When it comes to violent crime, there is what I would call a disinformation matrix. Surprisingly, this matrix is formed unintentionally by pro-gunners, intentionally by anti-gunners, by media coverage, by statistical terminology, and sadly, by an abuse of language. What this disinformation matrix does is prevent an ordinary civilian from truly understanding violent crime risks and effective defenses against said risks.
I count six inputs violent crime disinformation matrix
- Statistics Terminology
- Law enforcement influence
- Concealed carry industry
- Intention matters
- Engagement bias
- Words matter
Let’s talk about each one.
Statistics Terminology
An ordinary civilian introduced to violent crime terminology will assume physical injury is much more common than it is. The reason is that everyday terminology conflicts with the meanings of violent crime statistics. For instance, if you ask an ordinary civilian on the street something like: “Aggravated assault is considered a violent crime. If someone were a victim of aggravated assault, what is the likelihood that they were physically injured? 100 percent, 80 percent, 67 percent, 33 percent, 20 percent, or 0 percent?” A response of 100 percent or 80 percent would be common (the actual value is 33 percent). The terms “violent,” “aggravated,” and “assault” often sway an ordinary civilian to say that a victim would definitely be physically injured in such a crime. Unfortunately, the statistics terminology doesn’t mean those things. “Aggravated” means “the offender used a weapon,” and “assault” means the victim was attacked or put in fear of an attack. Just to confuse things, “aggravated” can also mean a victim was severely injured by an attacker who did not have a weapon.
An ordinary civilian, if they went to the movie “Assault on Precinct Thirteen,” would not expect the movie to be about a guy with a rifle slung on his shoulder, standing across the street from a police station and yelling with a blowhorn that he was going to kill a police officer to be the entirety of the movie. An ordinary civilian is going to expect the movie to be about a bunch of people attacking the police station with weapons and, based on the title, likely injuring and killing several officers. However, from a violent crime statistics perspective, if the guy yelling at the police station with a rifle slung on his shoulder put one officer in fear, that would be an aggravated assault.
Another point of confusion is that statistics terminology and criminal charges are not the same. For instance, there is no “aggravated battery” in statistics, nor is there “attempted murder.” Both would be classified statistically as aggravated assaults.
Law enforcement influence
This influence on self-defense training is extremely positive most of the time. Because of this influence, American civilians have access to the best self-defense training in the world. Since self-defense training is given to ordinary civilians, this influence only works if law enforcement and ordinary civilians have a common enemy. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Based on law enforcement officers killed statistics, their most dangerous enemy is an armed stranger who has a violent history. In contrast, when examining violent crime statistics for civilians, 98 percent of violent crimes are aggravated assault, robbery, and rape. In these cases, when the civilian victim is physically injured, firearms are rarely used. Also, the offender is often someone the victim knows, and the crime happened at a place the victim felt comfortable, such as their home.
Furthermore, law enforcement often has tasks that civilians don’t have. For example, they may raid a home because the occupants are buying, selling, and distributing illegal drugs. Raiding a home isn’t something ordinary civilians do. Weapons considerations for these tasks often influence civilian purchases and tactics, such as complex high-capacity firearms and carrying with a round in the chamber.
Lastly, law enforcement officers have considerable protection from the law if they make a mistake because they have a duty to protect the public. Ordinary civilians taking law enforcement training may think they have the same protections. They do not.
Concealed Carry Industry
A few years ago, William English published the results of the National Firearm Survey. This survey was intended to improve on Gary Kleck’s survey results from the 1990s regarding defensive gun use (DGU). Defensive gun use is when a potential victim uses a firearm defensively to prevent said victimization. Many of these instances were not reported to the police, so a survey has to be done to get an estimate. This survey was primarily cited by concealed carry articles to show that an estimated 1.67 million DGUs happen each year.
Unfortunately, what is rarely reported is that close to 80 percent of DGUs happen at the home or the property of the home, and 82 percent of the time, the firearm is not discharged. Furthermore, less than 10 percent of the time do DGUs happen in public, even though the percentage of concealed carriers is much higher.
Another study done by Claude Werner shows that when a civilian does discharge their firearm, the offender is usually at arm’s length, an average of two shots are fired, and the speed of the draw wasn’t a factor.
In short, these statistics support extensive home and property security, simpler firearms for ordinary civilians, and safer carrying and storage of firearms. Sadly, these statistics are not mentioned in most concealed carry articles, perhaps because they would interfere with selling the ever-popular and profitable concealed carry insurance.
Intention Matters
Firearm statistics are often shown to promote gun control laws, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is no exception. In their firearm facts page, they simply add up all firearm deaths and give the number of firearm deaths per day. The CDC includes things like suicides, justifiable homicides, and accidents in their calculations. Some portion of these statistics are also criminals killing other criminals due to the buying, selling, and distribution of illegal drugs. For the CDC, intention does not matter when it comes to firearm deaths.
What about DGUs? Unfortunately, the CDC ignores its own research, Gary Kleck’s research, and William English’s research and simply says more research needs to be done. One gets the impression that when a study shows the number of DGUs to be really low, that research is what will be cited regardless of the study’s quality. However, it may be the case that the CDC will use an existing high-quality DGU study, but they will count the results as contributing to firearm violence!
Not only are the CDC’s statistics and DGU omissions seriously misleading, but they also don’t cover an important fact (yet another omission): When a victim is injured in the violent crimes of aggravated assault, robbery, and rape (a total of 98 percent of all violent crimes), firearms are rarely used. Another omission is that 50 percent of the time, a suicide victim uses something else other than a firearm.
We can see the writing on the wall. Extremely restrictive gun control laws will drastically increase non-firearm criminal victimizations because ordinary civilians won’t be able to use a firearm to protect themselves (NOTE: DGUs prevent victimization because the offender usually doesn’t have a firearm, and the potential victim does). Remember, our best DGU statistics show that 1.67 million victimizations were avoided. If those potential victims didn’t have a firearm, the result would be a massive increase in non-firearm victimizations. In addition, extremely restrictive gun control laws, rather than reducing suicides, will simply change how suicide victims kill themselves. With only a single measure in place, the number of firearm deaths per day, all of these horrible outcomes will seem like a CDC success story around the passage of extremely restrictive gun laws. I doubt they will be motivated to correct it.
Engagement Bias
Many ordinary civilians get news from television, social media, or websites. In many cases, these sites are advertising-oriented rather than subscription-oriented. As such, user engagement matters because a news story’s exposure determines how much to charge for advertising space. For television, the Nielsen rating system measures a news program’s exposure. For social media and websites, it is the number of likes, shares, comments, and engagement metrics like these.
There is an old saying about news: “If it bleeds, it leads.” Another saying is, “Dog bites man isn’t news, but man bites dog is.” Essentially, we are drawn to these styles of stories. Obviously, however, the fact that we are drawn to these stories doesn’t mean that they are probable. Just as we are drawn to lottery winners and big casino jackpot winners, doesn’t mean that playing these games automatically means a big cash payment. In fact, the opposite is true. Someone’s money pays the light bill at the casino, which is the usual situation.
Given the not-so-wonderful facts about human nature and the need to make money selling advertising space, it is no surprise that story headlines and content strive for engagement. Novelty, blood, content designed to provoke inflammatory comments and shares, and borderline false headlines are part of today’s news landscape.
Unfortunately, these factors often lead to the base rate fallacy. For example, a viral video shows a concealed carrier defending themselves against a criminal, leading to the criminal’s demise. Such a video may drastically increase the number of people wanting to carry concealed for self-defense. Unfortunately, there is no indication of the base rate. Justified homicides by private civilians are a few hundred a year, about the same as the number of million and multi-million-dollar lottery winners annually. Even our best DGU statistics show only single-digit percentages for DGUs that happen in public. Carrying a concealed firearm is not a free lunch, as violations of the law can be common, such as carrying in prohibited places, negligent discharges, and more dangerous law enforcement encounters. All of these may be more common than justified homicides and can cause a lot of legal problems for a concealed carrier.
Defensive choices are risk management decisions that require solid information on which to base your decisions. Sadly, the engagement bias often results in good information being buried and effectively ends nuanced discussions that are important for your risk management decisions.
Words Matter
Imagine me and a friend are relaxing by the pool. I tell my friend, “Drug violence is getting out of hand. My grandfather came home from his doctor’s appointment, took a bath, and then took his own life by deliberately overdosing on his prescription medication.”
Something about that description seems off. The term “drug violence” usually makes people think of criminal violence due to the buying, selling, and distribution of illegal drugs. A grandfather committing suicide by overdosing on his prescription medication doesn’t seem to be an instance of “drug violence.”
Sadly, this is not the case for “gun violence” or “firearm violence.” A grandfather coming home from a doctor’s appointment, going to their gun cabinet, and committing suicide with a firearm is presented as “gun violence.” Statistically, over 25 percent of suicides by firearm are by people 65 and over. In other words, on Medicare. Almost 75 percent are over 35.
We don’t use the terms “rope violence” for murderous stranglers or “vehicle violence” for people who are speeding and causing injuries or death on the road. The more an inanimate object is demonized, the more your rights can be taken away. The people who hate firearms have made a lot of progress with the term “gun violence.”