The Inaccuracy of National Crime Victimization Survey Research
However consistent the evidence may be concerning the effectiveness of armed victim resistance, there are some who minimize its significance by insisting that it is rare.[15] This assertion is invariably based entirely on a single source of information, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).
Data from the NCVS imply that each year there are only about 68,000 defensive uses of guns in connection with assaults and robberies,[16] or about 80,000 to 82,000 if one adds in uses linked with household burglaries.[17] These figures are less than one ninth of the estimates implied by the results of at least thirteen other surveys, summarized in Table 1, most of which have been previously reported.[18] The NCVS estimates imply that about 0.09 of 1% of U.S. households experience a defensive gun use (DGU) in any one year, compared to the Mauser survey's estimate of 3.79% of households over a five year period, or about 0.76% in any one year, assuming an even distribution over the five year period, and no repeat uses.[19]
The strongest evidence that a measurement is inaccurate is that it is inconsistent with many other independent measurements or observations of the same phenomenon; indeed, some would argue that this is ultimately the only way of knowing that a measurement is wrong. Therefore, one might suppose that the gross inconsistency of the NCVS-based estimates with all other known estimates, each derived from sources with no known flaws even remotely substantial enough to account for nine-to-one, or more, discrepancies, would be sufficient to persuade any serious scholar that the NCVS estimates are unreliable.
Apparently it is not, since the Bureau of J...
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...ndgun owners or just those who owned handguns for protection purposes.[36] This procedure was apparently based on the dubious assumption that people who used a gun defensively no longer owned the gun by the time of the survey, or that the gun belonged to someone else, or that the R owned the gun for a reason other than protection or kept it outside the home.
Most importantly, the surveys did not ask enough questions to establish exactly what was done with the guns in reported defensive use incidents. At best, some of the surveys only established whether the gun was fired. The lack of such detail raises the possibility that the guns were not actually "used" in any meaningful way. Instead, Rs might be remembering occasions on which they merely carried a gun for protection "just in case" or investigated a suspicious noise in their backyard, only to find nothing.
The first gun buyback program was employed in Baltimore in 1977 to curb violence perpetrated by the use of firearms (Carter, 2002). Over the course of three-months, over 13,000 firearms we...
Gun admirers have statistics that will prove their side on guns saving lives. According to one study by Lott “… for each additional year that laws allowing people to carry concealed handguns were on the books, robberies decli...
In today’s world, guns used in the home for protection purposes are becoming more of a danger than an object of security. They have taken over the interest of everyone who thinks they are in danger. Even with the protection of a handgun, statistics show that crimes are still being committed. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics “an average of only about 65,000 defensive uses of guns each year compared to the more than 800,000 crimes committed with guns” (Mcdowell 1982-84). Guns are a danger in the household if marital disputes and domestic violence are present. If a gun is a readily available object then the chances of it being used to let out anger and frustration instead of self-protection is great. Mercy Saltzman reports that “having a gun in the home also increases the risk that incidents of domestic violence will result in homicide.” He goes on to point out “family and intimate assaults involving firearms are twelve times more likely to result in death than non-firearm related assaults” (Saltzman 3043-47). In lieu of these statements, one can see the present danger in keeping a firearm in a household.
Supporters of gun control state that to decrease crimes committed with fire arms (which amass a high majority of crimes) guns should be banned from private ownership. This removes guns from the public, therefore taking away the instrument of easily accomplishing crimes. Arthur Kellermann and Donald T. Raey, two gun control advocates, did their own research into the issue and published a discovery of their own; the 43-1 Statistic. In this statistic, Kellerman and Raey state that a gun will be used in a justified shooting one time, while forty three other people are killed by a gun unjustly, either by suicide, accident, or criminal (Heumer 9). According to these two researchers, gun ownership is not worth it. Private ownership of guns saved one life wh...
In the United States of America, there is much debate about the effectiveness and practicality of concealed firearms. Many citizens today are trying to support their claim with old, outdated evidence and targeted research to attempt to prove a point, but can not escape the truth. Although Concealed firearms may sound appealing to reduce crime rates and stop violence, new evidence suggests otherwise. Recently there has been trends of certain lunatics who own guns that decide to shoot innocent people, justifying the need for more strict gun control laws. The purpose of this paper is to educate and inform about the immensely important topic of concealed firearms, with focus on what effect it has on society and crime rates. We will go over modern
Over the years some of the reasons to own guns have changed. As Americans moved west fulfilling Manifest Destiny, making new towns along the way which were far away from any established law. These people made laws through the barrel of a gun. Of course crime still happened, but not nearly as often, when the townspeople simply hunted down and shot the criminal. Eventually, police forces arose in the Midwest, and fewer people carried guns with them on the street but they were still there, visible or not.
Guns are not the trouble, people are. The United States is #1 in world gun ownership, and yet is only 28th in the world in gun murders per 100,000 people. The number of unintentional fatalities due to firearms declined by 58 percent between 1991 and 2011 Based on these facts, one can see the guns not the causes of gun violence. moreover, civilians who get permits take gun safety courses and have criminal background...
According to Marianne W. Zanwitz, a member of the staff of the Bureau of Justice Statistics(BJS), statistical agent of the U.S. Department of Justice since 1976 quote in her article, “43.6 million criminal victimizations occurred in 1993, including 4.4 million violent crimes of rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault. Of the victims of these violent crimes, 1.3 million (29%) stated that they faced an offender with a firearm.” Also, according to The Victim Survey(NCVS), there were an estimate of 341,000 incidents of stolen firearm from private citizens annually from 1987 to 1992. Although, NCVS did not ask how many guns were actually stolen, there probably were more than one gun per person and places more than one gun per home for average.
Kleck , G, and M Gertz . "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun." Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 86 (1995): 150-187. National Criminal Justice Reference Service. Web. 12 Nov. 2013.
People who do not research the owning of handguns and form their opinion off of what they see on the news are left in the dark. One of the most misunderstood concepts is that more guns cause more violence. This is false more guns do not mean more homicides. In 1973, the handgun stock was 36.9 million and the homicide rate was 9.4 per 100,000. In 1992, the handgun stock was 77.6 million but the homicide rate dropped 8.5 percent. In 1994, the U.S. bureau of justice static's made a survey that stated 100,000 lives are saved by handguns. According to criminologist Gary Kleck, guns are fired in only about 24 percent of cases in which they are used for self-defense.
Guns are used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year or about 6,850 times a day. This means that each year, firearms are ...
There are more than 44 million Americans own guns, implying that 25% of the adults in the US own guns and that 40% of the American households owning a minimum of one firearm. These gun owners normally possess 192 million firearms whereby 65 million of these firearms are handguns of all the legal owners of the guns, the main reasons for their ownership of the gun include sporting, hunting as well as home protection (McLeigh, 201-202). Among all the individuals who own the guns, 75% of them allege that self-protection is their chief reason for owning the firearm (Seabrook, 2014). The majority of the young people in the United States are normally surrounded by regular reminders of the threat that gun violence poses to their community. The constant
From a 2013 survey conducted by Pew Research Center, self-defense - rather than hunting or other sports involving the use of a gun - is the reason forty-eight percent of gun owners own a weapon. Hunting and sports that involve shooting supported the reason why only thirty-two percent of people own guns today. Compared to 1999, forty-nine percent of gun owners claimed they owned a weapon for hunting; a statistic that continues to drastically drop today. Statistically, when asked whether gun control would be a good idea, Americans are nearly split between two equal groups. While fifty-four percent of test subjects believe gun control acts will reduce the number of deaths in mass shooting, fifty-eight percent of participants fear that Congress’s direct involvement with amending the Constitution will make it more difficult to protect their homes and families (Clark
The authors also explain that there are no real statistics to help explain how many times an officer has used a firearm. The text explains that there is no significant data to help explain police shootings and how many occur each year (Kappeler & Potter, 2005). Most of the data that can be found does not clearly state the numbers of times a firearm was used. Majority of data is found through data bases such as Vital Statistics (Kappeler & Potter, 2005). Even data bases such as Vital Statistics do not provide clear information on police
Statistics on the National Safe Kids Campaign Website reveals that “Americans possess nearly 200 million firearms, including 65 million handguns. Approximately one-third of families with children (representing more than 22 million children in 11 million homes) keep at least one gun in the home. Gun owners keep firearms in the home for hunting and recreation (60 percent) or for protection and crime prevention (40 percent)”. Although 40 percent seems to be on the minority, households with guns are at higher risk of homicide, and there are few beneficial effects of gun ownership; as a result, alternative methods for crime prevention and protection should be adopted.