CDC did not publish data supporting Gary Kleck’s DGU estimates

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strogg
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Re: CDC did not publish data supporting Gary Kleck’s DGU estimates

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Post by strogg »

I feel like I'm missing something here. I did what the author of the paper did. I went to the CDC website and downloaded the BRFSS survey and data for 1996. I took the ASCII dataset and looked at column 314 (the one that asks the DGU question). I counted all the 1 responses. I got 55 out of about 120000, which equates to about 92,000 DGUs (rounding up) in 1996 among the 200,000,000 adults. How does 92,000 translate to 2.5 million as stated in the article?
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Re: CDC did not publish data supporting Gary Kleck’s DGU estimates

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The link that I posted worked originally, but click has withdrawn the paper temporarily. If you go to the bottom of the Reason article, you will find the following appended:
UPDATE: You will note the original link doesn't work right now. It was pointed out to me by Robert VerBruggen of National Review that Kleck treats the CDC's surveys discussed in this paper as if they were national in scope, as Kleck's original survey was, but they apparently were not. From VerBruggen's own looks at CDC's raw data, it seems that over the course of the three years, the following 15 states were surveyed: Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. (Those states, from 2000 census data, contained around 27 percent of the U.S. population.) Informed of this, Kleck says /quote he will recalculate the degree to which CDC's survey work indeed matches or corroborates his, and we will publish a discussion of those fresh results when they come in. But for now Kleck has pulled the original paper from the web pending his rethinking the data and his conclusions.
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Re: CDC did not publish data supporting Gary Kleck’s DGU estimates

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SQLGeek wrote:I have a Calguns account so I downloaded it.
thanks, I didn't see away for me to attach it.

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Re: CDC did not publish data supporting Gary Kleck’s DGU estimates

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Post by stroo »

Whether the number is 92000 or 2.5 million, that is a lot of uses of guns in self defence!!!

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Re: CDC did not publish data supporting Gary Kleck’s DGU estimates

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stroo wrote:Whether the number is 92000 or 2.5 million, that is a lot of uses of guns in self defence!!!
Agreed. 92000 sounds about right, and is still a huge number. That doesn't count the people who refused to answer and actually did have an encounter nor does it include people who've had multiple encounters. 2.5 million means that statistically, at least one person in this thread personally knows someone who's used a gun to confront someone else in self defense IN THE PAST YEAR. I highly doubt that's the case.
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Re: CDC did not publish data supporting Gary Kleck’s DGU estimates

#21

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strogg wrote:
stroo wrote:Whether the number is 92000 or 2.5 million, that is a lot of uses of guns in self defence!!!
Agreed. 92000 sounds about right, and is still a huge number. That doesn't count the people who refused to answer and actually did have an encounter nor does it include people who've had multiple encounters. 2.5 million means that statistically, at least one person in this thread personally knows someone who's used a gun to confront someone else in self defense IN THE PAST YEAR. I highly doubt that's the case.
A buddy of mine confronted a person trying to break into the sliding glass door on his back porch last year. The would-be criminal turned tail and ran when he saw my buddy and his Ruger SR9. No shots were fired, but I would consider that to be a defensive use of a gun.
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Re: CDC did not publish data supporting Gary Kleck’s DGU estimates

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Post by strogg »

Flightmare wrote:
strogg wrote:
stroo wrote:Whether the number is 92000 or 2.5 million, that is a lot of uses of guns in self defence!!!
Agreed. 92000 sounds about right, and is still a huge number. That doesn't count the people who refused to answer and actually did have an encounter nor does it include people who've had multiple encounters. 2.5 million means that statistically, at least one person in this thread personally knows someone who's used a gun to confront someone else in self defense IN THE PAST YEAR. I highly doubt that's the case.
A buddy of mine confronted a person trying to break into the sliding glass door on his back porch last year. The would-be criminal turned tail and ran when he saw my buddy and his Ruger SR9. No shots were fired, but I would consider that to be a defensive use of a gun.
Fair enough. Time to eat crow on that one. I, on the other hand, have not personally known a single person who has had an experience like that in my entire lifetime.
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Re: CDC did not publish data supporting Gary Kleck’s DGU estimates

#23

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strogg wrote:
Flightmare wrote:
strogg wrote:
stroo wrote:Whether the number is 92000 or 2.5 million, that is a lot of uses of guns in self defence!!!
Agreed. 92000 sounds about right, and is still a huge number. That doesn't count the people who refused to answer and actually did have an encounter nor does it include people who've had multiple encounters. 2.5 million means that statistically, at least one person in this thread personally knows someone who's used a gun to confront someone else in self defense IN THE PAST YEAR. I highly doubt that's the case.
A buddy of mine confronted a person trying to break into the sliding glass door on his back porch last year. The would-be criminal turned tail and ran when he saw my buddy and his Ruger SR9. No shots were fired, but I would consider that to be a defensive use of a gun.
Fair enough. Time to eat crow on that one. I, on the other hand, have not personally known a single person who has had an experience like that in my entire lifetime.
Outside of the last twelve months, I know two friends who have had defensive uses of guns.

Its really not all that uncommon or unrealistic.

In 2016, there were 1.2 million "successful" violent crimes. If one includes non-violent crime (such as burglary), that number jumps to 1.2 million violent crimes plus 7.9 million property crimes. 9.1 million total crimes committed (in a county of 320 million people, that still pretty low).

If defensive gun uses only occur in 10% of violent crimes (assuming all DGUs are reported and logged as crimes) and only 10% of property crimes, with an additional 5% on potential crimes that were never actually reported to the police, we would get 1.3 million DGU's in today's numbers.

Considering crime has continued on a steady downward trend since 1996, its not too hard to image these DGU's would reverse back 20 years to the numbers he presents.

Believe it or not, gun crime and crime in general is on a steady decline- despite what the media tries to shove down your throat for ad revenue...
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Re: CDC did not publish data supporting Gary Kleck’s DGU estimates

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Not in the last year, but I have had a DGU before. That doesn't count OC spray or hand-to-hand ;-)
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Re: CDC did not publish data supporting Gary Kleck’s DGU estimates

#25

Post by Paladin »

While the question they ask states:
During the last 12 months, have you confronted another person with a firearm, even if you did not fire it, to protect yourself, your property, or someone else?
DGU's are not only against criminals.

Animal attacks are very relevant as well. Data that the CDC collected in the USA between 2001 and 2003 indicated there were 4.5 million dog bite victims per year, but that figure appears to be rising.

Number of people killed by animals each year in the US (1,610) remains unchanged

Worldwide, snake and crocodile attacks are important as well World Atlas
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Re: CDC did not publish data supporting Gary Kleck’s DGU estimates

#26

Post by strogg »

I'm going to have to look into these statistics a little more. At this point, the 2.5 million may sound closer to point than the 92,000, although 92,000 is exactly what the survey for 1996 says. I guess a lot of my personal bias comes from where I grew up in the 90s. I've been fortunate enough to grow up in a suburban area where violent crime is rare. It's one of those places where having a gun for self defense really isn't all that necessary; there are better places to put your money, time, and effort. Local LEOs do an excellent job curtailing crime over there. It's not some crazy conspiracy cover-up like in Hot Fuzz either.
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Re: CDC did not publish data supporting Gary Kleck’s DGU estimates

#27

Post by Rafe »

ELB wrote:The link that I posted worked originally, but click has withdrawn the paper temporarily. If you go to the bottom of the Reason article, you will find the following appended:
UPDATE: You will note the original link doesn't work right now. It was pointed out to me by Robert VerBruggen of National Review that Kleck treats the CDC's surveys discussed in this paper as if they were national in scope, as Kleck's original survey was, but they apparently were not. From VerBruggen's own looks at CDC's raw data, it seems that over the course of the three years, the following 15 states were surveyed: Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. (Those states, from 2000 census data, contained around 27 percent of the U.S. population.) Informed of this, Kleck says /quote he will recalculate the degree to which CDC's survey work indeed matches or corroborates his, and we will publish a discussion of those fresh results when they come in. But for now Kleck has pulled the original paper from the web pending his rethinking the data and his conclusions.
Thanks, and thanks to the folks at Reason for clarifying that. I'll note though that the update comment was not on that article's page a few hours ago when I was searching for the original paper just before lunchtime.

In the withdrawn paper Kleck said that the actual question asked was excellent and quoted it as, “During the last 12 months, have you confronted another person with a firearm, even if you did not fire it, to protect yourself, your property, or someone else?” I honestly don't know if I'd call the phrasing excellent because of the word "confronted". If I responded to that as honestly as I could I would answer "no" because I would take "confronted" to mean an active presentation of the firearm. Webster's online shows the first definition of "confront" as "to face especially in challenge; oppose, confront an enemy."

If the question was changed to "During the last 12 months, have you used a firearm, even if you did not fire it, to protect yourself, your property, or someone else against another person?" then my answer would be yes. Last January I think I was the target of an auto insurance scam. A Toyota in front of me slammed on its brakes for no apparent reason but I was able to stop in time without touching the Toyota. In my mirror, I saw a small pickup stop close to my rear bumper but the driver made no move to get out or use his cell phone. The driver and a passenger got out of the Toyota, the driver acting extremely upset and shouting at me. He made a show of examining the Toyota's bumper which I never came closer to than about 3 feet. I left the windows up and stayed seated, but clicked off my seatbelt and tucked the edge of the windbreaker I was wearing behind me. I was carrying on my right hip and that exposed the gun, but the Toyota's occupants were still yammering and pointing at the bumper. My uncovering the gun was definitely not an act to intimidate because they couldn't see it.

I couldn't back up enough to drive clear of the Toyota and I got out my cell phone and took pictures of the Toyota. Sure enough, the Toyota's passenger moves towards my passenger window and the driver storms up to my window. He taps on it and yells for me to roll it down. I briefly looked down toward my right hip and back and then held the cell phone to my face ready to tap send to dial 911. His eyes went to the butt of my fullsize pistol and he froze for a moment. He made a motion to the pickup behind me, gave me a one-finger salute, then he and the other guy who'd gotten out of the Toyota went back and drove off, the pickup behind them. I got some more photos as they left, a couple where the license plate was sufficiently clear. After I got home I filed a non-emergency informational report online with the sheriff's department. They called me the next day, I went over what had happened without any mention of my firearm, and the deputy thanked me for the information and the license plate photos.

This was in a neighborhood that's part of a planned community, and it would never be tracked as a defensive use of a gun. Since I don't think I ever "confronted" anyone, I would have answered "no" to the CDC survey. But did having the gun and having it visible make a big difference in what took place last January? I think it did. I think my world would have gotten a whole messier and if I'd gotten out of the SUV that I'd have had three possible criminals surrounding me trying to pressure me into a trip to the ATM. So put me down as personally considering that incident a DGU even if it would never appear on a crime blotter or on a survey.
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Re: CDC did not publish data supporting Gary Kleck’s DGU estimates

#28

Post by Rafe »

Good point. Brings to mind the pretty amazing video from this morning of wild hogs running in the daytime through a residential neighborhood in Spring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao0araJdz5s
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