If you are skeptical of statistics, congratulations! You should be. However, that doesn’t mean that statistics are inadequate or worthless. You should subject any statistics to meaningful investigation.
One of the many sad things about COVID was how much science was compromised. Studies were written supporting masks, yet the recent Cochrane review showed insufficient evidence to justify that conclusion. Additionally, Alex Berenson pointed out time and time again that data in the study’s appendices often contradicted the abstract or summary of a study. In short, it appeared that a conclusion was pre-selected, and data was gathered that supported this conclusion, probably in the hopes that no one checked too closely—quite the opposite of how science is supposed to work.
We see something similar in the pro-gun and anti-gun debates. Often these people have already determined the conclusion and go off and find data to support the conclusion. Look at the Defensive Gun Use (DGU) study controversy I’ve discussed previously. Many people are convinced that Kleck’s work was refuted. It was not. English’s recent work has done much to validate it, although dropping DGUs from 2 to 2.5 million times a year to 1.6 million a year, which is still a large number. Kleck believed that the CDC’s own research supported over 1 million DGUs per year. These numbers are significant compared to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR).
The pro-gun folks can be guilty as well. As I explain in my post on DGUs, the DGU statistics should drive a far different civilian self-defense curriculum. Furthermore, the DGU statistics complement the NCVS statistics that show that the offender rarely uses firearms for 98.7% of violent crimes when the victim is injured. This complement may be because DGUs prevent injurious violent crime. After all, offenders aren’t armed with firearms often. You don’t bring a stick to a gunfight.
However, some pro-gunners do not trust any statistics, preferring to use their own experience as a guide. However, if you are a law enforcement officer, your experience may differ from what a civilian will experience. For example, law enforcement officers have a duty to protect the public and won’t likely be criminally charged in situations where they make a mistake, where a civilian who carries a concealed firearm would be charged. To use a different example, I’m sure there are ER doctors in Arizona’s Maricopa County (around 4 million people) that will not buy a swimming pool due to the number of drownings they see. The ER doctor is a funnel to these incidents and can unduly influence the probability calculator in an ER doctor’s mind. In short, your experience may betray you when you try to advise others.
Ultimately, we should be asking: “What does an ordinary civilian need to do to protect themselves from violent crime and not get charged with a crime when employing that protection?” In doing so, we should utilize our best statistics.
In this spirit, I would offer a $5,000 test. Assuming you have an ordinary civilian family and they had $5,000 to protect their family, what advice would you give them to spend it on? I know my answer, which is conveyed in my book as a whole. What is your answer?