From: Steve Tucker (stevet@megsinet.net)
Date: Wed Jan 27 1999 - 19:45:43 MST
Michael Lorrey forwarded the following (some time ago, sorry):
> > Again abstracting from Covey's excellent essay "Gun Stats and Mortal
> Risks", there are many different ways to look at the limited data that is
> available on
> firearm use. Using very reasonable, non-garbage, ways of looking at the
> data, Covey came up
> with the following fascinating figures:
> >
> > A gun is 32 times more likely to be used to defend against criminal
> threat than to kill
> anybody.
... and many other interesting tidbits.
My question: Do you know whether these statistics include _all_ guns, or only those
that are privately owned? If the statistics include those owned by gov't agents,
used in their enforcement duties, then the argument seems much weaker than if it
includes only guns owned by private citizens.
If the statistics do refer to all guns, is there further data available so that
statistics for privately owned guns may be derived?
Thanks!
- Steve
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