>Indeed, the main finding from the surveys is not the brandishment result >but the fact that guns are used defensively several million times a year >(according to Kleck's survey and several others.)
Which is highly suspect. It is computed by projecting the fraction of people in a relatively small sample who say they used firearms defensively to the whole population. Anyone who has ever worked with survey data knows that error rates of a couple of percent (at least) on all sorts of questions are common. Both coding errors and reporting errors substantially increase (in percentage terms) the fraction of respondents giving positive responses to questions with very low fractions of positive responses. Think also about how people treat surveys (for example the number of people who say they have been abducted by aliens). I would bet any money that the true fraction of people who use firearms in self-defense (brandishment or otherwise) is a whole heck of a lot lower (an order of magnitude or more) than what is suggested by Kleck's survey. - - Bill Dickens William T. Dickens The Brookings Institution 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 Phone: (202) 797-6113 FAX: (202) 797-6181 E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AOL IM: wtdickens
