Deltoid

Someone writes:

TO List Supervisor, Prof. Volokh: Mendacious, Fabrication, Falsity, Untrue. These words used by Mr. Lambert to describe Mr. Kates’s arguments. Is it permissible to call a list member a liar if you use a thesaurus?

No. The only people you are allowed to call liars are those not in a position to defend themselves (that is, those people who are not list members).

I was unaware of this list rule. It seems to me that anyway you say them, these words still mean liar,

No. “mendacious” and “fabrication” are the only ones that imply deceit. I only used the word “mendacious” in a hypothetical statement that mirrored one made by Mr Kates. My intent was to argue that these statements were just as incorrect as those made by Mr Kates. The form of the argument was this:

Kates: Schetky is a liar because she did X.
Lambert: But you did X, too. Would it be correct to state “Kates is liar because he did X.”? Surely not.

I suggested that the word “fabrication” might be the best description of Mr Kates’ claim that handguns were involved in less than half of criminal firearm injuries. This was because he admitted that the claim was without foundation. Normally I would just state the facts and let the reader decide for themselves the best description of Mr Kates’ claim. However, since he insisted on what I consider an incorrect usage of the word, I thought it best to counter with an example of correct usage. I apologize for any distress this has caused list members.

which, Mr. Kates is not.

I do not believe that any of Kates, Schetky, Smith, Falk and Sloan are liars. I believe that all of these people were presenting what they honestly believed to be true. Just because they may have been mistaken in some of their beliefs it does not follow that they were lying. I did not accuse any of these people of lying. I apologize to any list members if my writing was unclear and they were inadvertently given the impression that I was suggesting Mr Kates was lying

Frank Warren writes:

You argue your own straw man here, as though a very young […] person, has a realistic option besides a firearm.

Now there’s an idea for the anti-spanking crowd: Arm the very young and their parents will have second thoughts about spanking them. I can see the placards at the next gun-rights demonstration now:
“GUN RIGHTS FOR KIDS”
“KIDS HAVE A RIGHT TO SELF DEFENCE”
“NO MORE HOMEWORK”

Gun manufacturers will finally take into account this market segment in their product design: smaller guns for smaller hands, lighter trigger pulls, bright colours, tie ins with cartoon characters (Elmer Fudd?)…

Gary Kleck will conduct a survey of defensive gun use amongst the under 10 segment of the population and find over 5 million such uses (Highlights: 52% of uses against “bad guys”, 22% against space aliens. An average of 27 shots fired per DGU).

What are you waiting for? Act now! GUNS FOR KIDS!!

Don B Kates, Jr. writes:

Having been out of town on two different trips, I have not had a chance to finish my response to Mr. Lambert’s latest screed to me. But I note his comment that Ed Suter has offered, “the same incorrect citation as in Kates’ paper. Doesn’t anyone check their references these days?”

As I have noted, this is a mere quibble. Because of editorial error, the LAW REVIEW’s editors dropped the citation I supplied them. I have supplied it to Mr. L who, however reluctantly, has been forced to acknowledge that Dr. Schetky made the remark which I (and, following me, Ed Suter) attributed to her. So what difference does the reference make.

The point of my remark was that Dr Suter should have checked the reference for himself. Let me recommend Mary-Claire van Leunen’s excellent book “A Handbook for Scholars”, which describes good scholarly practice and is eloquent on this very point.

This is in no way comparable to Dr. S making up the statement we have quoted, containing a multitude of statements

I assume that “a multitude of” is your hyperbolic way of saying “three”.

which are either false or for which she could find no reference, so instead she fabricated a reference to the FBI UNIFORM CRIME REPORTS which said nothing to support her.

Both you and Schetky gave incorrect citations. You have no evidence to support your claim that she fabricated her citation.

Writing in 1986, Dr. S falsely asserted that handguns are only 20% of all guns. Mr. L attempts to excuse this, asserting: “One of the studies summarized by Kleck in table 2.3 of “Point Blank” did indicate that handguns were 20% of all guns.”

The operative word in Mr. L’s sentence is DID. It is doubtless a merely inadvertent oversight which caused Mr. L to omit mentioning that the 20% figure was as of 1968. There is no evidence that Dr. S was even aware of it when she falsified her 20% statistic.

According to Kleck, the 20% figure comes from “Firearms and Violence in American Life”, which Dr Schetky cited in support of some other claim in her article, so there most definitely IS evidence that she was aware of it. Furthermore, according to Zimring’s book[1], table 8-1 on page 49 of “Firearms and Violence in American Life” gives the percentage involvement of handguns in several crimes: homicide 76%, aggravated assault 86% and robbery 96%. Since aggravated assault and robbery are much more common than homicide, it would not be unreasonable for Dr Schetky to summarize this table by asserting that handguns are used in 90% of gun crimes. The source for table 8-1 is given as Uniform Crime Reports and police departments in 10 large cities. Presumably the UCR supplied the statistic about homicides and the police departments the ones about aggravated assault and robbery. If Dr Schetky was unaware of this, she may have made the error of believing that the aggravated assault and robbery figures came from the UCR and hence given an incorrect citation.

To summarize: The 20% figure, the 90% of gun crimes AND the UCR citation could all have come from “Firearms and Violence in American Life” a reference that Dr Schetky was familiar with.

Please note, by the way, that I do not regard this evidence as conclusive, but you have not given any evidence at all in support of your claim that Dr Schetky invented the statistics.

P.S. After the above was written I came across the following comment by Mr. Lambert: “Let me make a general comment here: Some posters seem to respond to my writings with standard pro-gun ripostes to anti-gun arguments, even though I have never advanced any of these anti-gun arguments. Please carefully read what I write before you dash off your reply. If my writing is unclear, you should email me for a clarification, rather than add to the volume on this list.”

I am reminded of the observation (was it Seneca’s?) that the advantage of self-praise is that who knows better than the person who praises himself where the favorable comments will be best appreciated, though the disadvantage is the danger of laying it on too thick.

One can certainly appreciate Mr. Lambert’s concern to prevent the forum here being cluttered with what he deems inapposite criticism of his views.

Let me repeat myself, with extra emphasis this time: Please carefully read what i write before you dash off your reply. I have no objection to criticism of my views. I do object to criticisms of views that I do not hold and have not expressed from people who apparently have possessed themselves of the notion that these views were mine. For example, what prompted my comment was a poster who seemed to mistakenly believe that I was arguing that guns were morally responsible for crimes.

[1] “The citizen’s guide to gun control”, Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins, MacMillan, New York, 1987.

Steve D. Fischer writes:

The NCVS is clearly the most lied-to study in the manifold of studies we have available to date. Even your pal, Colin Loftin has accused it of undercounting your “direct family” spousal abuses by a factor of 12 and rapes by a clean factor of 33. I’d call that lying of a pretty massive scale, wouldn’t you?

The NCVS has been around for long enough for criminologists to be aware of crimes that it undercounts. It is known to significantly undercount non-stranger crimes, but no-one until now has suggested that it massively undercounts stranger crimes like robbery and burglary. Kleck’s study suggests that well over half of all robberies result in a defensive gun use. This seems unlikely.

Nor is it the case that Kleck is picking up DGUs against non-strangers that the NCVS misses, since 75% of the uses he counted were against strangers.

Here is the procedure that NCVS interviewers use, according to Kleck:

“Interviewers identify themselves to R’s (respondents) as federal government employees, even displaying, in face-to-face contacts an identification card with a badge. R’s are told that the interviews are being conducted on behalf of the U. S. Department of Justice, the law enforcement branch of the federal government. AS A PRELIMINARY TO ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT CRIME VICTIMIZATION EXPERIENCES, INTERVIEWERS ESTABLISH THE ADDRESS, TELEPHONE NUMBER, AND FULL NAME OF ALL OCCUPANTS, AGE TWELVE AND OVER, IN EACH HOUSEHOLD THEY CONTACT. In short, it is made very clear that R’s are in effect speaking to a law enforcement arm of the federal government, whose employees know exactly who they are, where they live, and how they can be contacted.”

You seem to have forgotten to mention a few things about the NCVS. It is conducted by the Census Bureau (not law enforcement) for the Bureau of Justice Statistics (not law enforcement either). Since interviewers identify themselves respondents know that they are NOT talking to law enforcement and the confidentiality of responses is guaranteed by law. Participants in Kleck’s survey have no such guarantee and no way of knowing that they are not talking to law enforcement.

I don’t have to tell you what THAT means when R’s live in an area where gun ownership is illegal or highly proscribed. R’s would be admitting to a crime. Even though the interviewer suggests that nothing they say can be used against them, how many people are likely to believe that if their freedom is at stake?

64.2% of Kleck’s respondent said that the police knew about the incident. It is absurd to suggest that 97% of defensive gun users would not tell the NCVS about the incident because they were afraid of law enforcement finding out when in the majority of cases LAW ENFORCEMENT ALREADY KNEW ABOUT IT. Absurd.

The R is not asked about self defense until AFTER he has been asked about the LOCATION of a crime. Thus, if it was illegal for the R to have had a gun in that location, the R would be admitting to a crime. Since 88% of all crimes are committed away from the home, and carrying a weapon is a serious crime in at least 10 states, most out of home defenses would get the R thrown in jail if the cops had caught the person at the time of the DGU.

Kleck’s count of DGUs against burglary is also 30 times that of the NCVS. Is having a gun in your home a crime in 97% of American homes?

[Note: The BATF is already computerizing records it’s not supposed to computerize. Are we really expected to believe that at some time in the future, they won’t be able to READ NCVS file information? Most Americans would laugh at the the suggestion that they wouldn’t.

But apparently Americans have not considered the possibility that the BATF might pretend to conduct a survey on defensive gun use….

Steve D. Fischer writes:

While you’re at it, keep in mind that one of Pim’s favorite scientists (i.e. one who also hates guns), Colin Loftin, has said publically that the NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey) survey - the “Gold Standard” (guffaw) of surveys - undercounts spousal abuses by as much as a factor of 12, and rapes by a factor of 33.

Err, no. He said it might undercount them by this much. Criminologists do agree that NCVS significantly undercounts non-stranger crimes. It does not follow that it undercounts stranger crimes. Since the uses reported to Kleck were mostly against strangers this does not explain the enormous discrepancy between Kleck and the NCVS.

If you’ve had to discharge your weapon and you’ve shot someone then the police have probably become involved and you have the incident on your record. There is no reason to lie about it when talking with an interviewer from the government.

The Kleck estimate of the number of times defensive gun users shot someone is more than twice the the NCVS for all DGUs.

However, if no shots were fired, the odds are that you didn’t report the incident and only you and the bad guy know about it.

Not according to Kleck’s study. 64.2% said the police knew about the incident.

You’re not likely to admit that to an interviewer who represents the Justice Department, regardless of how much they might insist that your responses are confidential.

According to Kleck’s study in 64.2% of cases the police already knew about it, so there seems no reason for these to hide it from the Census Bureau.

Secondly, you’re naturally going to feel ill at ease admitting to someone sitting in front of you that you may have broken the law, even if it was to defend your life. People have a natural tendency to want to please the interviewer even if that person is a stranger. That face to face contact makes all the difference in the world.

NCVS interviews are mostly conducted by phone. The natural tendency to give a response to please the interviewer is a threat to both the NCVS and Kleck’s study. Kleck wanted to study the nature of self-defense with a gun. Each additional piece of data would undoubtedly please him.

You can argue about how many people the NCVS interviews versus the other surveys until you’re blue in the face, but it won’t alter the fact that if 97% of the people you interview about certain victimizations lie, the size of the study is irrelevant.

And you can argue (as Kleck does) about how many other surveys give similar results and it won’t alter the fact that if 5% of the people you interview about defensive gun use lie, the number of studies is irrelevant.

Pim van Meurs writes:

How can you claim it to be a better estimate when the same data show inflated statistics (often 10 fold) in several other areas as well ? How can you claim that at survey which restricts definition of gun used in self defense ends up finding far more than ever found before ? Not that much was changed in the methodology to account for such a jump and certainly the study should be compared to other surveys like the NCS.

Kleck deals with the jump by “adjusting” the earlier estimates. Apparently the Hart poll now implies exactly 1,797,461 defensive. gun uses. (page 182 of Kleck’s paper). Kleck seems to be impressed by how close the new, improved, Hart estimate is to the results of his latest survey. I am puzzled as to why he continues to attack the NCVS estimate. Surely it would be simpler to adjust it so that it agrees with his latest survey?