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== Article is pretty heavily biased ==
{{WikiProject Firearms|importance=low}}
A lot of bias in this article given the amount of criticism for Kleck and the various studies which all estimate Defensive Gun Use, but only use hard crime data for misuse ignoring crimes not reported. The criticism need to be detailed more, especially given it is published. Right now I'd say this article should be flagged as problematic. ] (]) 00:17, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
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== See also ==
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|archive = Talk:Defensive gun use/Archive %(counter)d
The "see also" guideline suggests that
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All three of this article's see alsos appear in its first paragraph, making it unlikely that a reader needs a second mention. I've been reverted by another editor on this, however, so won't edit war over it ; if it's felt that this article needs to be an exception to usual editing practices, that's okay with me too. I realize it has a controversial history. -- ] (]) 17:23, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

::I reverted my own change. I misread your comment and thought you were removing them based on the general applicability/relevance of those links (as has been done recently in a few other articles i monitor). On further review I understood your purpose and agree - the links are already in the body. ] (]) 17:30, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
:::Cheers, thanks! -- ] (]) 17:31, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

== Kleck survey ==

By kleck's numbers, successful home burglary gun self defense uses occur at a frequency of 200%. 200% of the time someone is home with a gun during a robbery do they successfully defend against the burglary. This is based on a telephone survey of 5,000 people with 65 people responding they had used their gun in self defense. This is 1.3%. Well below the margin of error. In contrast, a study done by the Atlanta police department finds that rather than 200%, which is impossible, in only 1.5% of burglaries when the victim was at home the victim was able to defend themselves with a gun. It was twice as likely 3%, that the gun owner would have their own gun turned against them. Another conclusion of kleck's self reported numbers is that rape victims outgun rapists, and not only are rape victims more likely to be armed, but they're more likely to shoot the rapists. Again, of 5,000 people, the basis of these wild claims are 65 individuals. The reason is that Kleck used a middle school understanding of statistics to develop and interpret his survey. For instance, if you do a random telephone poll of 5,000 people and ask them if they voted in the last presidential election, how often they wear seatbelts, their height, and if they watch the news or educational television, those same 65 people that are within the margin of error will misreport their answers to those questions. Also there's the difference in chance of misclassification. When you have a survey that reports 65 instances of option B, there are 65 chances that could be misclassified. When that same survey has 4,935 instances of option A there are 76 chances of misclassifacation for option A for each single chance of misclassification for option B. This creates a larger margin of error. What kind of margin of error would account for a fivefold overestimation of defensive gun uses? 1%. Was Kleck able to reduce the margin of error of his self reported telephone survey below 1%? No. Also, kleck's survey called about 10,000 people with a response rate of only about 50%. The first question kleck's survey asked was if the respondent had used a gun in self defense in the past few years. Of the roughly 5,000 people that went on to not respond how many did because they didn't own a gun, or if they owned a gun they'd never used it in self defense? Similarly, kleck's survey reports that there would be 207,000 cases where someone defending themselves with a gun shot the assailant. But that is more than twice the firearm hospitalizations. Another statistic derived from kleck's survey is that almost every gun self defense foils a potentially fatal attack. This leads to the conclusion that of the 11,041 defensive gun uses a day, most of them are potentially fatal, leading us to conclude that victims are able to prevent a potentially fatal attack 99.6% of the time. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10881&page=114] (]) 20:39, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
::"It was twice as likely 3%, that the gun owner would have their own gun turned against them. " No that is not what the Atlanta study says at all. It says 97% of the crime prevention with a gun is successful.] (]) 15:33, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
:These criticisms of the research are included in the article. These criticisms do not equal being "debunked". We offer multiple estimates, along with criticisms of the methodology used to generate each estimate. There is no "truth" here. Nobody knows the actual answer.
{{od}}
* Kleck specifically says that his numbers cannot be used to estimate DGU rates for any particular crime or type of event. Raising that type of objection is a strawman as his numbers do not attempt to show that.
* Klecks research suffers from the same flaws all survey based research of rare incidents suffer from. We do not invalidate the entire statistical methodology. We cannot apply a different standard to this specific implementation of it, unless you can show specific errors not general to the entire type of research (see Marvin Wolfgang's analysis)
* for us to pick one of the estimates and define it as correct would be ] and violate ] unless there is wide consensus (in the scientific community) that a number is outdated. There is no such consensus here. There is the contrary research of a few other statisticians, which we mention. There is the defense of Klecks methodology by other statisticians.
] (]) 20:49, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
::The only criticism seems to be "He argues that there are too many "false positives" in the surveys". And no, writing books about your own non peer reviewed survey that's central finding is within the margin of error is not a problem shared by "all surveys". ] (]) 21:21, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
:::::Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun" (86 ] 1, 1995) on their 1993 National Self Defense Survey (NSDS) of 4,997 people, 213 of whom reported using a gun in self-defense. ''Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology'' is described as a peer-reviewed publication. 1994 - The Kleck & Gertz results first published in a law review for comment. 1995 - The revised Kleck & Gertz study published under peer-review by academic referees. Critics like to cite the 1994 law review and dismiss Kleck & Gertz as "unrefereed" and "not peer reviewed" ignoring the 1995 journal publication under peer review.--] (]) 00:53, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
:::My bad, I was thinking we had more criticism here (as is on the Kleck main article). Im ok with some expansion of criticism (but think it would be ] to do the full thing here. Send them to the Kleck article.). Removal of the information is not acceptable. It is controversial. It has issues. It has not been debunked. Where there is not a clear truth, we need to present all notable and reliably sourced estimates. None of these estimates is ]. ] (]) 21:48, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

:Few things, first, I don't see your source to indicate he claims 200% or robberies have guns involved (what does that even mean?). Hemenway has criticized the study, but I read the ''Chance'' article and I don't remember ''that'' being the criticism. Besides, Hemenway has his own numbers and Kleck and Getz (there's more than one study too) are opposed to his it would appear. There are criticisms of Hemenway's numbers too, yet they're in there.

:On an issue like this, where there's a gulf in what various research reports, and people on both sides that have established ideas about a contentious political issue, the best we can do is provide the range. I don't think there's any credible argument that either range of what's listed here now is "fringe" by any stretch of how we use that word on Misplaced Pages. Criticisms on both sides are fair, so long as they're in context, referenced, and aren't given undue weight.

:That section, that you removed a big swath of, presents the estimates as they vary and it does so in neutral terms. The criticisms of both should go on below, but that introductory section is to give some context to readers, inform them there's debate, and the scope of it. Ideally we'd add even more studies to that section. But we can't include every criticism after each line up there. Put those below. It helps organization, and it also helps the neutrality by separating them out and providing some insulation about making conclusions sound like they're Misplaced Pages's conclusions.

:Obviously there is some standard for what's included... the basic ] guidelines apply, but we don't argue a source has been repudiated with original research. ] (]) 02:05, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
::I only removed the mention of the controversial Kleck figure. It was one sentence iirc. As for the robberies, extrapolating from the survey data, there would have been twice as many robbery DGUs than there were reported robberies. In the year of the survey there were something like 400,000 reported robberies, but extrapolating from the survey, 800,000 people used a gun to defend against a robbery.] (]) 16:28, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

:::Kleck does not make any claims as to the number of robberies which involved a DGU. He specifically says that the number of incidents for any particular crime type are too low to make any statistical inference. Using an OR strawman is not an argument to remove well sourced material. Hemenway and Kleck disagree on what the numbers mean. Both are quoted. Both are criticized. We do not determine that one is right and the other is wrong. ] (]) 16:57, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

:::"there would have been twice as many robbery DGUs than there were reported robberies." As with your statement on "200%", you are assuming crime reporting rates are accurate or even most crime are reported. It is well established that many crimes are under-reported at a fraction of their rate. that is not only victims not reporting, it is police departments having a paperwork and political interest in under underreporting. In my major metro area (DC) there have been widespread criticism of endemic not just under reporting but of simply throwing out cases of sexual assault. You mention the Atlanta police department study. seems to me that you are conflating use of a gun as in firing the gun and use as in brandishing or showing the gun.] (]) 01:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The NYC ''Village Voice'' has had long running series on a deliberate policy of under reporting of crime by certain precincts of the NYPD. And to put it mildly, the talking points against Kleck by his political opponents would not pass peer review at an academic journal devoted to criminology. --] (]) 12:57, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

==Balancing DGU v gun crime==

Other point: the balancing of DGU v gun crimes (whether 108,000 v 900,000 or 2,100,000 v 430,000) is based on the logical fallacy that gun control affects the lawabiding and the criminal gun users equally. The NIJ survey of gunowners gave licensed dealers as the source of 60% of their gun acquisitions. In the BJS survey of prison inmates, criminals cited licensed dealers at 14% and cited 20.8% "drug dealer/street sales", 9.9% "theft/burglary", 8.4% "fence/black market". None of the NIJ sample cited "drug dealers/street sales, theft/burglary or fence/black market". In the real world, the law-abiding are more likely to follow the law on legal sales, while criminals are likely to break the law. --] (]) 12:57, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

==DGU surveys pre Kleck & Gertz 1995==
Summary of the thirteen surveys on DGU listed by Kleck & Gertz 1995.
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 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
Defensive question % Who Implied
Survey: Ask of: Ref to: Used: Fired: number DGUs:
1. Field All Rs R 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 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 n.a. 3,609,682
13. Tarrance All Hshld 1/2 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
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.
Notes:
. Field recall period: 1 yr, 2 yr and Ever; Use: 1.4%, 3% and 8.6%.
. 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.
. Covered only uses outside the home.
. 1% of respondents, 2% of households.
. 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.

== High Estimate Seems to be 4.7m, not 2.1m ==
Should not 4.7 million be used as the upper range, putting Kleck and Gertz somewhere in the middle of the range?] (]) 17:06, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

== Low estimate Hemingway'slogic the same as anti-vaccine advocates==
Reading through Hemingway's work advocate the low end of the estimates, I am struck by how much it mirrors anti vaccine advocates who cite harm but who insist on the bottom number of estimated benefit. I don't wan to directly add my thought son that to the article, but Hemingway's logic being so similar to anti vaccine people does bear mentioning here for future editors.] (]) 17:06, 19 May 2013 (UTC)


::The new "low estimate" of 127 is the total number from the SURVEY GROUP ONLY, not the whole country. Good grief. Someone grossly misunderstood what they were reading in the survey results when they cited that number on the page. A clue should have been that the FBI has documented Justifiable Homicides (self defense) uses at over 200 per year in recent years , which is the small minority of cases where the gun was actually fired in self defense and killed the perpetrator. So how could a low estimate of all self defense uses, including when the gun wasn't fired, be only 127? Someone with better editing skills please check the survey and revert that erroneous edits. ] (]) 14:30, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
:::The IP is correct. I'm not sure that study is even designed to look at the total number; it seems that Hemmenway was trying to talk about the results of a DGU, not about the total number of DGUs. ] (]) 14:48, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

== upcoming research ==

A summary on the defensive gun use issue in a call for further research:
, National Academies Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-309-28438-7.

:Defensive Use of Guns

:Defensive uses 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 per year (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 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.

:A different issue is whether defensive uses of guns, however numerous or rare they may be, are effective in preventing injury to the gunwielding crime victim. Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was “used” by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies (Kleck, 1988; Kleck and DeLone, 1993; Southwick, 2000; Tark and Kleck, 2004). Effectiveness of defensive tactics, however, is likely to vary across types of victims, types of offenders, and circumstances of the crime, so further research is needed, both to explore these contingencies and to confirm or discount earlier findings.

:Even when defensive use of guns is effective in averting death or injury for the gun user in cases of crime, it is still possible that keeping a gun in the home or carrying a gun in public—concealed or open carry— may have a different net effect on the rate of injury. For example, if gun ownership raises the risk of suicide, homicide, or the use of weapons by those who invade the homes of gun owners this could cancel or outweigh the beneficial effects of defensive gun use (Kellermann et al., 1992, 1993, 1995). Although some early studies were published that relate to this issue, they were not conclusive, and this is a sufficiently important question that it merits additional, careful exploration.

--] (]) 20:37, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
::Sounds like a good study to incorporate into the section as it directly addresses some of the debates over incident rates. ] (]) 23:11, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

== Merge discussion ==
'''WITHDRAWN''' by proposer. '''See Summarize discussion''' below. Thanks. ] (]) 17:58, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

The material in this article's section, ] is practically identical to the ] section in the John Lott article. I have suggested that they be ] material, especially on contentious topics, is likely to cause problems for editors and confusion for readers. ] (]) 18:08, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

When you say "merge", what you really mean is to cut it from this article, correct? If that is the case, I disagree. Cutting the information from this article would lessen and do harm to this article. --<span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#ff55ff 0em 0em 0.8em,#55ffff -0.8em -0.8em 0.9em,#ffff55 0.7em 0.7em 0.8em;color:#ffffff">] <span style="font-size: 16px;">]]</span></span> 20:32, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

:Having had ] with ] re: merging vs. summarizing, I am going to change my proposal here. What I meant by "merging" is in fact called "summarizing" on Misplaced Pages, if I understand Gaijin correctly. ] (]) 17:28, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
:I have changed the merge to/from tags to summarize to/from tags. ] (]) 17:51, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

== Summarize discussion ==

The material in this article's ] section is practically identical to the ] section in the John Lott article. I have suggested that the material in the latter be summarized into the former. ] (]) 17:55, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

== Reddit defensive gun forum cited as "dgu catalog"? Wild sudden pro gun slant with all other views deleted? ==

What the heck happened here?] (]) 20:42, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
:You need to explain your recently added tags a little more in depth than this. ] (]) 00:34, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

::Undue weight is being given to user generated forum lists of dgus, and the studies that represent the high estimates of defensive gun uses that have been all but debunked with absolutely no rebuttal. I haven't followed this page very closely and I've been busy recently, but it seems as though unbalanced articles on the kleck and lott were merged into this article, and a circlejerk dgu anecdote forum was brought in as a reference for this article. This has left this article completely unbalanced now composed of a summary, and two unbalanced sections on flawed studies reporting the high DGU estimates. It's not like any part of it is subtle.] (]) 17:17, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
:::Hyperbole aside, I didn't readd any of your removed links to the user-generated forums, nor did I remove your removed thinktank external links. I also left most of your undue tags. I only removed the overarching one.

:::The article is in need of all viewpoints, but if you want to categorically exclude the most cited advocates for one side of the argument (Kleck and Lott), there's never a chance of this article being balanced. You need to articulate your objections to those sections more specifically; or better yet (because I find their language quite mild by many of our contentious-articles), add to the sections on other research. ] (]) 20:08, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

:::I just now removed the other two "unbalanced" tags for the Kleck and Lott sections. I don't see any articulation of how they're biased, other than you saying "sections on flawed studies". That's simply not sufficient. If your argument is that any mention of those studies is inherently biased, I strongly doubt others will agree that would result in a balanced article.

:::Perhaps I misunderstand your objections though. I do not like the rearrangement of the article into specific sections for each researcher. I think that may be some of your objection. I would recommend reverting back to the earlier organization, where it was organized by issue, and not researcher. Organizing by researcher allows for the problems you're concerned about. That said, I do not see any bias in those sections ''for'' those researchers. Hemenway's research is cited as a rebuttal in the opening paragraph of the first section, and not long after in the second. ] (]) 20:17, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

== Overview of gun laws by nation: Self-defense ==

''This (below) was in the Overview of gun laws by nation as a subsection of the Arguments section. It had been tagged Globalize since April 2010, with a link to this article (Defensive gun use) as the "main" article. Suggest we glean - much is already duplicated here - and incorporate material where appropriate.'' --] (]) 00:19, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

{{collapsetop|Collapsing copied text so discussion is easier to read}}
In an extensive series of studies of large, nationally representative samples of crime incidents, criminologist ] found that crime victims who defend themselves with guns are less likely to be injured or lose property than victims who either did not resist, or resisted without guns. This was so, even though the victims using guns typically faced more dangerous circumstances than other victims. The findings applied to both robberies and assaults.<ref>Kleck "Crime control through the use of armed force." ''Social Problems'' February 1988; Kleck and DeLone "Victim resistance and offender weapon effects in robbery" ''Journal of Quantitative Criminology'' March 1993; Tark and Kleck "Resisting Crime" ''Criminology'' November 2004.</ref>

Other research on rape indicated that although victims rarely resisted with guns, those using other weapons were less likely to be raped, and no more likely to suffer other injuries besides rape itself, than victims who did not resist, or resisted without weapons.<ref>Kleck and Sayles "Rape and Resistance" ''Social Problems'' May 1990.</ref> There is no evidence that victim use of a gun for self-protection provokes offenders into attacking the defending victim or results in the offender taking the gun away and using it against the victim.<ref>Kleck, Chapter 7 in ''Armed'', by Kleck and Don B. Kates, Jr.</ref>

Kleck has claimed, in his own national survey, and in other surveys with smaller sample sizes, that the numbers of defensive uses of guns by crime victims each year are substantially larger than the largest estimates of the number of crimes committed of offenders using guns.<ref>Kleck, Chapter 6 in ''Armed'', by Kleck and Don B. Kates, Jr.</ref> However, surveys that ask both about defensive gun use and criminal gun use find that more people report being victims of gun crimes than having used a gun in self-defense.<ref>Harvard Injury Control Research Center, "Comparing the Incidence of Self-Defense Gun Use and Criminal Gun Use"</ref> In a largely approving review of Kleck's book ''Point Blank'' (1991) in the journal ''Political Psychology'', Joseph F. Sheley argues that Kleck sidesteps the larger political problem of the role of gun culture in contributing to the spread and effect of violence in the United States.<ref>Review, ''Political Psychology'' 17:2 (June 1996), pp. 375-377.</ref>

The economist ], in his book ], states that laws which make it easier for law-abiding citizens to get a permit to carry a gun in public places, cause reductions in crime. Lott's results suggest that allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed firearms deters crime because potential criminals do not know who may or may not be carrying a firearm. Lott's data came from the FBI's crime statistics from all 3,054 US counties.<ref name = "Lott0p50">Lott, John R.Jr., More Guns, Less Crime-- Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws(1998), The University of Chicago Press, Chicago Illinois, pp. 50-122, ISBN 0-226-49363-6.</ref> Lott's conclusions have been challenged by other researchers. A University of Pennsylvania study, for example, found that people who carry guns are 4.5 times more likely to get shot than unarmed people.<ref>American Journal of Public Health, DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2008.143099</ref> However this study has also been criticized by other researchers.<ref>http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866589/</ref>

The efficacy of gun control legislation at reducing the availability of guns has been challenged by, among others, the testimony of criminals that they do not obey gun control laws, and by the lack of evidence of any efficacy of such laws in reducing violent crime. The most thorough analysis of the impact of gun control laws, by Kleck, covered 18 major types of gun control and every major type of violent crime or violence (including suicide), and found that gun laws generally had no significant effect on violent crime rates or suicide rates.<ref>Kleck and Patterson, ''Journal of Quantitative criminology'' September 1993.</ref> In his paper, ''Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do not'',<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://dss.ucsd.edu/~sscroggi/Econ1/LevittCrimeInThe90s18JEP163_2004.pdf |title=Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not|first=Steven D |last=Levitt|journal=Journal of Economic Perspectives|volume=18 |issue=1|year= 2004|format=|doi=10.1257/089533004773563485|page=163}} {{Dead link|date=June 2010}}</ref>

A study by Arthur Kellermann found that keeping a gun in the home was associated with an increased risk of suicide.<ref>Kellermann, AL, Rivara FP, et al. "Suicide in the Home in Relation to Gun Ownership." NEJM 327:7 (1992):467-472.</ref> It is well known that suicide is more common in rural areas of the United States where gun ownership is more common. The higher suicide rates in countries such as Japan may be explained by cultural factors irrelevant to the issue of the relationship between guns and suicide in the US. ] economist ] argues that available data indicate that neither stricter gun control laws nor more liberal concealed carry laws have had any significant effect on the decline in crime in the 1990s.

While the debate remains hotly disputed, it is therefore not surprising that a comprehensive review of published studies of gun control, released in November 2004 by the ], was unable to determine any reliable statistically significant effect resulting from such laws, although the authors suggest that further study may provide more conclusive information.

Forty ]s have passed "]" concealed carry legislation of one form or another. In these states, law-abiding citizens (usually after giving evidence of completing a training course) may carry handguns on their person for self-protection. Some states, like Florida and Texas, only allow concealed carry, and only after obtaining a permit. Other states, like West Virginia, Virginia, Colorado and Pennsylvania, allow open carry without a permit as long as an individual satisfies the legal requirements to own a gun. However, to carry concealed in these states requires a permit.

Other states and some cities such as ] ] permits. Only the ] have explicit legislation forbidding personal carry. ], ], ], and ] do not require permits to carry concealed weapons, although Alaska retains a shall-issue permit process for reciprocity purposes with other states. Similarly, Arizona retains a shall-issue permit process,<ref>Arizona Revised Statutes (A.R.S.) §13-3112(A)</ref> both for reciprocity purposes and because permit holders are allowed to carry concealed handguns in a few places (such as bars and restaurants that serve alcohol) that non-permit holders are not.<ref>A.R.S. §4-229(A)</ref>

Some people <sup>]</sup> consider ] to be a fundamental and ] ] and believe that firearms are an important tool in the exercise of this right. They consider the prohibition of an effective means of self-defense to be ].
For instance, in ]’s "Commonplace Book," a quote from ] reads, "laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes ... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."<ref name="Story 1986 pp. 319-320">Story,Joseph, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States(1986) Regnery Gateway, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 319-320, ISBN 0-89526-796-9.</ref><ref>Hardy, David T. The origins and Development of the Second Amendment(1986), Blacksmith Corp., Chino Valley, Arizona, pp. 1-78, ISBN 0-941540-13-8.</ref><ref>Halbrook, Stephen P. That Every Man be Armed--The Evolution of a Constitutional Right(1987), The University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, New Mexico, pp. 1-88, ISBN 0-8263-0868-6.</ref>

{{reflist|close}}
{{collapsebottom}}

:I agree that the content should not be in the overview article and some of it is likely better here. Per ] and due to the closely related nature of some of the articles, parts may be appropriately duplicated into the GC article, the gun violence article, the US article (or other countries) as parts are relevant in multiple places. ] (]) 00:57, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

== Sources? ==

''This was in the (global) Gun violence article in the Domestic Violence section. It seems to be outside the scope of that article, but perhaps the sources have some use here - if they're not already being used?
''

:"Kleck and others argue that guns being used to protect property, save lives, and deter crime without killing the criminal accounts for the large majority of defensive gun uses."<ref name=Suter1995>{{cite journal |last=Suter |first=Edgar A. |year=1994 |month=March |title=Violence in America--effective solutions |url=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7616135 |journal=Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia |publisher= |volume=84 |issue=6 |pages=253-264 |pmid=7616135 |accessdate= }}</ref><ref name=Kleck1997>{{cite book |last=Kleck |first=Gary |date=1997 |title=Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control |url=http://books.google.com/books/about/Targeting_Guns.html?id=xJ3Y2-CHYfMC |location=New York |publisher=Aldine de Gruyter |isbn=9780202305691 |accessdate= }}</ref>

{{reflist|close}}

--] (]) 03:10, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

:Can you add those sources into the article (if they're not already)? ] (]) 21:22, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

== Pictures ==

{{multiple image
| direction = vertical
| footer = People training ]
| width = 200
| image1 = Czech self defense training pic01.jpg
| alt1 = A line of people in front of targets with guns in holsters.
| image2 = Czech self defense training pic02.jpg
| alt2 = A line of people in front of targets reaching for their guns in holsters.
| image3 = Czech self defense training pic03.jpg
| alt3 = A line of people in front of targets drawing guns from holsters.
| image4 = Czech self defense training pic04.jpg
| alt4 = A line of people aiming at targets.
}} }}


== Some reminders ==
I've added some pictures which were deleted with the following reasoning: "''We don't need 4 almost identical images.''"

What better pictures can accompany this article than 4 pics depicting the basics of DGU training? ] (]) 06:52, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

== Marvin Wolfgang quote ==

I suggest this be removed as the article is not set up to justify the findings of Kleck & Gertz, unless it is the result of further research. While their findings are central to the debate, their validation or otherwise should probably be left to others who have done separate research on the subject, such as Hemenway, Cook or Ludwig. Wolfgang's opinion, while very eminent, is opinion. ] (]) 07:36, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Done.

== Harvard source ==

added this, thank you.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use-2/

1-3 Guns are not used millions of times each year in self-defense


* This article (and the entire topic of of Gun Control) is subject to discretionary sanctions.
We use epidemiological theory to explain why the “false positive” problem for rare events can lead to large overestimates of the incidence of rare diseases or rare phenomena such as self-defense gun use. We then try to validate the claims of many millions of annual self-defense uses against available evidence. We find that the claim of many millions of annual self-defense gun uses by American citizens is invalid.
* ] says that ALL reliably sourced viewpoints must be represented. Taking one viewpoint and declaring it to be ] is a violation of this.
* ] ] making claims which are not explicitly made by sources is not permitted.
* Redefining "Defensive gun use" to mean "justifiable homicide" is about as clear a case of this as you could get, since the reliable sources to not define it thus.
* etc.
As these changes have been made without consensus, I will be reverting to the status quo version.
] (]) 01:38, 5 October 2017 (UTC)


== Unpublished/lost/secret CDC DGU ==
Hemenway, David. Survey research and self-defense gun use: An explanation of extreme overestimates. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. 1997; 87:1430-1445.


Why nobody ever heard about this until now is up for grabs but apparently the CDC had three years of telephone surveys they never published or admitted they did where they asked about DGU https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3124326 ] (]) 14:30, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
Hemenway, David. The myth of millions of annual self-defense gun uses: A case study of survey overestimates of rare events. Chance (American Statistical Association). 1997; 10:6-10.
:Because it was unpublished? Also if it was unpublished my question would be why, was it rejected? Who (by the way) are SSnn, their mission statement reads like it is (in effect) a self publishing site, you upload you paper they publish it.] (]) 14:59, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
::::There is a Wikipediia article on ]. --] (]) 20:38, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
::According to reason magazine, he pulled his paper to correct some errors. , we can perhaps revisit this once he republishes his paper. ] (]) 13:14, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
:::When it is published in an RS yes.] (]) 13:19, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
::::Social Science Research Network SSRN is commonly used by academics to post working papers for discussion and review for comment and revision prior to submission to an academic symposium or publication. Gary Kleck, "What Do CDC’s Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses? ", 14 Feb 2018. Kleck & Gertz 1994 NSDS was published in 1995; CDC did three DGU surveys 1996, 1997, 1998 with results similar to the contested NSDS survey as part of their Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) yet not a mention, unlike the NSPOF survey. --] (]) 20:34, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
::::Although we should wait for Kleck to update the paper with revised results, per ] we do not need to wait for 3rd parties. Kleck himself IS the 3rd party reporting on CDC research, and as a repeatedly published expert in the field (albeit a controversial one) his statements are inherently notable and reliable (as his statements). We would obviously need to follow attribution of his analysis/interpretation of the CDC research. ] (]) 23:06, 25 April 2018 (UTC)


== Rename ==
Cook, Philip J; Ludwig, Jens; Hemenway, David. The gun debate’s new mythical number: How many defensive uses per year? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. 1997; 16:463-469


This should be Defensive gun use in the USA, as this seems to be the focus of the article.] (]) 13:44, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
It seems like this would have a place in the article. There's also https://stat.duke.edu/~dalene/chance/chanceweb/103.myth0.pdf]


Seconded ] (]) 19:50, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
8. Criminals who are shot are typically the victims of crime


== Hemenway research ==
Using data from a survey of detainees in a Washington D.C. jail, we worked with a prison physician to investigate the circumstances of gunshot wounds to these criminals.
We found that one in four of these detainees had been wounded, in events that appear unrelated to their incarceration. Most were shot when they were victims of robberies, assaults and crossfires. Virtually none report being wounded by a “law-abiding citizen.”


In the 2 Hemenway research articles he only polled 122 persons in 1996 and 131 persons in 1999 making this a grossly insufficient sample size from which to draw any meaningful conclusion.
May, John P; Hemenway, David. Oen, Roger; Pitts, Khalid R. When criminals are shot: A survey of Washington DC jail detainees. Medscape General Medicine. 2000; June 28. www.medscape.com
*And yet these studies were published after peer review, no? ] (]) 23:49, 9 September 2019 (UTC)




"Also in 2000, Hemenway and his colleagues conducted a small survey that found that guns in the home were used more often to intimidate family members (13 respondents) than in self-defense (2 respondents). "
9-10. Few criminals are shot by decent law abiding citizens


Again, this is no better than anecdotal. When you poll fewer people than those in a Starbucks at any given time, it is not worthy of inclusion in the conversation. <!-- Template:Unsigned IP --><small class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 23:52, 9 September 2019 (UTC)</small> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
Using data from surveys of detainees in six jails from around the nation, we worked with a prison physician to determine whether criminals seek hospital medical care when they are shot. Criminals almost always go to the hospital when they are shot. To believe fully the claims of millions of self-defense gun uses each year would mean believing that decent law-abiding citizens shot hundreds of thousands of criminals. But the data from emergency departments belie this claim, unless hundreds of thousands of wounded criminals are afraid to seek medical care. But virtually all criminals who have been shot went to the hospital, and can describe in detail what happened there.


May, John P; Hemenway, David. Oen, Roger; Pitts, Khalid R. Medical Care Solicitation by Criminals with Gunshot Wound Injuries: A Survey of Washington DC Jail Detainees. Journal of Trauma. 2000; 48:130-132.


"The neutrality of this article is disputed." - - - Wonder why..... <!-- Template:Unsigned IP --><small class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 00:00, 10 September 2019 (UTC)</small> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
May, John P; Hemenway, David. Do Criminals Go to the Hospital When They are Shot? Injury Prevention 2002: 8:236-238.(]) 20:52, 23 March 2015 (UTC)


DRMIES: "This user supports really strict concealed carry laws that will make concealed carry for civilians illegal." - NO KIDDING
== Potential useful information ==


== Marvin Wolfgang ==
While not directly citable, I think this four-part series offers some good insights, as well as an analysis of sources, and potential useful organization for this Misplaced Pages article:


This paragraph seems out of place, poorly written, and overall problematic. I do not know the history of this article, nor a lot on this topic. But I know if I were grading a high school research paper, marks would be taken off. The paragraph sticks out like a sore thumb, and I sense a bit of POV creep going into it. There is clearly an appeal to authority, either someone thought adding the quote praising his background would give weight to his view, or someone challenged why bother quoting Wolfgang at all, and someone dug up that quote. While perhaps a little contextualization, generally speaking, is a good thing, this kind of fluff is unencyclopedic, and we don't have similar quotes for Lott or Hemenway or Kleck and Gertz. It appears that this quote is quite popular in popular discourse because this scholar, in the same commentary piece, says he is extremely anti-gun, while also saying those sound bites that support the methodology of K&G. So these quotes have often been repeated by gun-rights organizations in support of K&G. However, Wolfgang nuanced his stance in remarks given to the Gun and Violence Symposium a year later, and that bit is often quoted by control advocates to dispute/clarify the other quotes. Furthermore, the quotes in the article (and used by gun-rights advocates) are taken out of context, and would be considered quote mining. So what is Wolfgang trying to say in this piece? That resisting the use of a gun a robbery can lead to serious injury, and goes through an old study he worked on, and explains a few scenarios of resistance/non-resistance and type of threat in robbery, and concludes he did not have data on success rate of gun resistance, but G&K seem to close that loop. He seems more concerned with any conclusions brought to homicide attempts. He does praise the methodology in a few places, but then clarified in published/spoken remarks that the nature of that type of research has it's own problems that most scholars would already know, but the lay audience may not assume.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/03/1242313/-Defensive-Gun-Use-Part-IV-The-National-Self-Defense-Survey


So where do we stand? What does adding Wolfgang's remarks add to this article? His article is cited 39 times, according to Google Scholar. K&G are cited 464. C&L 167, 93, and 66 respectively. While digging through the citations to Wolfgang, I came across this:
-- <font style="font-family:Brush Script MT; font-size:15px;">] </font> ] 02:43, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
:"Notably, Marvin E. Wolfgang, one of the most eminent criminologists of the twentieth century, and a strong supporter of gun control, reviewed Kleck's findings. Announcing that he found Kleck's implications disturbing, Wolfgang wrote that he could find no methodological flaw, nor any other reason to doubt the correctness of Kleck's figure." Kopel, David B. and Little, Christopher C. "Communitarians, Neorepublicans, and Guns: Assessing the Case for Firearms Prohibition" 56 Md. L. Rev. 438 (1997)
and:
:"Particularly impressive support for this conclusion has been supplied through its endorsement by an eminent criminologist who is deeply opposed to gun ownership," Barnett, Randy E. and Kates, Don B. "UNDER FIRE: THE NEW CONSENSUS ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT" Emory Law Journal, Fall 1996.
That seems to be the sort of thing that would be supported by sources that aren't from advocacy groups. I'd argue we don't need to add this bit from Wolfgang at all, doesn't seem to add anything of substance outside of the appeal to authority. However, I'd be willing to compromise if we can reduce the fluff, compact it into a single sentence (or maybe even a clause) and mix it into the context of another paragraph. Alternatively, we could to the POV creep and add the context from his follow up where he generally states the problems of small numbers and extrapolation from small samples... -]&nbsp;</sup>]] 17:55, 16 October 2019 (UTC)


:{{u|Andrew c}} IMO, the quote works in the article, because in p1 we discuss the k&g findings, and in p2-4 we discuss criticisms and defenses of the research. Is Hemmenway's commentary out of place too? Is that not an appeal to authority to discredit K&G? How often are those sources cited? Regarding cherry picking, Wolfgang cherry picked those exact same quotes in the second article, so it seems those indeed are the important ones. 2 out of 39 cites have issues. Are you claiming that the other 37 are also biased? In that second article he reiterates his point that they did their work correctly, but that the work suffers from the same flaws that all survey research does. '''I have no objection to extending the relevant paragraph to include additional context'''. ] (]) 18:22, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
This study is already in here too much: it's 20 years old, it's been disproven, it's fatally methodologically flawed, and it does not even pass the basic logical test of giving an estimate of defensive gun uses that is less than total number of violent crimes (which includes all gun uses.) <small class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 12:02, 6 December 2015 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->


::Looking through the history, you are the one who added this to the article. BRD seems to apply here. You boldly inserted something, and I reverted it. Just because this is a low priority article that doesn't have a lot of eyes on it, doesn't mean your disputed edits get to stand in the article. I'd argue that we remove the disputed section until we can build consensus for a new version. I already proposed a path forward. My preference would be to be much more concise and integrate. You proposed expanding which seems to get into undo weight and POV creep and back and forth, which does not read well. I'd propose: "In a 1995 commentary, eminent criminologist ] wrote that while he was personally troubled by the findings that refute his theory regarding "the use of a gun in defense against a criminal perpetrator", he praised their methodological diligence." Hmm... ok this is a little harder than I first thought, that needs some polishing. BUt something along those lines and insert it in the first paragraph of that section before the By 1997... -]&nbsp;</sup>]] 18:33, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
== Please watch out for pro-gun fraud in this article, when I originally found it yesterday, there had been a completely made up figure of 33 million defensive gun uses annually, a logically impossible figure someone just made up. Beware of gun-lovers! ==


:{{u|Andrew c}}I don't believe I actually did add it to the article originally if you are talking about my 2017 edit. In some form, the content has been in place since ''at least'' 2014, and been edited multiple times, including by those strongly on the GC side, https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Defensive_gun_use&diff=prev&oldid=591597389 so I strongly dispute that BRD applies here, except for you being bold by deleting it, and my restoring it. And now we discuss. I think we need something somewhat more robust that what you propose, but I think something in that vein is probably workable. I don't have time to wordsmith right now, but I will stew on it. ] (]) 19:15, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Beware of gun lovers! Many false claims were planted in this article, seemingly deliberately, that I had to delete yesterday, after reading the references and finding them to be just completely fabricated. The biggest whopper was this one: "estimates on the high end are 33 million per year." There are only about 1 million violent crimes per year. This is like saying "a defensive gun use occurs in 3300 percent of crimes." This is not logically possible, and even the "high end" figures of 1 million are given undue weight here, given that, they too, are logically impossible, implying more defensive gun use than crime, and are disproven, and over 20 years old and out of date, and based on a laughably small telephone survey of unverified self-report (or boasting over the phone.) <small><span class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 19:45, 6 December 2015 (UTC)</span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->


== Phoenix, Arizona study ==
The above analysis is ] and a violation of wikipedia policy. ] demands we present all notable viewpoints neutrally. Hemenway gets his section. Kleck gets his too. while there is always room for improvement, and for criticism of viewpoints in the article, your edits are a gross violation of policy. You should be aware that this topic is under ], which means that policy violations such as yours can result in sanctions, including blocks, topic bans, or being banned from the project all together. ] (]) 21:55, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
:{{u|TruthIsDivine}} The high figures are estimates and are sourced. See http://home.uchicago.edu/ludwigj/papers/JQC-CookLudwig-DefensiveGunUses-1998.pdf. ]<sub>(])</sub> 21:57, 6 December 2015 (UTC)


Regarding this fragment: "A 2004 study surveyed the records of a Phoenix, Arizona newspaper, as well as police and court records, and found a total of 3 instances of defensive gun use over a 3.5 month period. In contrast, Kleck and Gertz's study would predict that the police should have noticed more than 98 DGU killings or woundings and 236 DGU firings at adversaries during this time."
1. It does not say 33 million anywhere in that article. You are lying. Show me the inline citation that says 33 million.


Kleck and Gertz did report a 8.3% wounding rate from their phone interviews, but explained why it is unreliable and most likely far too high. A study which reports data that is inconsistent with the 8.3% wounding rate is hardly in tension with Kleck and Gertz. I'm also not sure why the police would have noticed any gun firings if almost all are unreported. ] (]) 00:57, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
2. Use common sense. The number of defensive gun uses cannot be 30 times greater than the total number of violent crimes. Are you stupid? <small><span class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 22:01, 6 December 2015 (UTC)</span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

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Some reminders

  • This article (and the entire topic of of Gun Control) is subject to discretionary sanctions.
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  • WP:OR WP:SYNTH making claims which are not explicitly made by sources is not permitted.
  • Redefining "Defensive gun use" to mean "justifiable homicide" is about as clear a case of this as you could get, since the reliable sources to not define it thus.
  • etc.

As these changes have been made without consensus, I will be reverting to the status quo version. ResultingConstant (talk) 01:38, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Unpublished/lost/secret CDC DGU

Why nobody ever heard about this until now is up for grabs but apparently the CDC had three years of telephone surveys they never published or admitted they did where they asked about DGU https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3124326 TMLutas (talk) 14:30, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Because it was unpublished? Also if it was unpublished my question would be why, was it rejected? Who (by the way) are SSnn, their mission statement reads like it is (in effect) a self publishing site, you upload you paper they publish it.Slatersteven (talk) 14:59, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
There is a Wikipediia article on SSRN. --Naaman Brown (talk) 20:38, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
According to reason magazine, he pulled his paper to correct some errors. link, we can perhaps revisit this once he republishes his paper. Bonewah (talk) 13:14, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
When it is published in an RS yes.Slatersteven (talk) 13:19, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
Social Science Research Network SSRN is commonly used by academics to post working papers for discussion and review for comment and revision prior to submission to an academic symposium or publication. Gary Kleck, "What Do CDC’s Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses? ", 14 Feb 2018. Kleck & Gertz 1994 NSDS was published in 1995; CDC did three DGU surveys 1996, 1997, 1998 with results similar to the contested NSDS survey as part of their Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) yet not a mention, unlike the NSPOF survey. --Naaman Brown (talk) 20:34, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
Although we should wait for Kleck to update the paper with revised results, per WP:SPS we do not need to wait for 3rd parties. Kleck himself IS the 3rd party reporting on CDC research, and as a repeatedly published expert in the field (albeit a controversial one) his statements are inherently notable and reliable (as his statements). We would obviously need to follow attribution of his analysis/interpretation of the CDC research. ResultingConstant (talk) 23:06, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Rename

This should be Defensive gun use in the USA, as this seems to be the focus of the article.Slatersteven (talk) 13:44, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Seconded Chloehoey (talk) 19:50, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Hemenway research

In the 2 Hemenway research articles he only polled 122 persons in 1996 and 131 persons in 1999 making this a grossly insufficient sample size from which to draw any meaningful conclusion.


"Also in 2000, Hemenway and his colleagues conducted a small survey that found that guns in the home were used more often to intimidate family members (13 respondents) than in self-defense (2 respondents). "

Again, this is no better than anecdotal. When you poll fewer people than those in a Starbucks at any given time, it is not worthy of inclusion in the conversation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.127.21.203 (talk) 23:52, 9 September 2019 (UTC)


"The neutrality of this article is disputed." - - - Wonder why..... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.127.21.203 (talk) 00:00, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

DRMIES: "This user supports really strict concealed carry laws that will make concealed carry for civilians illegal." - NO KIDDING

Marvin Wolfgang

This paragraph seems out of place, poorly written, and overall problematic. I do not know the history of this article, nor a lot on this topic. But I know if I were grading a high school research paper, marks would be taken off. The paragraph sticks out like a sore thumb, and I sense a bit of POV creep going into it. There is clearly an appeal to authority, either someone thought adding the quote praising his background would give weight to his view, or someone challenged why bother quoting Wolfgang at all, and someone dug up that quote. While perhaps a little contextualization, generally speaking, is a good thing, this kind of fluff is unencyclopedic, and we don't have similar quotes for Lott or Hemenway or Kleck and Gertz. It appears that this quote is quite popular in popular discourse because this scholar, in the same commentary piece, says he is extremely anti-gun, while also saying those sound bites that support the methodology of K&G. So these quotes have often been repeated by gun-rights organizations in support of K&G. However, Wolfgang nuanced his stance in remarks given to the Gun and Violence Symposium a year later, and that bit is often quoted by control advocates to dispute/clarify the other quotes. Furthermore, the quotes in the article (and used by gun-rights advocates) are taken out of context, and would be considered quote mining. So what is Wolfgang trying to say in this piece? That resisting the use of a gun a robbery can lead to serious injury, and goes through an old study he worked on, and explains a few scenarios of resistance/non-resistance and type of threat in robbery, and concludes he did not have data on success rate of gun resistance, but G&K seem to close that loop. He seems more concerned with any conclusions brought to homicide attempts. He does praise the methodology in a few places, but then clarified in published/spoken remarks that the nature of that type of research has it's own problems that most scholars would already know, but the lay audience may not assume.

So where do we stand? What does adding Wolfgang's remarks add to this article? His article is cited 39 times, according to Google Scholar. K&G are cited 464. C&L 167, 93, and 66 respectively. While digging through the citations to Wolfgang, I came across this:

"Notably, Marvin E. Wolfgang, one of the most eminent criminologists of the twentieth century, and a strong supporter of gun control, reviewed Kleck's findings. Announcing that he found Kleck's implications disturbing, Wolfgang wrote that he could find no methodological flaw, nor any other reason to doubt the correctness of Kleck's figure." Kopel, David B. and Little, Christopher C. "Communitarians, Neorepublicans, and Guns: Assessing the Case for Firearms Prohibition" 56 Md. L. Rev. 438 (1997)

and:

"Particularly impressive support for this conclusion has been supplied through its endorsement by an eminent criminologist who is deeply opposed to gun ownership," Barnett, Randy E. and Kates, Don B. "UNDER FIRE: THE NEW CONSENSUS ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT" Emory Law Journal, Fall 1996.

That seems to be the sort of thing that would be supported by sources that aren't from advocacy groups. I'd argue we don't need to add this bit from Wolfgang at all, doesn't seem to add anything of substance outside of the appeal to authority. However, I'd be willing to compromise if we can reduce the fluff, compact it into a single sentence (or maybe even a clause) and mix it into the context of another paragraph. Alternatively, we could to the POV creep and add the context from his follow up where he generally states the problems of small numbers and extrapolation from small samples... -Andrew c  17:55, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Andrew c IMO, the quote works in the article, because in p1 we discuss the k&g findings, and in p2-4 we discuss criticisms and defenses of the research. Is Hemmenway's commentary out of place too? Is that not an appeal to authority to discredit K&G? How often are those sources cited? Regarding cherry picking, Wolfgang cherry picked those exact same quotes in the second article, so it seems those indeed are the important ones. 2 out of 39 cites have issues. Are you claiming that the other 37 are also biased? In that second article he reiterates his point that they did their work correctly, but that the work suffers from the same flaws that all survey research does. I have no objection to extending the relevant paragraph to include additional context. ResultingConstant (talk) 18:22, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Looking through the history, you are the one who added this to the article. BRD seems to apply here. You boldly inserted something, and I reverted it. Just because this is a low priority article that doesn't have a lot of eyes on it, doesn't mean your disputed edits get to stand in the article. I'd argue that we remove the disputed section until we can build consensus for a new version. I already proposed a path forward. My preference would be to be much more concise and integrate. You proposed expanding which seems to get into undo weight and POV creep and back and forth, which does not read well. I'd propose: "In a 1995 commentary, eminent criminologist Marvin Wolfgang wrote that while he was personally troubled by the findings that refute his theory regarding "the use of a gun in defense against a criminal perpetrator", he praised their methodological diligence." Hmm... ok this is a little harder than I first thought, that needs some polishing. BUt something along those lines and insert it in the first paragraph of that section before the By 1997... -Andrew c  18:33, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Andrew cI don't believe I actually did add it to the article originally if you are talking about my 2017 edit. In some form, the content has been in place since at least 2014, and been edited multiple times, including by those strongly on the GC side, https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Defensive_gun_use&diff=prev&oldid=591597389 so I strongly dispute that BRD applies here, except for you being bold by deleting it, and my restoring it. And now we discuss. I think we need something somewhat more robust that what you propose, but I think something in that vein is probably workable. I don't have time to wordsmith right now, but I will stew on it. ResultingConstant (talk) 19:15, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Phoenix, Arizona study

Regarding this fragment: "A 2004 study surveyed the records of a Phoenix, Arizona newspaper, as well as police and court records, and found a total of 3 instances of defensive gun use over a 3.5 month period. In contrast, Kleck and Gertz's study would predict that the police should have noticed more than 98 DGU killings or woundings and 236 DGU firings at adversaries during this time."

Kleck and Gertz did report a 8.3% wounding rate from their phone interviews, but explained why it is unreliable and most likely far too high. A study which reports data that is inconsistent with the 8.3% wounding rate is hardly in tension with Kleck and Gertz. I'm also not sure why the police would have noticed any gun firings if almost all are unreported. Jsupim1 (talk) 00:57, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

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