From: [Johann Opitz] at [smtp.esl.com] (Johann Opitz)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Bogus Statistic???
Date: 1 Jan 1994 01:01:54 GMT
[b m cquaid] at [crash.cts.com] (Brad McQuaid) wrote:
Statement: "One child under 14 is accidently shot to death every day in the
USA" (Center to Prevent Handgun Violence) "14 children are killed by
handgun abuse every day in the USA". (Handgun Control Incorporated)
Truth: True, if the year in question is 1979, when there were 364 such
deaths. In 1990, the most recent year for which data are available, the
number was 236, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The
number of fatal gun accidents among children has fallen by 56% since 1970,
even as the gun supply has grown significantly.[4]
14 children/day times 364 days/year means about 5100 children killed
by handguns every year in the USA. This is false. The total firearms deaths
for children (up to age 14) was 587 in 1988. In 1990 the number children
killed by firearms related accidents was 236. The total number of children
killed by abuse of firearms (handguns, shotguns, and rifles) in the USA is
between 600 and 800 a year.
Statement: "In the past decade, more than 138,000 Americans were shot by
children under the age of 6." (Hartford Courant)
Truth: No source is ever cited for this factoid because there is none. No
government or academic agency even collects data to provide an estimage for
the true figure.[4]
Statement: "Firearms are responsible for the deaths of 45,000 infants,
children and adolescents per year." (American Academy of Pediatrics)
Truth: Even if all persons 15-95 are considered "adolescents," this one
can't be true. The 45,000 figure exceeds the total deaths in all ages from
all causes related to firearms.[4]
Statement: "One million U.S. inhabitants die prematurely each year as the
result of intentional homicide or suicide." (former Surgean General C.
Everett Koop)
Truth: According to the National Center for Health Statistics, in 1988
there were about 30,000 suicides (by all methods) and about 22,000
homicides (by all methods, including legal self-defense). Thus, the "one
million" claim is off by about 1800%.[4]
Statement: "A gun in the home is 43 times more likely to kill someone you
know than be used against an intruder."
Truth: This is a misrepresentation of a meaningless comparison from a
limited and poorly done study. This study was performed over a 6 year
period in one single county in the USA. As this study is was done in just
one county, that makes its results useless for saying what happens anywhere
else. Scientists and researchers call this "a sample size of one". The
comparison is meaningless because it is an apples vs oranges comparison. 37
of the 43 are suicides, 4.6 are classified as criminal homicides, and 1.3
were classified as accidents.[5] Kellermann and Reay, the authors of the
study have stated themselves that "cases in which burglars or intruders are
wounded or frightened away by the use or display of a firearm [and] cases
in which would-be intruders may have purposely avoided a house known to be
armed.."[5] should be included as a benefit. BUT, when they calculated
their comparison they did NOT include those cases. They therefore
undercounted protection uses by at least 500 times.[6] If the purpose is to
compare defensive uses verses misuse, all defensive uses should be counted,
not just the 0.2% of time when a defensive use results in the death of an
attacker. You measure defensive uses by lives saved, not criminals killed,
after all, the purpose of self defense is to prevent or stop a criminal
attack, not kill the attacker. Homicides that were found to be
self-defense in a court of law were counted as criminal homicides by this
study, thus over stating the number of criminal homicides, and under
stating the number of self-defense homicides. "Someone you know" is often
described as friends or even "loved ones", but in reality this includes
rival gang members, drug dealers, abusive spouses and acquaintances, and so
on. Those who proclaim the 43-1 statistics will often imply that only dear
friends, loved family members, and small innocent children are the ones
being killed, an obviously misleading statement. The study failed to
distinguish between households or environs populated by people with
violent, criminal, or substance-abuse histories -- where the risk of death
is very high -- versus households inhabited by more civil folk (for
example, people who avoid high-risk activities like drug dealing, gang
banging and wife beating) -- where the risk is very low indeed. In
actuality, negligent adults allow fatal but avoidable accidents; and
homicides are perpetrated mostly by people with histories of violence or
abuse, people who are identifiably and certifiably at ~high risk~ for
misadventure. The Hart Poll in 1981 found 644,000 defensive uses with
handguns per year. The Mauser Poll in 1990 found 691,000 defensive uses per
year. The Field Poll in California in 1978 found 1.2 million handgun
defensive uses per year. The Time/CNN Poll in 1989 found over 908,000
defensive uses per year. Gary Kleck estimated the yearly defensive use of
firearms by civilians to be at about 1,000,000 per year. A more recent
study by Gary Kleck put the yearly total at approximately 2,400,000
defensive uses. Yet the total deaths by firearm in the USA only runs about
25,000 to 30,000 per year, and that includes accidents, murders, suicides
and self defense homicides. That means a gun is 30-40 times more likely to
defend against an assault or other crime than kill anybody. As accidental
firearm's related deaths is about 1400 per year, including hunting
accidents, the defensive use verses accidental death ratio is about 700-800
to 1. A study by Simon Fraser University professor Gary Mauser shows
Canadians use guns in self-defense against assailants more than 32,000
times a year.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Information from
[1]National Firearms Association fact sheet.
[2]Coalition For Gun Control fact sheet.
[3]Handgun Control Incorporated letter(s).
[4]American Rifleman, August 1993, Pg42-44, "Kids and Guns" by David Kopel.
[5]"Protection or Peril? An Analysis of Firearm-Related Deaths
in the Home," Arthur L. Kellermann and Donald T. Reay, The New
England Journal of Medicine 314, no. 24 (June 12, 1986): 1557-1560
[6]"Crime Control through the Private Use of Armed Force" by Professor
Gary Kleck.
[7] US federal law, 18 USC 922(g).
[8] Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (Stats Canada)
[9] Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. Letter to Florida Residents, Nov '93
[10] U.S. Source "Uniform Crime Reports for the United States 1991",
Federal Bureau of Investigation, p.58
CDN. Source "Crime Trends in Canada 1962-1990", Cdn. Ctr.
for Justice Statistics, p.15.
[11] Handgun Control Incorporated Fact Card (circa 1986)
********** All Standard Disclaimers Apply **********
"Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On
the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed
beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place." -- Frederic
Bastiat
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from
oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that
will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine
e-mail: [Johann Opitz] at [smtp.esl.com]