Date: Thu Nov 4 13:22:38 1999 From: murphy@MYBLUEHEAVEN.COM (Phil Murphy) Subject: Accurate data lacking? Bullshit! To: AZRKBA@asu.edu
Accurate data lacking on defensive gun use
by Mark Johnson Media General News Service
WASHINGTON -- The FBI likely will never receive a police report on what Joe Megerle did during his morning run one day last August.
Megerle, a retired electric company worker, was jogging through Devou Park, a Covington, KY, hilltop that overlooks the Ohio River and the Cincinnati skyline when a man brandished a pistol and demanded money. Megerle, who holds a Kentucky concealed weapon permit, drew his own pistol and shot the man twice.
The gunman was hospitalized and charged with attempted robbery. He's now in jail. The emergency room recorded his gunshot wounds, data later supplied to the Greater Cincinnati Health Council. The Covington police filed reports on the criminal charges, information that will be recorded in the FBI's annual crime statistics.
No government agency, however, is expected t make a record that Megerle used a firearm in self-defense.
"There's nothing ever filed when a firearm is used correctly,'' said Assistant Chief Bill Dorsey, of the Covington Police Department, whose officers investigated the shooting involving Megerle and recommended no charges be brought against him.
Police departments, hospitals and federal agencies keep mounds of data about the misuse of firearms: the woundings, killings, suicides and accidents. When it comes to the defensive use of guns, such as saving a life or protecting a home, no one tallies up those statistics. Attempts to come up with such figures, however, have grown into a hotly contested part of the public debate over regulating guns.
Law enforcement agencies tabulate crimes.
"A lot of times [defensive gun uses] are not crimes, so they're not reported to police and not included in our reports,'' said FBI spokesman Paul Bresson.
Researchers have found that a gun is fired in only a small percentage of defensive gun uses. Instead, the user threatens, cocks the gun or just displays it. If the gun user is acting legally, a crime has not been committed.
Police keep data on homicides, rapes, robberies and assaults, not on homeowners who scare off burglars.
People who defend themselves or deter a crime with a gun sometimes fear they have committed a crime themselves, given the myriad of laws about where, when and under what conditions gun possession is lawful. So, they don't tell authorities.
"Government records are not a good way to measure defensive gun uses because so many defensive gun users may not want to report these uses to government authorities, and neither will their victims,'' said Jens Ludwig, a Georgetown University public policy professor. "At the same time, surveys are an imperfect technique, because they have difficulty measuring the frequency of such rare events.''
Gun rights advocates cite surveys, such as a national telephone survey directed by Florida State University Professor Gary Kleck, that show as many as 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year. These figures bolster the argument that the protective value of firearms far outweighs the number of gun crimes -- 232,000 in 1997, according to Department of Justice figures.
Gun rights groups use these numbers to fight tighter firearms laws, arguing that restrictions on gun ownership could reduce the number of times a life is saved or a crime is thwarted.
Gun control supporters contend that the defensive use of firearms is rare, as shown by the Census Bureau's National Crime Victimization Survey, which reports about 65,000 defensive gun uses annually. The pro-control groups argue that a gun is more likely to be misused in an accident or crime. They contend stricter gun laws, such as waiting periods and criminal background checks at gun shows, won't affect the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves but will keep criminals and children from getting hold of a firearm.
(NOTE: Oh, like in Honolulu? -- Phil Murphy, Brassroots, Inc.)
No measure exists to show that either side's numbers are right. Both sets of data have flaws.
(NOTE: Oh, yeah... No editorializing in *that* sentence! -- Phil Murphy)
The National Crime Victimization Survey, while extremely useful data, does not directly ask about defensive gun use, said Ludwig. The questioners also identify themselves as representatives of the federal government, display badges and record the respondent's name, address and phone number. This is intimidating, said Kleck, the Florida State criminologist.
Nongovernment surveys have varied widely. Among 14 surveys specifically on defensive gun use, the estimates range from 764,000 to 3.6 million incidents a year.
The numbers "are big but they're imprecise,'' Kleck said. The results, however, are consistently much larger than the National Crime Victimization Survey.
"There's no contrary evidence that can be cited showing that defensive gun use is as rare as the victimization survey appears to indicate,'' Kleck said.
Ludwig of Georgetown co-authored a 1997 report on a survey conducted by the Police Foundation and funded by the U.S. Department of Justice. While the survey showed at least 1.5 million defensive gun uses per year, results similar to Kleck's survey, Ludwig raised questions that suggest the Police Foundation figures are inflated.
Researchers seem to agree on two major points. First, the frequency of defensive gun use has little to do with the gun control issues currently being debated, such as criminal background checks and high-tech "smart'' guns that only the owner can fire. Those regulations would have little effect on a law-abiding citizen's ability to purchase a firearm and use it in self-defense.
(NOTE: Yeah, right! -- Phil Murphy)
Second, accurate statistics on defensive gun use could be useful in setting public policy on guns. So far, surveys are the only method of getting those numbers.
(NOTE: Because, as we all should know by now, statistics -- not Constitutional rights -- should be the only method of the implementing and passing of laws. -- Phil Murphy)
© 1999, Media General News Service --
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