Sure the first question produced incidents where people grabbed a gun in response to a perceived threat. However:
Each interview began with a few general "throat-clearing"
questions about problems facing the R's community and crime. The
interviewers then asked the following question: "Within the past
five years, have you yourself or another member of your household
used a gun, even if it was not fired, for self-protection or for
the protection of property at home, work, or elsewhere? Please do
not include military service, police work, or work as a security
guard." Rs who answered "yes" were then asked: "Was this to
protect against an animal or a person?" Rs who reported a DGU
against a person were asked: "How many incidents involving
defensive uses of guns against persons happened to members of
your household in the past five years?" and "Did this incident
[any of these incidents] happen in the past twelve months?" At
this point, Rs were asked "Was it you who used a gun defensively,
or did someone else in your household do this?"
Kleck & Gertz identified the critieria to seperate a "bump in the
night" from a "genuine" defensive gun use:
Questions about the details of DGU incidents permitted us to
establish whether a given DGU met all of the following
qualifications for an incident to be treated as a genuine DGU:
(1) the incident involved defensive action against a human rather
than an animal, but not in connection with police, military, or
security guard duties; (2) the incident involved actual contact
with a person, rather than merely investigating suspicious
circumstances, etc.; (3) the defender could state a specific
crime which he thought was being committed at the time of the
incident; (4) the gun was actually used in some way--at a minimum
it had to be used as part of a threat against a person, either by
verbally referring to the gun (e.g., "get away--I've got a gun")
or by pointing it at an adversary.
Kleck & Gertz themselves identified the questionable cases:
.... A case would be coded as questionable if even
just one of four problems appeared: (1) it was not clear whether
the R actually confronted any adversary he saw; (2) the R was a
police officer, member of the military or a security guard, and
thus might have been reporting, despite instructions, an incident
which occurred as part of his occupational duties; (3) the
interviewer did not properly record exactly what the R had done
with the gun, so it was possible that he had not used it in any
meaningful way; or (4) the R did not state or the interviewer
did not record a specific crime that the R thought was being
committed against him at the time of the incident. There were a
total of twenty-six cases where at least one of these problematic
indications was present. It should be emphasized that we do not
know that these cases were not genuine DGUs; we only mean to
indicate that we do not have as high a degree of confidence on
the matter as with the rest of the cases designated as DGUs.
Estimates using all of the DGU cases are labelled herein as "A"
estimates, while the more conservative estimates based only on
cases devoid of any problematic indications are labelled "B"
estimates.
The "A" estimates were 2,519,862 DGUs (one year recall) 1,884,348 (five yr.).
The "B" estimates were 2,163,519 DGUs (one year recall) 1,683,342 (five yr.).
NSDS
The idea that the 26 questionable cases out of 222 DGU
cases in a national survey sample of 4997 respondents
taints the whole study, when Kleck & Gertz gave estimates from
the 196 vetted cases as well as estimates from the 222 total,
just shows that some sources seize on the 26 questionable reports
(identified by K&G themselves) to dismiss the whole study.
And is it fair to question the integrity of Kleck & Gertz in view of the
results of the other surveys? The differences in these surveys simply
show DGU is an unsettled frontier of criminalogical research. I find it
interesting that since the "I don't want believe any good from guns"
crowd claimed that John Lott's 1997 survey never happened and
that his documented 2002 survey proved nothing new, none of the
nay-sayers have offered to conduct a refereed survey to uncover
the truth. If there have been DGU surveys since 2002 I have missed
them.
These DGU surveys show that there are significant numbers of DGU
especially when compared against the numbers of FBI UCR police
reports of crime, or even the NCVS victim surveys (which project
higher actual numbers of reported + unreported crime).
Summary of the thirteen surveys on DGU listed by Kleck & Gertz.
Code:
FREQUENCY OF DEFENSIVE GUN USE
from Kleck and Gertz 1995 Table 1 - Excluded -
Gun Recall Against By Mil
Survey: Year: Area: Sample: Type: Period: Animal: Police:
1. Field 1976 Calif. NiA Hgun [a] No Yes
2. Bordua 1977 Ill. NiA All Ever No No
3. Cambridge 1978 U.S. NiA Hgun Ever No No
4. DMIa 1978 U.S. RgV All Ever No Yes
5. DMIb 1978 U.S. RgV All Ever Yes Yes
6. Hart 1981 U.S. RgV Hgun 5 yr Yes Yes
7. Ohio 1982 Ohio Res Hgun Ever No No
8. Time/CNN 1989 U.S. Own All Ever No Yes
9. Mauser 1990 U.S. Res All 5 yrs. Yes Yes
10. Gallup 1991 U.S. NiA All Ever No No
11. Gallup 1993 U.S. NiA All Ever No Yes
12. L.A. Times 1994 U.S. NiA All Ever No Yes
13. Tarrance 1994 U.S. NiA All 5 yrs. Yes Yes
Code:
Defensive question % Who [b] Implied
Survey: Ask of: Ref to: Used: Fired: number DGUs:
1. Field All Rs R [a] 2.9 3,052,717
2. Bordua All Rs R 5.0 n.a. 1,414,544
3. Cambridge Hgun own R 18 12 n.a.
4. DMIa All Rs Hshld 15 6 2,141,512
5. DMIb All Rs Hshld 7 n.a. 1,098,409
6. Hart All Rs Hshld 4 n.a. 1,797,461
7. Ohio Hgun hshld R 6.5 2.6 771,043
8. Time/CNN Gun own Hshld n.a. 9-16[e] n.a.
9. Mauser All R 3.79 n.a. 1,487,342
10. Gallup hgun hshld R 8 n.a. 777,153
11. Gallup Gun own R 11 n.a. 1,621,377
12. L.A. Times All R 8[c] n.a. 3,609,682
13. Tarrance All Hshld 1/2[d] n.a. 764,036
ABBREV KEY: Own Gun owners
NiA Non-instititionalized Adult Hgun Handgun
RgV Register Voter R Respondent to survey
Res Resident Hshld Household
Code:
1. Field Institute, Tabulations of the Findings of a Study of
Handgun Ownership and Access Among a Cross Section of the
California Adult Public (1976).
2. David J. Bordua et al., Illinios Law Enforcement Commission,
Patterns of Firearms Ownership, Regulation and Use in
Illinios (1979).
3. Cambridge Reports, Inc., an Analysis of Public Attitudes Towards
Handgun Control (1978).
4. DMIa & 5. DMIb from DMI (Decision/Making/Information),
Attitudes of the American Electorate Toward Gun Control (1979).
6. Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Violence in America Survey
October 1981.
7. The Ohio Statistical Analysis Center, Ohio Citizen Attitudes
Concerning Crime and Criminal Justice (1982).
8. H. Quinley, Memorandum reporting results from Time/CNN Poll of Gun
Owners, dated Feb. 6, 1990 (1990).
9. Gary A. Mauser, Firearms and Self-defense: The Canadian Case,
Presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Society of
Criminology (Oct. 28, 1993).
10. Gallup Poll 1991,
11. Gallup Poll 1993,
12. L.A. Times poll, and
13. Tarrance poll. (10-13) were taken from a search of the
DIALOG Public Opinion online computer database.
Code:
Notes:
[a]. Field recall period: 1 yr, 2 yr and Ever; Use: 1.4%, 3% and 8.6%.
[b]. Estimated annual number of defensive uses of guns of all types
against humans, excluding uses connected with military or police
duties, after any necessary adjustments were made, for U.S., 1993.
Adjustments are explained in detail in Gary Kleck, "Guns and
Self-Defense", on file with the School of Criminology and Criminal
Justice, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, 1994.
[c]. Covered only uses outside the home.
[d]. 1% of respondents, 2% of households.
[e]. 9% fired gun for self-protection, 7% used gun "to scare someone."
An unknown share of the latter could be defensive uses not
overlapping with the former.
As Kleck & Gertz 1995 pointed out, the sample selection (registered
voters, non-institutionaised adult, handgun owner, gun owner resident)
and the questions asked meant each one of these surveys was measuring
something different and they cannot be directly compared, especially
since the samples represent different years.
adapted from
Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime:
The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun," Table 1,
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 1995, Vol. 86 No. 1.
