Minuteman Monthly Newsletter Issue 51 October 2005 Have you heard that if you own a gun, it's forty three (43X) times more likely to be used to shoot an acquaintance or family member than to kill a criminal intruder? Do you instinctively know that this often stated statistic is a load of bovine manure? This statistic is heard often coming from the mouths of anti-gun fanatics who have no idea what they're talking about. In this month's issue of the Minuteman Monthly, I will uncover the truth about this misleading and deceptive statistic. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ SAVETHEGUNS.COM QUOTES OF THE MONTH (dictator's comments on guns) "One man with a gun can control one hundred without one." Vladimir Lenin "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Mao Tse-tung "We don't let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?" Josef Stalin "The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their fall by doing so." Adolf Hitler "The measures adopted to restore public order are: First of all the elimination of the so-called subversive elements.... They were elements of disorder and subversion. On the morrow of each conflict I gave the categorical order to confiscate the largest possible number of weapons of every sort and kind. This confiscation, which continues with the utmost energy, has given satisfactory results." Italy's Fascist ruler, Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, Italian Senate Speech, June 8, 1923 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ SAVETHEGUNS.COM GUN SAFETY TIP OF THE MONTH Gun safes are a good idea for your firearms that are not intended for immediate use to defend your home. Obviously a firearm locked up in a safe, won't be of any use to defend yourself with during a "hot" break-in. However, there is a place for gun safes in the home. They don't have to cost as much as your first two cars either. In case of a home burglary, a good sturdy gun safe, lag-bolted to both the floor and the wall, will prevent your cherished firearms from making their way into the hands of thugs. When you have friends come over for a visit and you want to show them your prized gun collection, you won't have the embarrassment of handing them a dusty rifle. Near the bottom of my "Safety Rules" page, there's a good selection of affordable gun safes for you to choose from. There's a Stack-On 19 gun safe linked there for just $599.97. http://www.savetheguns.com/safety_rules.htm +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ NRA MEMBERSHIP AS A CHRISTMAS GIFT... http://membership.nrahq.org/default.asp?campaignid=XR017807 If you're NRA Membership is about to expire, or you want to give an NRA Membership as a Christmas gift, please use this link. Hmmmm, an NRA Membership as a Christmas gift, what a great idea for that special young man or woman in your life!! A Junior NRA Membership for a child under 18 can mean so much for the future of gun rights in America. Get them started today!! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ONLINE STORE Thank you for your patience as I work on my "Online Store" pages. I'm putting in hours working on these pages as I have the time. The Christmas shopping season is almost upon us and I hope to have these pages done soon. See what I've done already by clicking on the link. http://www.savetheguns.com/online_store.htm I have completed fourteen "Online Store" pages. Including the following new ones; Electronics, Emergency Supplies, Firearm Accessories, Holsters and Knives. Don't waste your time aimlessly wandering the mall for Christmas gifts. Do your hassle-free shopping on my pages instead. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ MINUTEMAN MONTHLY AIMING POINT FOR OCTOBER I have obtained permission from Professor Preston K. Covey Ph.D. to preprint this article which is one of the best ever written on the subject of debunking the myth that a gun in the home is 43 times more likely to harm a friend or loved one than to be used to kill an intruder. The anti-gun crowd uses this misleading and deceptive statistic all the time. It's very important that you read and understand the lies and falsehoods behind this statistic so you can effectively defend the truth. Please make time to read it all the way through sometime this month. Reading the entire document is very important. We MUST completely defuse this twisted claim by the anti-gun left in the United States of America. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Gun Stats and Mortal Risks Preston K. Covey, Ph.D. Director Center for the Advancement of Applied Ethics Carnegie Mellon University -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Preface On December 27, 1992, Alfred Sachanowski, Jr., shot William "Red" Greene dead. Alfred shot Greene in defense of himself, one woman and four children. Greene, who had a police record going back to 1978, had invaded the home of his ex-wife Carol, bent on vengeful murder. Greene shot and killed Carol's fiancé, Ronald Sachanowski, Alfred's brother, before being fatally shot by Alfred. Alfred had himself taken two point-blank rounds in his forehead from Greene's .22 Magnum revolver. During his rampage, Greene repeatedly vowed to kill everyone in the house, including Ronald's four children. Alfred's shooting of Greene was ruled justifiable homicide and credited with saving six innocent lives by the District Attorney of Wyoming County, NY. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anecdotes like this illustrate possibility but prove nothing about probability, a crucial dimension of what we may confront in the way of mortal risks. But even statistics based on the experience of the general population are not definitive of any particular individual's risks or expectable benefits. What's worse, statistics are often misleadingly concocted and therefore problematic as bases for personal decisions or advice. This essay questions misleadingly concocted statistics, the uncritical citation of statistics as a basis for giving advice about how to manage mortal risks and, in particular, the use of statistical concoctions alone as a basis for making personal decisions about keeping firearms for protection. My cases in point are two: the most highly publicized "statistic" on the risks of keeping a firearm in the home and some more favorable estimations of the risks and benefits of firearms for personal protection. I examine ways in which the former statistic is grossly misleading and illustrate variable formulations of the latter measures in order to argue that statistics, even trustworthy ones, are no substitute for personal responsibility and choice in determining one's own individual policy or fate. At bottom, this essay is a modest exercise in commonsense thinking about what statistics mean and what, more than statistics, we need to know and consider regarding the advisability of keeping firearms for protection as a matter of personal policy. I am concerned here with questions about the personal risks and benefits of privately owned firearms, rather than their social costs and benefits (a public policy concern to which individual risks and benefits are also relevant). I do not provide a comprehensive analysis of the many and various statistics promulgated on the risks and benefits of privately owned firearms. Nor do I take any study to task on methodological grounds, questioning the adequacy of the methods used to arrive at a given statistic. Rather, I focus on how one simple and notorious statistic is misleadingly formulated, in order to pose commonsense questions about what such statistics mean and to illustrate how general statistics are, in any case, neither definitive of personal risk nor dispositive regarding what one is best advised to do in the face of estimable risk. In particular, I emphasize the role of individual choice and circumstance in determining one's risks and the role of personal choice and responsibility in successfully managing one's own mortal risks. One's fate, in any case, is not only a function of so-called chance (or matters beyond one's control), which is only roughly estimated by "actuarials" or "averages;" one's fate is also a function of personal choice and responsibility. This basic and commonsense point is remarkable only for being so often neglected in the public brouhaha over firearm abuse and gun control. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The "43 Times" Statistic A front-page Wall Street Journal article entitled "Armed Force" by Erik Larson (2/4/93) on a personal protection course for women by defensive firearms trainer Paxton Quigley, cited the world's most notorious "statistic" regarding guns in the home: A pioneering study of residential gunshot deaths in King County, Washington, found that a gun in the home was 43 times more likely to be used to kill its owner, spouse, a friend or child than to kill an intruder. The "43 times" stat is everywhere these days; it has grown in media lore like the proverbial urban myth: it was inflated by one pugilistic talk-show pundit to "93." Given the shock value of the finding, the conclusion of the cited New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) study is remarkably understated: The advisability of keeping firearms in the home for protection must be questioned. (A.L. Kellerman and D.T. Reay, "Protection or Peril? An Analysis of Firearm-Related Deaths in the Home," New England Journal of Medicine 1986, 314, 1557-1560.) Fair Risk/Benefit Analyses People should indeed carefully weigh the risks and benefits of bringing a firearm into their home. But what we need to know is this: What exactly are the risks and benefits? The NEJM finding is neither the whole truth about the benefits nor nothing but the truth about the risks. Further, as with motor vehicles, we want to know: What control do we have over the risks and benefits? And, as with the risks of rape, heart disease, or auto accidents: How can we minimize the risks? Like raw highway death tolls, the NEJM stat is not at all helpful here. Worse, it is rankly deceptive. The NEJM finding purports to inform us, but it is framed to warn us off. It is widely promulgated in the media as a "scare stat," a grossly misleading half-truth whose very formulation is calculated to prejudice and terrify. The frightful statistic screams for itself: The risks far outweigh the benefits, yes? What fool would run these risks? If your car were 43 times more likely to kill you, a loved one, a dear friend or an innocent child than to get you to your destination, should you not take the bus? Uncritical citation puts the good name of statistics in the bad company of lies and damned lies. Surely, we can do better where lives are at stake. Let's take a closer look at this risky business. Where Do The Numbers Come From? The "43 times" stat of the NEJM study is the straightforward product of simple arithmetic, the product of dividing the number of home intruders or aggressors justifiably killed in self-defense (the divisor) into the number of family members or acquaintances killed with a gun in the home (the dividend). The divisor of this risk equation is 9: in the study's five-year sample there were 2 intruders and 7 others killed in self-defense. The dividend is 387: in the study there were 12 accidental deaths, 42 criminal homicides, and 333 suicides. 387 divided by 9 yields 43. There were a total of 743 gun-related deaths in King County between 1978 and 1983, so the study leaves 347 gun deaths outside of homes unaccounted. But, while arrived at in a simple and straightforward way (counting dead bodies classified by the circumstance of death), the "43 times" statistic is misleading or misleadingly framed in the following ways: "Acquaintances" Aren't Always Friendly The dividend of the NEJM risk equation is invariably misrepresented in the media: the "or acquaintances" of the study (who include your friendly drug dealers and neighborhood gang members) is equated to "friends." Notice how Erik Larson framed the finding: "a gun in the home was 43 times more likely to be used to kill its owner, [a] spouse, a friend or child than to kill an intruder" (emphasis mine). What about other "acquaintances?" The implication is that the offending guns target and kill only beloved family members, dear friends, and innocent children. Deaths may all be equally tragic, but the character and circumstance of one's "acquaintances" are relevant to the risk: for example, folks who traffic with "acquaintances" who are substance abusers or drug dealers are far more likely to be involved in violent encounters than people who do not. These crucial risk factors are masked by the calculated impression that the death toll is generated by witless Waltons shooting dear friends and friendly neighbors. This is criminological hogwash: beloved friends and family are one thing, other acquaintances are quite another, especially in high-risk environs. Not All Households Are At Equal Risk The finding itself does not distinguish households or environs populated by "high risk" people with violent, criminal or substance-abuse histories (where the risk of death by gun is very high) versus households inhabited by more civil folk (say, people who avoid high-risk activities like substance abuse, gang banging, and wife beating, where the risk is indeed negligible). In actuality, negligent adults allow fatal but avoidable accidents; and over 75% of homicides are perpetrated by people with prior criminal records or histories of violence, felonious folk who are identifiably and certifiably at "high risk" for misadventure. To ignore these obvious risk factors in firearm accidents and homicides is as misleading as ignoring the role of alcohol in vehicular deaths: by tautology, neither gun deaths nor vehicular deaths would occur without firearms or vehicles; but the history, state and circumstance of the gun owner or the driver in question crucially affect the risk. If you do not drink and drive, your risk of being involved in a fatal highway accident is hardly the same as a drunk driver's: general statistics on vehicular death do not differentiate between drunk and sober drivers, whose risks of causing or suffering vehicular death are quite different. Not All Gun Owners Are At Equal Risk Another misleading implication of the way the NEJM stat is often framed is that the mere presence of a gun in the home is much more likely to kill than to protect, and this obscures -- indeed, disregards -- the role of personal responsibility. The typical quotation of this study (unlike Larson's) attributes fatal agency to the gun itself: "A gun in the home is 43 times as likely to kill..." (The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, a major promulgator of the NEJM statistic, uses this particular formulation.) Regardless of errant phrasing, the NEJM stat itself does not differentiate the risks for responsible gun owners versus those for reckless, violent or criminally-minded folk. We can dispense with the silly debate about whether it's people or guns that accomplish the killing: again, by tautology, gun deaths would not occur without the guns. The question begged is how many deaths would occur anyway, without the guns. In any case, people are the death-dealing agents, the guns are their lethal instruments. The moral core of the personal risk factors in gun deaths are personal responsibility and choice. Due care and responsibility obviate gun accidents; human choice as well as disposition and character mediate homicide and suicide (by gun or otherwise). The choice to own a gun need not condemn a person to the NEJM's high-risk pool. The gun does not create this risk by itself. People have a lot to say about what risk they run with guns in their homes. For example, graduates of Paxton Quigley's personal protection course (or any other firearm safety and personal protection training program) do not run the touted "43 times" risk any more than skilled and sober drivers run the same risks of causing or suffering vehicular death as do reckless or drunk drivers. Undiscriminating actuarials (such as raw death tolls for the general population) disregard and obscure the role of personal responsibility and choice, just as they disregard and obscure the role of demographic, criminal-history and other relevant risk factors in firearm-related death. This is why we may resent insurance premiums and actuarial consignment to risk pools whose norms or "averages" disregard our individualities (and why, for example, life or health insurance premiums are based on risk-relevant factors such as age and medical history). Fortunately, nothing can consign us to the NEJM risk pool but our own lack of choice or responsibility in the matter. The choices we make and how we conduct ourselves influence the risks we run, with guns, for example, as with cars or our health. The fact that, on average, any of us may run an X% risk of contracting lung cancer does not mean that how we manage our health cannot significantly reduce that risk: indeed, on the contrary, habitual smokers run a far higher risk than non-smokers. Likewise, gun owners need not be "NEJM average." Counting Suicides Inflates The Risk Nothing is a more profoundly personal decision than taking one's own life. Suicide accounts for 84% of the deaths by gun in the home in the NEJM study. As against the total deaths by gun in King County, including those outside the home, in-house suicides are 44% of the total death toll, which is closer to the roughly 50% proportion found by other studies. Suicide is a social problem of a very different order from homicide or accidents. The implication of the NEJM study is that these suicides might not occur without readily available guns. It is true that attempted suicide by gun is likely to succeed. It is not obviously true that the absence of a gun would prevent any or many of these suicides. This is widely assumed or alleged, but the preponderance of the research on guns and suicide contends otherwise, that this is wishful thinking in all but a few truly impulsive cases. (See: Bruce L. Danto et al., The Human Side of Homicide, Columbia University Press, 1982; Charles Rich et al., "Guns and Suicide," American Journal of Psychiatry, March 1990.) If suicides were removed from the dividend of the NEJM study's risk equation, the "43 times" stat would deflate to six. The inclusion of suicides in the NEJM risk equation -- like the causes, durability, or propriety of interdicting suicidal intent itself -- is a profoundly debatable matter -- empirically, ethically, and politically. The NEJM finding simply masks these issues and, again, the factors of personal responsibility and choice in the matter. Those who are not at risk for suicide are, happily, not consigned to the "43 times" risk pool. Those who are at risk for suicide have a clear choice, if they wish to avoid the fatal occasion: to keep away from lethal instrumentalities. In households in which suicide is a risk (for example, for teenage youth) as in households where fatal accident is a risk (for example, for younger children), the prophylactic choice is obvious: due care on the part of the responsible adults to keep any firearm (just like prescription drugs or the car keys) secure from unauthorized or unsupervised hands. Reckless, homicidal, or suicidal folk may choose to own and abuse guns. But gun owners are hardly thereby condemned to become reckless, homicidal or suicidal; they have some choice in the matter. In the case of competent adults, the choice of suicide (unlike reckless endangerment or homicide, but like self-defense) is arguably their right. Justifiable Homicides Are Undercounted By lumping all gun fatalities together, the NEJM rate of one out of 43 deaths -- or 2.3% -- is grossly misleading regarding the rate of justifiable homicide. The NEJM finding is framed specifically to belittle the defensive utility of firearms in the home. In order to deflate the apparent rate of justifiable/defensive homicide, which is one indicator (albeit only one indicator) of the defensive utility of firearms, the NEJM study compares nine justified defensive homicides with all other gun fatalities in the home (387) and thereby generates the scare stat that a gun in the home is 43 times more likely to be used to kill a household member or acquaintance than to kill an aggressor and save innocent life. This is misleading because the rate of justifiable homicide is properly measured as the ratio of justifiable homicides to total homicides. Using the NEJM body count, the nine justifiable homicides would be divided by the 51 total homicides (42 criminal homicides plus nine justifiable homicides), where the rate of justifiable homicide is then 17.6% -- not 2.3%. The fact that homicidal aggressors in the NEJM study succeeded in killing their victims nearly seven times more often than defenders succeeded in killing their assailants is no surprise, since aggressors often have the advantage of premeditation and nature's law: action beats reaction. If we care about the fate of innocent life in the face of homicidal threat, this disparity could as well be used to argue that more innocent householders should be better armed and better prepared in the gravest extreme. Be that as it may, given that premeditated action beats reaction, the defenders' success rate of 15% in the NEJM study compares well with other measures of justifiable homicide. Most official measures of justifiable versus criminal homicide are based on the immediate disposition of cases, while many homicides initially classified as criminal are appealed or later ruled self-defense. For example, in the literature on battered women, immediate case dispositions are notorious for under-representing the rate of self-defense homicide (see: Cynthia K. Gillespie, Justifiable Homicide, Ohio State University Press, 1989). Time Magazine's January 18, 1993, cover story on women "Fighting Back" against attack by abusive mates reported one study's finding that 40% of women who appeal have their murder convictions thrown out, while upwards of 50% of spousal shootings are by abuse victims and most of the others are by chronic abusers. Time's July 17, 1989, cover story on a week of 464 gun deaths in America reported 14 (6%) of the 231 homicides as self-defense. In a May 14, 1990, update, Time reported that 28 (12%) of the homicides had eventually been ruled justifiable self-defense. Thus, in Time's sample, the originally reported rate of self-defense was found to be in error by a factor of two, one year later. Because 60% of the women who shot men in this sample were still at trial, we could expect the rate of justifiable homicide in the Time sample to go still higher, but the NEJM rate of 15% (based on a five-year sample) nonetheless compares well with Time's revised rate of 12%. However, the track record of gun-armed defenders against criminal assailants is not adequately measured by how many assailants they kill. Please read on. Self-Defense Doesn't Require Killing Finally, we come to the most egregious flaw in the "43 times" scare stat as a measure of the defensive utility of guns kept in the home. While both the dividend and the product of the NEJM risk equation are arguably inflated, the divisor is unconscionably misleading. The divisor of this equation counts only aggressors who are killed, not aggressors who are successfully thwarted without being killed, injured or even shot at. The utility of armed self-defense is the other side of the coin from the harms done with guns in homes. What kind of moral idiocy is it to measure this utility only in terms of killings? Do we measure the utility of our police solely in terms of felons killed -- as opposed to the many many more who are otherwise foiled, apprehended, or deterred? Should we not celebrate (let alone count) those cases where no human life is lost as successful armed defenses? One question for the authors and promulgators of the NEJM scare stat is this: Why focus on fatalities? Why neglect successful non-fatal armed defense and the most compendious survey of research thereon, most notably that by criminologist Gary Kleck (Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, Aldine de Gruyter, 1991)? Kleck's estimations of the rate and risks of defensive firearm use are based on victimization surveys as well as other studies: that rate is high (originally estimated at nearly one million a year, more recently estimated at over two million a year) and the risk is good (gun defenders fare far better in rate of injury, better than either those who resort to other forms of resistance or those who do not resist). Indeed, Dr. Arthur Kellerman, co-author of the NEJM "43 times" scare stat study, has himself conceded the defensive value of firearms: "If you've got to resist, your chances of being hurt are less the more lethal your weapon. If that were my wife, would I want her to have a thirty-eight special in her hand? Yeah." (Ann Japenga, "Would I Be Safer with a Gun?" Health, March/April 1994) What Measurements Are Most Meaningful? In what follows, I examine alternative statistical concoctions of the risks/benefits of firearms based, respectively, on Kleck's original estimates and his more recent estimations of defensive use both within and outside the home. Defensive use includes more than justifiable homicides; the vast majority (an estimated 98%) of defensive uses result in neither death nor injury: only 2% of civilians' defensive use of firearms results in fatality or injury (Jeffrey S. Snyder, "A Nation of Cowards," The Public Interest, Fall 1993). I leave it to you, the reader, to decide whose concoction (NEJM's or mine) is more telling or compelling, with the caveat that you think hard about what any of these numbers mean and about a crucial question ignored by the stat spats: What more does a person need to know or consider before either embracing or rejecting the personal choice of keeping a firearm for protection? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dividing Kleck's original top-end estimate of 965,000 gun defenses a year by 30,000 (a roughly contemporaneous annual gun-death toll from self-defense and criminal homicides, suicides, and accidents) yields 32. Thus, we can concoct a much more favorable "statistic" than the NEJM scare stat: A gun is 32 times more likely to be used to defend against criminal threat than to kill anybody. Of course, Kleck's critics belittle the dividend of this calculation; what's good news for gun defenders is bad news for gun detractors. We must indeed question the basis and implications of any estimation of defensive firearm use, as I have questioned the NEJM statistic. Of course, Kleck's Point Blank provides a responsible accounting of his estimation methods. Clearly, the issue of how to manage mortal risks is not settled by uncritical citation of statistics. But the "43 times" scare stat, representing only home-bound fatalities, is hardly an accurate score on the defensive or net utility of firearms. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For what it's worth, let's look at some more discerning "statistics" based on variant estimations of the frequency with which guns are used to defend against criminal threat. I say "for what it's worth," because the "averages" below (like any average) are deceptive: neither actuarials nor estimates either determine or ensure your own personal measure of risk/benefit -- individual mileage will vary; your mileage is to some extent up to you and to some extent a function of unknown contingencies. As you review the variant measures of risk/benefit that follow, ask yourself whether the different numbers make a difference to the advisability of keeping a firearm for protection -- and, if so, what difference they make. The variant "statistics" reviewed below are more discerning because they distinguish among aggregate gun deaths, new-criminal homicide, homicide in general, accidental deaths, and suicide. Again, you need to ask yourself whether either different estimations or distinguishing among categories of firearm risks (rather than aggregating them) make a difference to the advisability of keeping a firearm for protection -- and, if so, what difference they make. Needless to say, comparing defensive uses of firearms against gun deaths is not the only way to cook up a measure of risk/benefit. We could include firearm injuries and their associated costs to enhance the risk component. And we could include other measures of the benefits of private firearms ownership besides defensive utility (for example, their role in deterring or reducing the costs of crime). However, the following variations will suffice to show that the NEJM scare stat is not a fair measure of the matter, to pose the problem of how indeed we should calculate the risk/benefit of firearms ownership, and to press the crucial questions: What difference do the numbers make? What more, besides variant statistics, does a person need to know and consider about the advisability of keeping a firearm for protection? So, for example, we can deflate the product of the risk/benefit calculation of keeping a gun for protection by taking a more conservative estimate of defensive firearm use. The figure of 965,000 gun defenses a year is the top-end estimate from Kleck's original analysis. The figure of 750,000 gun defenses a year is more conservative and less liable to dismissal; it is in the midrange of the 606,000 to 965,000 variance that Kleck judiciously allowed. In order to demystify this risky estimation business, I state the assumptions and calculation of the various risk/benefit estimations explicitly below. GENERAL GUN DEATH A gun is 25 times more likely to be used to defend against criminal threat than to kill anybody. 750,000 gun defenses a year divided by 30,000 gun deaths = 25. NEW-CRIMINAL HOMICIDE A gun is 245 times more likely to be used by a non-criminal to defend against criminal threat than to commit criminal homicide. Here we're interested in the rate of homicidal gun abuse by people without a prior criminal record: previously law-abiding gun owners who are newly turned felons. Assume 30,000 gun deaths per year at the time that Kleck's first estimates were made; subtract suicides @ 15,000: 30,000 - 15,000 = 15,000; subtract fatal gun accidents @ 1400 (per 1991): 15,000 - 1400 = 13,600. Assume a conservative rate of self-defense @ 10% of gun homicides in general: 0.9 x 13,600 = 12,240 gun homicides not in self-defense. Assume the finding of the Chicago Police Department's in-depth study of 20,264 homicides from 1965-91 that 75% of criminal homicides are committed by criminals with prior records (see, for example, the Chicago Police Detective Division 1991 Murder Analysis and 1992 Murder Analysis, for which the average is 74.77%): .25 x 12,240 = 3,060 criminal gun homicides by people with no prior record. 750,000 gun defenses per year divided by 3,060 = 245. (Consider, however, that there are many people, such as abusive mates, with prior histories of violence but who have not yet been convicted of a crime and therefore have no criminal record. Including people with a prior history of violence, not just people with prior criminal records, would decrease the divisor of this calculation and increase the product.) HOMICIDE IN GENERAL A gun is 55 times more likely to be used to defend against criminal threat than to kill another person intentionally. Assume 750,000 gun defenses divided by 13,600 (per above) gun homicides including self-defense = 55. SUICIDE A gun is 50 times more likely to be used to defend against criminal threat than to be used in suicide. Assume 750,000 gun defenses divided by 15,000 gun suicides = 50. ACCIDENTS A gun is over 500 times more likely to be used to defend against criminal threat than to accidentally or unintentionally kill anybody. Assume 750,000 gun defenses per year divided by 1400 fatal gun accidents per 1991 = 535. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Justice Department's annual victimization survey estimates defensive gun use at an order of magnitude smaller than Kleck's, at 62,000 in 1992, one-tenth of Kleck's lowest estimate. Would such a large difference in the numbers make a difference to you? Why/why not? Kleck attributes the difference in reported gun defenses to natural reluctance to admit the possession and use of a gun to a government agency that has the name and address of the person interviewed. Kleck has subsequently fashioned a more rigorous survey method that addresses this issue and the weaknesses in the prior survey data on which he had based his original estimations. The more recent 1993 research by Kleck (Kleck & Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence & Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Vol. 86 No. 1, 1995) more rigorously estimates the annual rate of defensive gun use at over 2,000,000. Assuming a more recent count of annual gun deaths at 38,000 (per 1992), we can then generate the following even more favorable "statistics:" GENERAL GUN DEATH A gun is 50 times more likely to be used to defend against criminal threat than to kill anybody -- intentionally, defensively, criminally, justifiably, suicidally, or by accident. Two million gun defenses x .98 (subtracting fatal defenses) = 1,960,000 non-fatal defenses divided by 38,000 gun deaths = 51.58. (Note: I did not subtract fatal defenses in my prior calculations of general gun deaths above; should I have? What difference would this make? Should fatal defenses be factored out elsewhere? Why or why not?) NEW-CRIMINAL HOMICIDE A gun is 500 times more likely to be used by a non-criminal to defend against criminal threat than to commit criminal homicide. Assume 38,000 gun deaths per year; subtract suicides @ 50% = 19,000; subtract fatal gun accidents @ 1500 = 17,500 homicides. Assume a conservative rate of justifiable homicide @ 10%: .9 x 17,500 = 15,750 criminal homicides. Assume the finding of the 1991 Chicago Police Department in-depth study of 20,264 homicides from 1965-91 that 75% of criminal homicides are committed by criminals with prior records: .25 x 15,750 = 3,938 criminal firearm homicides by people with no prior criminal record. Two million gun defenses x .98 = 1,960,000 non-fatal defenses per year divided by 3,938 = 498. HOMICIDE IN GENERAL A gun is over 100 times more likely to be used to defend against criminal threat than to kill another person intentionally. 1,960,000 non-fatal gun defenses divided by 17,500 gun homicides, including self-defense = 112. SUICIDE A gun is over 100 times more likely to be used to defend against criminal threat than to be used in suicide. Two million gun defenses divided by 19,000 gun suicides = 105. ACCIDENTS A gun is over 1300 times more likely to be used to defend against criminal threat than to accidentally or unintentionally kill anybody. Two million gun defenses per year divided by 1500 fatal gun accidents = 1333. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bottom Line How do you like to mix and cook your statistics? You now have several sample recipes to choose from. There are, of course, many other ways to mix and compare the raw numbers or to rationalize choosing other numbers or estimates. Regardless, you also have many options for avoiding high-risk pools, with a gun in your home as with your car on the road or the medicine in your cabinet. The bottom line: the presence of a gun in the home, like the car in your garage, poses an inherent but remediable risk. Remember the crucial personal risk factor: as a gun owner, provided reasonable self-knowledge and responsible precaution, you have a choice in how prone you are to misadventure by accident, suicide, or homicide. You have some choice in whether you consign yourself to any of the risk pools above, whether to be "average," whether to become a "statistic." With a gun, you happen to have more choice, but commensurately more responsibility. In confronting risk, divide and conquer: homicide, fatal accidents, and suicide are problems of different orders involving different risk factors. If you are neither suicidal nor a felon nor a fool, your odds are vastly better than any of the averages cited above. But this is up to you. Statistical concoctions are no substitute for responsible self-knowledge, responsible conduct, or responsible choice. For those presuming to give advice about how to manage mortal risks washed down with statistical concoctions (Kellerman's, Kleck's, mine or whoever's), I recommend a more judicious tonic: Baruch Fischhoff's "Giving Advice: Decision Theory Perspectives on Sexual Assault" (American Psychologist, April 1992): Indeed, the greatest help to women from the decision-theoretic perspective might be from imposing it on would-be advisors. It should force them to recognize individual women's sovereignty over their decisions and the uniqueness of their situations. It should compel empirical studies to determine what women believe and desire, the results of which might help experts from projecting their own values on others -- not only acting as though 'one size fits all' when it comes to advice but making that size fit the expert's presuppositions. (Emphasis mine.) For those wishing to pursue the risk/benefit issue further, I commend in addition to the Fischhoff article Don B. Kates, "The Value of Civilian Arms Possession as a Deterrent to Crime or a Defense against Crime" (American Journal of Criminal Law, Winter 1991) for a judicious and even-handed analysis of the empirical issues and a systematic review of the research literature regarding both the individual and the social risks and benefits of firearms as defensive tools. Post Script One forthright media report on a tragic death by gun, "Stolen Gun's Tragic Path" by David Templeton (Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 3/15/93, pp. A-1, A-12), was refreshingly free of the errant editorializing typical of both journalistic and academic writing on the risks/benefits of firearms. I commend Mr. Templeton for not indulging in the gratuitous "blame the gun" campaign so popular in the press these days. I would like to comment on the story, however. I mean no disrespect to the deceased. It is no sign of respect to ignore the costly lessons of tragedy. My concern is not to attribute blame for what happened, but to define the parameters of responsibility for avoiding similar tragedy. Anecdotes like this prove nothing about probability, but illustrate possibility. The story was this: Aaron Williams, a gentle and promising young man who was All American in wrestling his freshman year in college, bought a stolen .357 Magnum revolver from a "fence." According to his brother, Aaron knew nothing about guns and was even afraid to shoot the family shotgun. But Aaron told his alarmed family that getting a gun was just "the thing to do nowadays." "An inveterate prankster, Williams was toying with the gun. He emptied six bullets from the cylinder and replaced one bullet, but not in line with the gun barrel. Then he put the gun to his head to fool family members sitting around the table. When he pulled the trigger... the cylinder shifted into place and the gun fired." The Washington County Coroner ruled Williams' death a suicide. But family members insisted that he was just trying to frighten them. His mother urged, "I want people to know that he was just a big, gentle Ben. He wouldn't hurt anyone, let alone himself. He wasn't playing Russian roulette. It was an accident." Aaron's shooting himself was evidently unintentional. But, sad to say, it was also horribly careless and avoidable. Aaron Williams evidently did not know how the revolver operated, that a round in the chamber adjacent to the barrel would align with the firing pin and discharge when the trigger was pulled. Aaron evidently did not know that guns are not toys, that you must know how a gun operates before handling it, that playing with a loaded gun is playing with death, that you treat every gun as loaded, and that you never point a gun at anything you are not willing to see destroyed. Aaron evidently did not know what every adult should know and what every child should be taught about basic gun safety. Aaron would not have died as he did if he had not had that gun, which he obtained and possessed illegally. And Aaron would not have died as he did if he had not been careless, if he had not broken every elementary rule of gun safety. Aaron Williams is another tragic example of why children need safety indoctrination about guns as well as about fire, water, medicine, toxic substances, motor vehicles and other hazards endemic to daily life. Safety is one topic on which even a democratic society requires universal indoctrination. Safety instruction would be mandatory even if guns were banned, like hard drugs. Because, banned or not, felons and fools will forever ensure that we and our children are at risk to encounter them. We may not have much control over whether our children are exposed to hazards like guns or drugs in the wider world -- as with the elemental hazards of earth, air, fire and water, exposure may be beyond our instant or constant control. But we have some control, and clear responsibility, for what our children know and can be expected to do when faced with danger or temptation. When we fail to act on this responsibility over the many years that our children are captives of our care, our innocent and careless children will grow up to be ignorant and negligent adults. We have no right to be surprised by the tragic results. Too many "accidents" are the result of carelessness and, at bottom, adult negligence. Blame the gun? That's worse than useless. Take responsibility. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Preston K. Covey, Ph.D. (Stanford University), is Director of the Center for the Advancement of Applied Ethics at Carnegie Mellon University, where he teaches courses in ethics, public policy, conflict management and dispute resolution. He is a fully sworn Special Deputy assigned to the Training Staff of the Uniform Division of the Sheriff's Reserve of Allegheny County PA, Pennsylvania Chapter Director for the National Institute of Law Enforcement Ethics, a member of the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, the Institute of Criminal Justice Ethics, the Society for Risk Analysis, the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution, the Institute for Research on Small Arms in International Security, the Ethics Committee of the American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers, the Training Standards Committee and the Safety Committee of the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors (IALEFI), Editor of IALEFI's Standards and Practices Reference Guide, one of four board-elected Life Members of IALEFI, and an instructor in threat management and the judicious use of deadly force by police and civilians. He is researching a book on Gun Control: Trying the Facts, Weighing the Values and a law enforcement training video, Think Worst Case! One-Handed Weaponcraft for Officer Survival. Copyright © 1995, Preston K. Covey. Permission to reprint granted.