"orwell" > wrote in message
9...
> "D.A. Tsenuf" > wrote in
> :
>
> > Maybe you should read the works of criminologist Gary Kleck about the
> number of Defensive Gun Use that occurs annually in the US. It is
estimated
> to beat least 100,000 incidents per year That works out to about 270 per
> day. Now naturally this does not imply that shots were fired. It means
> that the gun was either shown up to the gun was actually fired, but in all
> cases the intended criminal activity was stopped.
>
> Two things you should point out about the Kleck study.
>
> 1) By his research, the 100,000 incidents of crime being stopped because
a
> gun was on the scene is greater than the number of incidents where a gun
> was used in the commission of a crime.
>

In actual fact Kleck estimates DGUs to be in the 2,500,000 range annually.
(I had changed my mind on how to present that argument and did not do a good
follow-through on my text)
The 100,000 number is from another source based on DOJ data gleaned from
police reports.
In actual fact, considering that in many cases, telling the police that you
used a gun to defend yourself may cause you more problems than the actual
crime you stopped. So the 100K number is INCREDIBLY conservative.
Just look at the Dixon case In New York this last year, where he (Dixon) was
prosecuted for using a gun to shoot someone who had broken into his infant
son's bedroom. The reason for the prosecution was that his legally purchased
(in Florida) handgun was not yet registered in the Byzantine system of the
NYPD as required by the Sullivan Act.


> 2) Gary Kleck went into his study with moderately strong views in favor
of
> more gun control laws. He no longer works toward expanded gun control.

The same can be said of John Lott who also was originally hired by the
ant-gun crowd and did a u-turn when he saw the numbers produced by his
study. It should be noted that the study was originally funded by the
anti-gun crowd.
There was also another study whose intent was to discredit Kleck with his
2.5M estimate. They were embarrassed when their methodology came up with a
4M estimate Demonstrating that Kleck may have been conservative in his
numbers.
..