Defensive gun use
The frequency of incidents involving DGU and their effectiveness in providing safety and reducing crime are controversial issues in gun politics and criminology, chiefly in the United States.
[1]: 65 [3] A commonly cited 1995 study by Kleck and Gertz estimated that between 2.1 and 2.5 million DGUs occur in the United States each year.
[12] By 1997, the 2.5 million per year number from Kleck & Gertz' study had been cited by news articles, editorial writers, and the Congressional Research Service.
[9] He argues that there are too many "false positives" in the surveys, and finds the NCVS figures more reliable, yielding estimates of around 100,000 defensive gun uses per year.
[3][16] In 1996, Cook and Ludwig reported that based on their analysis of the National Survey of Private Ownership of Firearms, which "incorporated a sequence of DGU questions very similar to that used by Kleck and Gertz," they estimated that 4.7 million defensive gun uses occur in the United States per year.
However, they questioned whether this estimate was credible because the same survey suggests that approximately 132,000 perpetrators were either wounded or killed at the hands of armed civilians in 1994.
The fact that some crime-specific estimates derived from the Kleck survey are implausibly large is at least partly a reflection of the small samples on which they are based – no more than 196 cases.
[...] The Kleck and Gertz study impresses me for the caution the authors exercise and the elaborate nuances they examine methodologically.
[21]: 280 A 1994 study examined NCVS data and concluded that between 1987 and 1990, there were approximately 258,460 incidents in which firearms were used defensively in the United States, for an annual average of 64,615.
"[23] A 2013 study, also released by the BJS, found that less than 1% of nonfatal violent crime victims during the 2007–2011 period reported using a gun to defend themselves.
The same study reported that "The percentage of nonfatal violent victimizations involving firearm use in self defense remained stable at under 2% from 1993 to 2011.
[25] According to Jens Ludwig, estimates of the frequency of DGU from the NCVS appear to be too low, but those from phone surveys (like that conducted by Kleck and Gertz) appear to be too high.
Attempting to quantify this phenomenon, in the first edition of the book, published in May 1998, Lott wrote that "national surveys" suggested that "98 percent of the time that people use guns defensively, they merely have to brandish a weapon to break off an attack."
Lott cited the figure frequently in the media, including publications like The Wall Street Journal[27] and the Los Angeles Times.
[29] Lott explained the lower brandishment-only rates found by others was at least in part due to the different questions that were asked.
[34] In a 2015 study co-authored with Sara Solnick, Hemenway analyzed data from the NCVS from 2007 to 2011 and identified only 127 instances of DGU.
[38] A 1995 study led by Arthur Kellermann, which examined 198 home invasion crimes in Atlanta, Georgia, found that in only 3 of these cases did victims use guns for self-protection.
), whether the gun owner held a concealed carry permit, whether multiple assailants were present, whether shots were fired, type of firearm used for defense, and miscellaneous details.
[47] A 2015 study by Solnick and Hemenway which analyzed NCVS data reported "little evidence that [DGU] is uniquely beneficial in reducing the likelihood of injury or property loss.
