‘Nearly One-Third of Gun Owners Have Used Gun in Self-Defense,’ Says Report

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Bubba went to WalMart with his family and next - door neighbor Charlie, all the while with his little Glock 42 concealed.

In doing so, he effectively exercised his 2nd Amendment Right and defended his family, friends, and loved ones from pedophiles, rapists, and government tyranny.

Did you defend yours?
 
GBExpat said:
My initial reaction is that the folks that compiled this report may have gone to school with the folks that compile statistical reports for "the other side". Y'know? Multiple courses in "creative statistics", "crafting unique definitions" and the like. :)
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Like I said broad definition of use the 31% comes from this question

“Have you ever defended yourself or your property with a firearm, even if it was not fired or displayed? Please do not include military service, police work, or work as a security guard.”
 
I read the .pdf. The question asked was, "Have you ever defended yourself or your property with a firearm, even if it was not fired or displayed?" (emphasis added).

They then normalize as follows: "Given that 31.1% of firearms owners have used a firearm in self-defense, this implies that approximately 25.3 million adult Americans have defended themselves with a firearm. Answers to the frequency question suggest that these gun owners have ever been involved in approximately 50 million defensive incidents. Assuming that defensive uses of firearms are distributed roughly equally across years, this suggests at least 1.67 million defensive uses of firearms per year in which firearms owners have defended themselves or their property through the discharge, display, or mention of a firearm ..." (emphasis added).

Those sound like reasonable numbers to me.
 
Legionnaire said:
I read the .pdf. The question asked was, "Have you ever defended yourself or your property with a firearm, even if it was not fired or displayed?" (emphasis added).

They then normalize as follows: "Given that 31.1% of firearms owners have used a firearm in self-defense, this implies that approximately 25.3 million adult Americans have defended themselves with a firearm. Answers to the frequency question suggest that these gun owners have ever been involved in approximately 50 million defensive incidents. Assuming that defensive uses of firearms are distributed roughly equally across years, this suggests at least 1.67 million defensive uses of firearms per year in which firearms owners have defended themselves or their property through the discharge, display, or mention of a firearm ..." (emphasis added).

Those sound like reasonable numbers to me.
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yeah especially since it includes simply displaying or verbally communicating the presence of a firearm creating a deterrent effect. Not necessarily referring to an active defense situation. This is believe able that 30% of gun owners would have ever been in this situation over their entire life.
 
Well, "displayed" seems to have a subjective definition. I'm defending my property at night with my weapon drawn, but the offending person/people never saw it, was it "displayed"?
 
Do these people also work at CNN or Facebook as fact checkers? :rofl:

This is why you should never trust a poll, of any kind. It can always be manipulated to have any result desired and usually is.
 
CraigC said:
Not fired or even displayed??? :confused:
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scratching my head also...So strange.


I guess if I meet my Fedex/UPS/USPS driver at my gate and I have my EDC on me that counts? I have seen too many videos of them chunking packages , after all. :evil:
 
"First, all gun owners were asked, “Have you ever defended yourself or your property with a firearm, even if it was not fired or displayed? Please do not include military service, police work, or work as a security guard.” About a third (31.1%) answered in the affirmative ...."

ever as in lifetime use
even if it was not fired or displayed some defensive gun use surveys count a DGU if you say from behind a closed door "Back off, I have a gun" or "Martha. fetch me my shotgun" but others don't
 
CraigC said:
Do these people also work at CNN or Facebook as fact checkers? :rofl:

This is why you should never trust a poll, of any kind. It can always be manipulated to have any result desired and usually is.
Click to expand...

From what I can gather the paper was published by an assistant professor from Georgetown University’s School of Business, and the poll was conducted by Centiment which appears to be a digital market research firm, the methodology they used seems to be fairly solid.

The only real issue I see is people taking a quote out of context and reacting to it in a vacuum, which provides a false impression of what the survey actually measured. In the context of the paper it makes sense and is clear what what is being measured and how it is being measured. But by just taking the one line out of context you can give a false impression of what is going on.
 
Centiment is apparently a survey company. They're in the business of selling surveys to people. By that, I meant you can set up a survey through them and define the parameters of the survey and they will conduct the survey for you. See the screen shot below.

So...who set up this survey and what were their parameters? (Prof. William English, PhD., at Georgetown University, teaches ethics apparently.) Does this person have an apparently objective viewpoint on the subject or known political stance either way?

How were those 54,244 people chosen for the survey? Where and how were their names picked out?

Exactly what questions were asked, how were they worded, how were they presented, and I what order?

That said, I found the data presented interesting and, on the face of it, reasonable.

Screenshot_20210921-192404_Chrome.jpg
 
There is a difference between opinion polls and academic surveys.

Dr. William English's publication of "2021 National Firearm Survey" as a working paper at SSRN Social Sciences Research Network is what a serious researcher does to invite academic peer review and comment. This paper may eventually end up discussed at a meeting of the American Society of Criminology.

2021 National Firearms Survey: "The online survey summarized here was presented to a nationally representative sample ... of 54,244 individuals aged 18 or over ...."
Previous telephone surveys:
The National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms (NSPOF Cook & Ludwig 1994) had a sample size under 2500.
The National Self Defense Survey (NSDS Kleck & Gertz 1993) had a national sample size of 4,997

Try this conclusion:
Types of Firearms Owned
• 82.7% of gun owners report owning a handgun, 68.8% report owning a rifle, and 58.4% report owning a shotgun.
• 21.9% of gun owners own only one firearm.
• The average gun owner owns 5 firearms.
• 30.2% of gun owners, about 24.6 million people, have owned an AR-15 or similarly styled rifle.
• 48.0% of gun owners have owned magazines that hold over 10 rounds.
 
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The 2021 National Firearm Survey asks gun owners 18 years or older if they have used a gun in self defense and gets about 1.6 million DGU per year about the middle of the fifteen or so DGU surveys summarized in Kleck & Gertz 1993 National Self Defense Survey which itself got 2.4 million DGU per year.
The 2021 National Firearm Survey does not ask non gun owners or persons under 18 if they have used a gun in self defense.
Remember the 12 yr who shot a home invader?
I have known four adult women who used guns in self-defense (brandishment only chase-offs): two used personally owned weapons, one used a weapon owned by her employer, one used a weapon owned by her boyfriend.
Survey that asked "do you own a gun?" as 2021 NFS does will miss people who don't own guns but have access to guns owned by others.
 
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