The Colorado Daily recently reprinted the Wall Street Journal's article
on Paxton Quigley, including the nefarious little paragraph the Journal
tacked onto the end.  After recieving much assistance from various T.P.G.
type folks, I wrote a letter to the editor criticizing this last paragraph,
and surprise, surprise, surprise, they published it.  The text follows.
The Colorado Daily, btw, is the University of Colorado (Boulder) student
(I think) newspaper... not exactly a big coup, but every little bit, i guess...

(The title was the only thing they changed/added)

"Gun Stats"

The Daily recently reprinted an article from the
Wall Street Journal, primarily concerned with Paxton
Quigley, author of "Armed and Female."  The article,
in turn, cites a misleading statistic that was originally
reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.  The
article states, "A study... found that a gun in the home
was 43 times more likely to be used to kill its owner,
spouse, a friend, or child than to kill an intruder."  This
is an often-quoted statistic, and it is misleading for sev-
eral reasons, outlined below:

The study gives the impression that, if you own a 
gun, the likelihood that you will successfully use it to 
defend yourself is less than that of the gun being turned
against you.  The study, however, fails to take into
account cases where a law-abiding citizen uses a gun 
to thwart a crime, without actually killing the perpe-
trator.

The study actually refers to 'acquaintances' rather
than 'friend'.  This would include the friendly neigh-
borhood thug who shows up like clockwork, every
month, the second your grandmother cashes her social
security check.  Possibly an acquaintance, but hardly a
friend.

The NEJM study is based on the immediate dis-
position of cases and fails to take into account cases
originally filed as homicides that were later ruled to be
self-defense.  Especially considering the small sample 
size (396), taking these events into account has a sub-
stantial effect on the 43:1 ratio quoted.

Criminologist Gary Kleck gives us a slightly dif-
erent statistic: a gun is 33 times more likely to be 
used, successfully, by a private citizen against an 
aggressor than it is to kill anyone at all.  Further, per-
sons defending themselves from aggression by using a 
gun fare better than those who resist vicimization by
some other means, or who offer no resistance at all.
Statistics available from the FBI and other agencies 
also show that a gun is 245 times more likely to be
used by a non-criminal to defend against criminal threat
than to be used to commit criminal homicide, 535 times
more likely to be used to defend against a criminal
threat than to accidentally kill anybody, and 50 times
more likely to defend against criminal threat than to be
used to commit suicide.

It is well to keep in mind that nearly anything can 
be proved by uncritical quotation of statistics.  One has
to consider carefully what questions were asked by
those gathering the data before one can draw an accu-
rate conclusion from them.

D.F. Taylor
CU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry


--
Spooksmoke: Revolution, Assasination, Thorium, Cobalt-60, Clintin, CIA, NSA, SHC
  DoD #202 / loki@acca.nmsu.edu / liberty or death / taylordf@ucsu.colorado.edu 
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