The Use of Guns for Self-Protection - Who Is Right?

The proponents of gun ownership generally cite examples of situations where gun-toting individuals use firearms to kill criminals or put a sudden stop to the committing of a crime.  Is this really true in the real world?

A recent study by the Violence Policy Center analyzes data from the FBIs Uniform Crime Reporting Program's Supplementary Homicide Report and the Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey to see whether guns really do stop criminals.  In case you haven't heard of the Violence Policy Center, it is a "...non-profit educational organization that conducts research and public education on violence in America and provides information and analysis to policymakers, journalists, advocates and the general public.".  It is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

Now, let's look at the VPC's analysis, starting out by looking at some statistics.  Keep in mind that the FBI defines a "justifiable homicide" as the killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen.

1.) In 2010, there were only 230 justifiable homicides involving a gun.  Of these, 56.5 percent of the persons killed were strangers and 35.7 percent were known to the shooter.  Of the total, 89.1 percent of the shootings were committed by men.  Of the total, 98.3 percent of the persons shot were men.  Again, of the total shooters, 52.6 percent were white, 44.3 percent were black and 2.2 percent were Asian.  Lastly, of the persons shot, 39.1 percent were white, 60 percent were black and none were Asian.

2.) Between 2006 and 2010, there were only 1031 justifiable homicides involving a gun.  Of these, 57 percent (588 of the 1031 total) of the persons killed were strangers and 31.4 percent (324 of the 1031 total) were known to the shooter.  Of the total, 81.3 percent of the shootings were committed by men.  Of the total, 98.5 percent of the persons shot were men.  Again, of the total shooters, 53.1 percent were white, 40.8 percent were black and 3.3 percent were Asian.  Lastly, of the persons shot, 39.6 percent were white, 58.2 percent were black and 0.4 percent were Asian.

The states with the most justifiable homicides over the five year period are:

Texas with 197

California with 108

Arizona and Florida with 66 each

Michigan with 43

Fifteen states reported no justifiable homicides.

Let's look at the type of firearms used in justifiable homicides between 2006 and 2010.

77.7 percent were handguns

9.1 percent were shotguns

4.5 percent were rifles

8.5 percent were not stated

Now, let's examine the use of guns for self-defense during the five year period from 2007 to 2011 from statistics compiled by the Bureau of Justice National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) which has been in existence since 1973.  During the aforementioned five year period, the NCVS estimates that there were 29,618,300 victims of an attempted or completed violent crime.  During that same period of time, only 235,700 of the self-protective behaviours used by victims involved a firearm.  The survey does not show whether a firearm was actually used or whether off-duty law enforcement officers are included.

Here is a chart breaking down the types of self-protective behaviours used:

Surprisingly, only 0.8 percent of violent crimes and attempted violent crimes were answered with the use of a firearm for self-protection.  Firearms are used to protect property in even fewer cases; over the five year period, of the 84.5 million property crimes, guns were used for self-protection only 103,000 times or 0.1 percent of the total.  Interestingly, however, Department of Justice statistics show that between 2005 and 2010, an average of 232,400 guns were stolen every year from American households.   

To put these numbers into perspective, the NRA often quotes the Defensive Gun Use (DGU) number of 2.5 million annually as taken from 1992 research completed by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz in their "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun" paper.  Here's a quote:

"With a sample size of 4,977, random sampling error of the estimates is small. For example, the all-guns prevalence percent used A estimates, with a 95% confidence interval, are plus or minus 0.32% for past year, person; 0.35% for past year, household; 0.50% for past five years, person; and 0.54% for past five years, household. Given how small these are already, even increasing samples to the size of the enormous ones in the NCVS could produce only slight reductions in sampling error.

Are these estimates plausible? Could it really be true that Americans use guns for self-protection as often as 2.1 to 2.5 million times a year? The estimate may seem remarkable in comparison to expectations based on conventional wisdom, but it is not implausibly large in comparison to various gun-related phenomena. There are probably over 220 million guns in private hands in the U.S.,[57] implying that only about 1% of them are used for defensive purposes in any one year--not an impossibly high fraction. In a December 1993 Gallup survey, 49% of U.S. households reported owning a gun, and 31% of adults reported personally owning one.[58] These figures indicate that there are about 47.6 million households with a gun, with perhaps 93 million, or 49% of the adult U.S. population living in households with guns, and about 59.1 million adults personally owning a gun. Again, it hardly seems implausible that 3% (2.5 million/93 million) of the people with immediate access to a gun could have used one defensively in a given year."

In the same year, Department of Justice NCVS statistics showed that there were only a maximum of 82,000 DGUs.  Kleck and Gertz defend their argument, in part, with this sentence:

"Finally, our survey was superior to the NCVS in two additional ways: it was free of the taint of being conducted by, and on behalf of, employees of the federal government, and it was completely anonymous."

Keep in mind that the NCVS statistics report data only from those that have been a victim of a crime, not from a few thousand randomly selected Americans.

Whether you choose to believe the NRA's take on the use of firearms for self-protection or the conclusions of the Violence Policy Center, you must admit that it is interesting to see just how careful we should all be when listening to statistics regarding gun ownership and use.  Both sides of the issue carefully craft their arguments with statistics that back their viewpoint and totally dismiss the statistics that argue against them.  I, for one, tend to believe the Violence Policy Center's analysis simply because, statistically speaking, the huge sample size probably has less inaccuracies even if "Big Brother" (also known as The Department of Justice) is involved.

Is Banning Assault Rifles the Solution?

Now that President Obama has outlined his plan for firearms control, in this posting, I want to take a look at the nation's homicide data from the FBI website, in particular, focussing on the use of firearms including rifles in committing murder since part of the President's plan includes proposed limitations on the ownership of assault rifles.

Just in case you didn't catch them all, here is a list of the 23 Executive Orders signed by the President in an effort to address gun crime:

Now, let's take a look at the FBI data.  Here is a listing of all homicides in the United States from 2007 to 2011 showing the means by which the killing was accomplished:

In 2011, of the 12,664 murders, 8,583 or 67.8 percent of the total were accomplished using firearms of one sort or another.  Of the firearms used in murders, 6,220 or 72.6 percent of the total were handguns with only 323 or 3.8 percent of the total being rifles.  Admittedly, in 1,587 murder cases, the type of firearm used to commit the murder was not stated, however, the distribution of these unknown firearms quite likely reflects the same proportion as in the majority of the cases.  Interestingly, in 728 cases, personal weapons including pushing, hands, fists and feet were used to commit homicide, over twice the number of murders committed using rifles of all types.

In the five year period from 2007 to 2011, the number of murders committed using firearms dropped by a not insignificant amount, from 10,129 in 2007 to 8,583 in 2011, a drop of 15.3 percent.  The number of murders committed using rifles dropped by an even greater 28.7 percent, from 453 to 367.

It is also interesting to see that, overall, the total number of violent crimes committed in the United States has dropped since 2007 as shown on this graph:

From 2007 to 2011, violent crimes as a whole dropped by 15.4 percent to 1.204 million crimes in 2011 with murder accounting for only 1.2 percent of violent crimes.  As I noted above, firearms were used in 67.8 percent of homicides and were also used in 41.3 percent of robberies and 21.2 percent of aggravated assaults.

The FBI's violent crime database does show us some interesting trends.  Both the number of violent crimes and the number of homicides using firearms are down markedly over the past five years and, in all five years, the use of rifles to commit murder is relatively insignificant and dropping, a number that I found surprising.  

There is no doubt that the recent school shooting that was partially committed using assault weapons was horrific, unfortunately, the FBI's own statistics show that banning these weapons will do little to reduce the overall number of homicides committed using guns when the carrier has "murder in their eyes" as there are plenty of other apparently more attractive options available.  It will have one likely repercussion however, those who want to murder a large number of people at one time will be forced to carry firearms that can easily be concealed under loose clothing, an even more frightening prospect.  While a ban on assault rifles makes for great headlines in the mainstream media, it solves only a tiny fraction of the issue.

Confusing American Gun Statistics

A 2011 survey by Gallup gives us a relatively recent snapshot of gun ownership in the United States but, in light of conflicting data from the General Societal Survey which dates back to 1972, the issue is confusing at best.

Let's start by looking at gun ownership statistics from Gallup.  Forty-seven percent of American adults surveyed by Gallup revealed that they had a gun on their premises, up from 41 percent in 2010.  Here is a graph showing how the level of firearm possession has remained relatively consistent over the past two decades:

Gun ownership rates vary quite widely depending on one's political leaning as shown here:

Historically, the gap between the percentage of Republicans and Democrats who own guns has varied between 16 and 24 percent, however, the 2011 poll showed a dramatic narrowing from the 20 percent in 2010 as gun ownership by Democrats rose by 8 percentage points or 25 percent.  In the history of the survey, this level of gun ownership by Democrats was unprecedented.

Gun ownership levels also vary by geographic location as shown here:

Americans who live in the south and midwest are far more likely to own guns than their counterparts in the west and east parts of the country, in some cases by a wide margin.

Overall, 34 percent of adults surveyed personally own a gun with 13 percent stating that someone in their household owns a gun and the remaining 51 percent stating that there were no guns of any kind in their household.  Men are far more likely to personally own a gun than women by a two-to-one margin (46 percent to 23 percent).  Americans aged 35 to 54 are more likely to own guns than those who are both younger and older.  Only 29 percent of college graduates personally own a gun compared to 40 percent for gun owners with no college education.

Now, let's look at recent data from the General Societal Survey (GSS) as published on the Think Progress website.  This data almost makes it look like two completely different populations were surveyed, making one wonder which data is more accurate.  While Gallup shows gun ownership remaining stable over the past two decades, the General Societal Survey shows the exact opposite as shown on this graph:

Over the period from 1990, the percentage of households owning a gun according to this source has dropped from 46 percent to 32 percent in 2010.  Way back in 1974, gun ownership peaked at 54 percent of all American households.  As was found in the Gallup survey, the rate of gun ownership varies greatly with age as shown on this graph:

Gun ownership is most pervasive among middle-aged and older Americans and least pervasive among Americans born after 1980 with the rate of gun ownership among younger Americans dropping to less than 20 percent.  Notice that in the GSS data set, older Americans born between 1920 and 1939 are just as likely to own guns as those born between 1940 and 1959 in contrast to the Gallup data.

Perhaps some of the confusion over gun ownership statistics stems from one issue; the fear of confiscation.  While no one knows for certain, perhaps some respondents are reluctant to reveal whether or not they possess firearms to outsiders for fear of repercussions down the road, in part, as trust in government declines.  Just type "gun confiscation in America" into Google and see just how widespread this fear is among Americans as shown in this video: