended victim has a gun.

Originally posted by shanek
That doesn't mean he's accounted for armed opposition. In fact, as I posted earlier, these shooters always seem to pick places where there is less of a likelihood that people will have guns.
Yes he has, making the liklihood that a DGU will take place even smaller. Most workplaces and all schools forbid guns. They figure the liklihood of a DGU is far outweighed by the liklihood of a CGU (Criminal Gun Usage) and I would not dispute their logic.

Originally posted by shanek
But a DGU, by definition, is defensive, not offensive.
Yet, in order to take out a criminal with a gun, you are going to have to take chances, and that often means going offensive. I'm talking about tactics here, not motives. Obviously a guy who tries to outflank the criminal to get a good shot has defensive motives, but those tactics are still offensive, and very dangerous.

Originally posted by shanek
That's true. And since relatively fewer lives would be saved, I don't think it's wise to worry about stopping mass shootings over the more everyday variety.
The problem with mass shootings is that in most cases, the victims are totally blameless. In gang shootings, you really can't say anything good about either side. In bar shootings, it is often drunk people who either provoked or reacted to being provoked. Even "unfaithful spouses" do not garner the sympathy of people just doing their job at work or kids at school. That is another reason why mass shootings are so despicable and so newsworthy. I agree that it would be better overall to get the more common kinds of gun crimes down, but if a mass shooting draws more attention to the problems of gun crime than an equivalent number of single-shoot crimes, then the people who were killed in the mass crime at least have left a message in the minds of Americans that we need to do something about this. In that sense, their deaths are not as pointless. (But if anybody tries to claim that I am in favor of mass shootings, I shall have to ask you to step outside.)

shanek

1st September 2003, 06:24 PM

Originally posted by Tricky
Yes he has, making the liklihood that a DGU will take place even smaller. Most workplaces and all schools forbid guns. They figure the liklihood of a DGU is far outweighed by the liklihood of a CGU (Criminal Gun Usage) and I would not dispute their logic.

But that still doesn't do anything to refute the idea that the ratio of DGUs in mass shootings to total mass shootings is the same as the ratio of all DGUs to all crimes.

Yet, in order to take out a criminal with a gun, you are going to have to take chances,

You've taken a pretty durn big chance just being there. Again, desperation.

I agree that it would be better overall to get the more common kinds of gun crimes down, but if a mass shooting draws more attention to the problems of gun crime than an equivalent number of single-shoot crimes, then the people who were killed in the mass crime at least have left a message in the minds of Americans that we need to do something about this.

If you have any ideas on how to eliminate them, I'm listening. But so far the however-many-thousand gun laws there are haven't done the trick. And again, it seems to be the places with the more restrictive gun laws that attract these shootings. So if we can at least minimize the amount of them happening by supporting things like concealed carry, then why shouldn't we do so?

Tricky

1st September 2003, 06:44 PM

Originally posted by shanek
But that still doesn't do anything to refute the idea that the ratio of DGUs in mass shootings to total mass shootings is the same as the ratio of all DGUs to all crimes.
And since I don't know a single example of a DGU foiling a mass shooting, that would indicate that DGUs are equally ineffective in foiling single shootings.

Originally posted by shanek
You've taken a pretty durn big chance just being there. Again, desperation.
You don't "take a chance" by being there. You were just unlucky. And again, insanity trumps desperation. Defensive gun users appear to be at a severe disadvantage in these situations.

Originally posted by shanek
If you have any ideas on how to eliminate them, I'm listening. But so far the however-many-thousand gun laws there are haven't done the trick. And again, it seems to be the places with the more restrictive gun laws that attract these shootings. So if we can at least minimize the amount of them happening by supporting things like concealed carry, then why shouldn't we do so?
If you're looking for a "silver bullet" :p to cure gun crimes in America, then there isn't one. It will have to be a cultural change that takes effect over many years, just as it has in Europe and Australia. It is a shame that Americans seem resistant to giving up their cowboy mentality in order to effect a change for the better. What cannot be contested is that countries with more guns have more gun crimes. How to reduce the gun count without benefitting the criminals is going to be difficult and will require sacrifices and concessions. One thing we have to concede is that in an open society like America, criminals will always have more guns. The more guns we allow law-abiding citizens to have, the more guns criminals will get. To reduce the number of guns criminals have, we have to reduce the number of guns law-abiding citizens have. This is true in all of the "low gun crime" countries.

I would look forward to the day when a murder in the city is page-one news, rather that "crime blotter" filler.

a_unique_person

1st September 2003, 06:59 PM

America is a place of strange contradictions. (Other countries have their own, but let's just concentrate on guns and the like).

For a country that has prided itself on being the historically leading democracy, industrial power, military power etc, it is curiously hamstrung when it comes to change in the 21st century.

Guns are regarded as they were in the 18th century.
The decimal system cannot be introduced.
Useless copper coins cannot be removed from the economy.
The air traffic control system is third world.
The power grid is third world.
Then ten commandments are believed to be the foundation of the law of the country.

This in the country that has created the PC, the WWW, the first man on the moon, the US constitution.

It reminds me of the deadly mind trap that the winning athlete falls into. He tries to concentrate on how not to lose, rather than on how to keep winning. The Founding Fathers were very radical for their time, now conservatism is the hallmark of the country. The founding fathers, if alive today, IMHO, would be aghast that the US cannot move on and keep innovating, that so much of the attitudes that drive it are stuck in the past and cannot move forward.

shanek

1st September 2003, 08:31 PM

Originally posted by Tricky

And since I don't know a single example of a DGU foiling a mass shooting,

What about the Pearl, MI school shooting, when the Vice Principal stopped the shooting after only two students were killed by going out to his car and getting his gun? They found out soon afterwards that six other students planned to continue the carnage.

You don't "take a chance" by being there. You were just unlucky.

Nonetheless, it's a very chancey situation.

And again, insanity trumps desperation.

Why?

It is a shame that Americans seem resistant to giving up their cowboy mentality in order to effect a change for the better.

Why is it the "cowboy mentality" that's always to blame and not the gang warfare and the other major causes of crime?

The more guns we allow law-abiding citizens to have, the more guns criminals will get.

Support this, please. If anything, the ratio of legal gun owners to criminals with guns decreases with gun control.

To reduce the number of guns criminals have, we have to reduce the number of guns law-abiding citizens have.

How will that stop them from getting guns? Most criminals do not get their guns through legal means.

And let's remember that you're talking about the same government that can't even keep drugs out of its own prisons.

shanek

1st September 2003, 08:33 PM

Originally posted by a_unique_person
Guns are regarded as they were in the 18th century.

You mean, as a useful tool against tyranny and oppression? Yes, they are. So what?

The decimal system cannot be introduced.

Huh? We have the decimal system here.

Useless copper coins cannot be removed from the economy.

The US has no copper coins. (Pennies are made of copper-plated zinc.)

The air traffic control system is third world.
The power grid is third world.

That's government for you.

Then ten commandments are believed to be the foundation of the law of the country.

Not by anyone of any authority.

a_unique_person

1st September 2003, 09:13 PM

Originally posted by shanek

You mean, as a useful tool against tyranny and oppression? Yes, they are. So what?

Huh? We have the decimal system here.

Metric

The US has no copper coins. (Pennies are made of copper-plated zinc.)

This is the general term for referring to the small denomination coins over here. One cent pieces, for example.

That's government for you.

Yet other government run systems are state of the art in other countries.

Not by anyone of any authority.

But popularly, yes. Which is the point.

As for the guns, the notion of the how guns should be regarded is still firmly rooted in the 17th century.

Tricky

1st September 2003, 10:55 PM

Originally posted by shanek
What about the Pearl, MI school shooting, when the Vice Principal stopped the shooting after only two students were killed by going out to his car and getting his gun? They found out soon afterwards that six other students planned to continue the carnage.
I'm not aware of that one. A Google search shows only a couple of references and no links to any major news sources (reputable or otherwise). Sounds like an urban legend to me. Can you provide more info?

Originally posted by shanek
Nonetheless, it's a very chancey situation.
You're changing the definition here, Shanek. You said before, that the "hero" was taking a chance by being there. When I point out that the hero made no choice to be there, you use "chancy" to mean unpredictable. Tch Tch.
Tricky said:
Insanity trumps desperation
Originally posted by shanek
Why?
Because a desperate person still wants to protect his own life if possible. That is very likely not the case with an insane person.
Originally posted by shanek
Why is it the "cowboy mentality" that's always to blame and not the gang warfare and the other major causes of crime?
Cowboy mentality has a lot to do with gang warfare and other cause of gun "episodes". Gang shootouts, people pulling guns in bars etc. are in some ways vestiges of our fascination with the wild west. Please don't say "prove it." It is just my opinion based on what I have observed about Americans.

Originally posted by shanek
Support this, please. If anything, the ratio of legal gun owners to criminals with guns decreases with gun control.
Yes, because you turn some formarly legal gun-owners into "criminals". Do you think that makes them more likely to commit violent crimes? I'm sure you can cite all sorts of statistics about how gun control has increased crime in isolated locations, but simply look at the world, Shanek. Where do gun crimes happen? It is where they have the most guns. I'm also sure you can tell me all sorts of reasons why we can't do that in America. I agree that with such strong devotion to our firearms, it will be a long and difficult process. I don't think it is a hopeless one.

Originally posted by shanek
How will that stop them from getting guns? Most criminals do not get their guns through legal means.
To borrow a phrase, "prove it." I suspect that quite a few criminals do get their guns legally. After all, a guy is not a criminal until he uses his gun in a criminal act. The guy who kills his wife or the guy who gets in a bar fight was not necessarily a criminal before the incident, so there would be no reason to keep him from having a gun.

Originally posted by shanek
And let's remember that you're talking about the same government that can't even keep drugs out of its own prisons.
Non sequitur. The fact that the government has a hard time enforcing its laws does not mean that the laws are bad.