Metal_Bear_Rex
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Lithrael said:Like any sociological issue, this one is very muddy. That study can't speak to questions like whether these confronted criminals would have scarpered if confronted with nothing but an angry resident or an angry resident with a baseball bat, that is, whether brandishing a gun in these situations is overkill. It does mention that more than half of these 'uses' was the gun owner only saying that they had a gun.
From your link: "Okay. I can just hear critics saying that 50 or 55 people responding that they used their gun and you're projecting it out to figures of around 2 million, 2-1/2 million gun defenses."
I'm afraid I'm not 100% on board with their explanation why that's not a valid criticism.
While I understand that the study is by no means without flaws, the argument was that I was overestimating crimes stopped by private owned guns. Whether the civilian actually brandished a gun, or claimed to have one in possession, the threat or implied threat of a gun has stopped many crimes. The numbers may not be entirely accurate, but my statement that "thousands of crimes are stopped by lawn enforcment and civilians every day" was by no means an overstatement.
http://www.stat.duke.edu/~dalene/chance/chanceweb/103.myth0.pdf
A discussion of the survey and of surveys in general
Yes yes, with every pro-gun claim or study, there will be an anti-gun or pro-control counterclaim.