Article contends CDC confirmed Kleck's DGU claims

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Archive link: CDC, in Surveys It Never Bothered Making Public, Provides More Evidence that Plenty of Americans Innocently Defend Themselves with Guns
But in the 1990s, the CDC itself did look into one of the more controversial questions in gun social science: How often do innocent Americans use guns in self-defense, and how does that compare to the harms guns can cause in the hands of violent criminals?

Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck conducted the most thorough previously known survey data on the question in the 1990s. His study, which has been harshly disputed in pro-gun-control quarters, indicated that there were more than 2.2 million such defensive uses of guns (DGUs) in America a year.

Now Kleck has unearthed some lost CDC survey data on the question. The CDC essentially confirmed Kleck's results. But Kleck didn't know about that until now, because the CDC never reported what it found.

Re: Article contends CDC confirmed Kleck's DGU claims

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DM - when did you start pushing right wing BS? The CDC study ordered by President Obama cited Kleck and estimated up to 3 million.
Defensive Use of Guns

Defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence, although the exact number remains disputed (Cook and Ludwig, 1996; Kleck, 2001a). Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010). On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey (Cook et al., 1997). The variation in these numbers remains a controversy in the field. The estimate of 3 million defensive uses per year is based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys. The former estimate of 108,000 is difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.
(emphasis mine)
https://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/3#15

Re: Article contends CDC confirmed Kleck's DGU claims

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Kleck and Gertz did their study in 1993 which was after Florida became the first state to issue CC permits in 1987. Their National Self-Defense Survey appears much more thorough than the Census Bureau's National Crime Victimization Survey or the meaningless one from AZ State. The CDC data is older before Everytown and its ilk whipped up the anti-gun frenzy, so maybe less tainted.

A link from the original article: "How to Count the Defensive Use of Guns"
https://reason.com/blog/2015/03/09/how- ... se-of-guns
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Article contends CDC confirmed Kleck's DGU claims

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highdesert wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 2:11 pm Kleck and Gertz did their study in 1993 which was after Florida became the first state to issue CC permits in 1987. Their National Self-Defense Survey appears much more thorough than the Census Bureau's National Crime Victimization Survey or the meaningless one from AZ State. The CDC data is older before Everytown and its ilk whipped up the anti-gun frenzy, so maybe less tainted.

A link from the original article: "How to Count the Defensive Use of Guns"
https://reason.com/blog/2015/03/09/how- ... se-of-guns
Indeed. It's probably to the benefit of Kleck, Gertz, and perhaps others the CDC surveys are pre-hysteria and used what Kleck identifies as "high-quality" surveys. There is some interesting material there, though nothing earth-shattering.

Re: Article contends CDC confirmed Kleck's DGU claims

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DispositionMatrix wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 4:07 pm
highdesert wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 2:11 pm Kleck and Gertz did their study in 1993 which was after Florida became the first state to issue CC permits in 1987. Their National Self-Defense Survey appears much more thorough than the Census Bureau's National Crime Victimization Survey or the meaningless one from AZ State. The CDC data is older before Everytown and its ilk whipped up the anti-gun frenzy, so maybe less tainted.

A link from the original article: "How to Count the Defensive Use of Guns"
https://reason.com/blog/2015/03/09/how- ... se-of-guns
Indeed. It's probably to the benefit of Kleck, Gertz, and perhaps others the CDC surveys are pre-hysteria and used what Kleck identifies as "high-quality" surveys. There is some interesting material there, though nothing earth-shattering.
It's difficult to see how Kleck or any other researcher would be able to collect the same in depth information on individual DGUs in this anti-gun climate. Would randomly selected people even admit having guns no less giving detailed information on a DGU to a stranger on the phone. And now so many people only have cell phones not landlines. It would be a challenge.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Article contends CDC confirmed Kleck's DGU claims

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A Second Look at a Controversial Study About Defensive Gun Use
His new report was based on surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in its Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey in the years 1996-98. This finding was touted by many outlets—including Reason—as evidence in support of the utility of private gun ownership.

Shortly after that study was released, however, Robert VerBruggen of National Review (who has been of inestimable help in thinking through these issues) tweeted that he noticed, by studying the raw survey data himself, that Kleck had mistaken what were in fact surveys limited to small numbers of states per year for a national survey, analogous to Kleck/Gertz's own national surveys.

in direct response to queries from Reason, who first directly notified Kleck of his error, he worked through and has since issued a revised version of the paper, published as was the original as a working paper on the Social Science Research Network. In the new version, Kleck re-analyzes the BRFSS survey data accurately as limited to a small number of states, and ultimately concludes, when their surveys are analyzed in conjunction with his NSDS, that their surveys indicate likely over 1 million defensive uses of guns (DGUs) a year nationally, compared to the over 2 million of his own NSDS.

Re: Article contends CDC confirmed Kleck's DGU claims

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SeanMoney wrote: Tue Sep 04, 2018 11:00 pm Total BS. If they have the data they can produce. Until then: https://www.npr.org/2018/04/13/60214382 ... lf-defense
This study says 100,000 defensive gun uses is reasonable. Seems more reasonable than millions. So I guess the question is, is preventing 12,000 gun homicides a more noble goal than facilitating 100,000 defensive gun uses? Maybe the gun restriction groups should navel gaze on it....

Re: Article contends CDC confirmed Kleck's DGU claims

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featureless wrote: Tue Sep 04, 2018 11:57 pm
SeanMoney wrote: Tue Sep 04, 2018 11:00 pm Total BS. If they have the data they can produce. Until then: https://www.npr.org/2018/04/13/60214382 ... lf-defense
This study says 100,000 defensive gun uses is reasonable. Seems more reasonable than millions. So I guess the question is, is preventing 12,000 gun homicides a more noble goal than facilitating 100,000 defensive gun uses? Maybe the gun restriction groups should navel gaze on it....
The problem with the NCVS data is that, of all the surveys that claim to have estimated the number of DGUs, the NCVS is the only one that didn't actually ask anything about DGUs. Instead, they tried to guesstimate the number from other questions that didn't directly have to do with DGUs. In the original report by the CDC on this, published in 2013 (Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence, https://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/1#x), they explicitly pointed out this flaw in the NCVS data, and didn't include it in their initial statement about what the research on this question shows, pointing out that every other single survey done that did actually ask questions regarding DGUs, found a much higher estimate, of 500,000 to 3 million per year. While they did argue that 3 million was unrealistic, they stated that the the NCVS claim was "difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use," and only tacked it on as a counterpoint to what they put forward as the most relevant body of research. Throughout the report they like to put in such counterpoints whenever the research shows gun use or ownership in a positive light, as if they don't quite believe, or at least don't want to believe, what the research shows.

In an article written shortly after the report was released, the Slate (which is notoriously anti-gun) admitted that the CDC report found that guns are used in self-defense "often and effectively". It also mentions the "effectively" part, because the report included research showing that victims of violent crime who use a gun to defend themselves suffer fewer serious injuries and deaths than those using any other form of self-defense, including those who don't resist in hopes of not being injured.

So, while the anti-gun crowd likes to trot out the NCVS estimate (the CDC does the same, even though their own report says it isn't the best estimate - but later in a summary makes it sound like the NCVS data is the only reliable set, without actually saying it), the fact is that they know it is the least reliable estimate out there.

By the way, all of these figures (including the NCVS) are estimates derived from responses to surveys, not based on direct study of police or medical data compiled on reported gun uses. So they do all have their data, but in every case, it is in the form of self-reported DGUs from a survey (except the NCVS, which didn't ask about DGUs, and instead is just pulling a figure out of thin air based on survey questions unrelated to DGUs).

Re: Article contends CDC confirmed Kleck's DGU claims

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featureless wrote: Wed Sep 05, 2018 9:55 pm Thanks, Evo. I wish there was better research in general on guns.
I think everyone does. The problem is that virtually none of it is done without an agenda. In the early 2000s (2002 and 2005) the CDC and the National Academy of Sciences each conducted their own independent reviews of over 300 peer-reviewed studies between them on the effects of gun control laws. What they found was that every single one was flawed in design and/or execution so badly as to be worthless. In many cases the flaws bordered on academic fraud.

And even these reviews were biased. Of the people appointed to the NAS review committee, only one had not publicly come out as anti-gun before being appointed. And the one who hadn't done so criticized the review, stating that while it was true that none of the studies was adequately designed and executed, the quality of those finding no or a negative effect from gun control laws (which all came from social scientists) were generally of much higher quality, and often only had minor flaws that could in some cases be overlooked, than those finding a positive effect from gun control laws (which predominantly came from public health researchers), and yet the report didn't include this fact at all, and simply discounted all studies as flawed and inconclusive.

If you look at reports like the CDC report in the post above, or others, such as the now infamous GSA report on guns in Mexico, even though the actual data they report often don't support the anti-gun agenda, these data are often downplayed and buried deeply enough that one has to read carefully to find them, while prominent summaries, abstracts, and analyses ignore or downplay the data and instead strongly imply that the opposite conclusion is the correct one (although they're generally careful not to actually say so). This trend is so bad that people not reading the entire reports carefully often come to believe that their results are the opposite of what they actually are. In the GSA report, the Department of Homeland Security actually put a response letter in the appendix warning directly that this is a likely result of the way the report spins the data.

It's horribly disappointing, especially as an academic scientist, that we can't at all trust peer-reviewed research, even published in top journals, on this subject, and that government reports go out of their way to spin the facts as hard as they can to favor one particular political position. But that's the state of things. One has to really skeptically dig through the data and the design for each study if you ever want to really be able get a decent idea of what the research really says.

This is why research funding isn't the problem or the answer. We have tons of research on guns, despite claims to the opposite, and we have continued to accumulate it at a high rate throughout the nonexistent funding ban. The problem is that it's virtually all tainted by politics, and especially the stuff coming from the public health field is not research at all, but strongly rigged to find a preconceived result. Until that changes, no amount of funding will produce useful legitimate research.

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