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2023 NIBRS Report – A Self-Defense Perspective

Hello Everyone,

The Uniform Crime Reporting program has been gradually moving to a new database called NIBRS. NIBRS promises a wealth of additional detail about crime reported to law enforcement. In 2023, NIBRS submissions covered approximately 80% of the United States. I felt that this coverage was sufficient to begin to analyze the data from a self-defense perspective. I worked with a great data scientist (thank you, Erin Williams!) to develop a tool to analyze the 2023 NIBRS data. The resulting report is available below.

This report supplements the statistics in my book, Beyond Weapons. I hope you find both this report and my book helpful in keeping your loved ones safe.

I appreciate your support!

Clay Escobedo Olsen
2 June 2025

NIBRS-2023-Self-Defense-AnalysisDownload

NIBRS Reports Coming – A Methodology

I’m currently working with a data scientist on parsing the 2023 NIBRS data and generating reports from that data. Using these reports, I’ll be able to directly compare NIBRS to the NCVS data I have in my book. In some instances, there will be new fields in NIBRS, which I hope sheds light on violent crime phenomena. Hopefully, in the next couple of months, I’ll have these reports available.

It is important to understand the differences between NIBRS and the NCVS, because that help make sense of the data.

  • NIBRS is still using estimates for violent crime data for some law enforcement agencies. In other words, some law enforcement agencies are still using the legacy system SRS and the entire country is not on the NIBRS system. In order to query NIBRS data, the UCR takes SRS reports and converts them into NIBRS estimates, which have a lower bound and higher bound estimate. I believe 2023 coverage for law enforcement agencies using NIBRS is above 80 percent, so I feel okay in generating reports from 2023 and beyond as the data becomes available.
  • NIBRS requires a law enforcement report. This means only violent crimes reported to law enforcement are included. Here are some possible issues:
    • Rape is significantly under reported to law enforcement based on the NCVS data. It will be interesting to see what types of rapes are reported to law enforcement and how they are different than what the NCVS shows.
    • In most cases, I believe the victim offender relationship of “stranger” will be more common. For example, you can have an argument with your spouse in your home over a jar of mustard, and law enforcement isn’t going to be called. Have that same argument in a grocery store with a stranger instead of your spouse, someone in the store will likely call the police.
    • It is possible individual robbery will show differences. The reason is that many insurance companies will require a police report in order to compensate for belongings that were robbed (assuming the person was insured).
  • Because a law enforcement agent is a trusted third party in these reports, some additional information may be included for assault and homicide. For example, if it was gang related, domestic violence related, or if the offender was under the influence.
  • I hope to be able to separate individual robbery from business/commercial robbery. I also hope to get an idea of what type of property is stolen in individual robberies.
  • NIBRS has some attributes with multiple values, such as all the various injuries a victim experiences. However, I will only be looking at Major Injuries and Minor/No Injuries for the purpose of the report. Similarly, the Offender can have up to 3 weapons. I will prioritize them and only report one. For example, I would not report any other weapon if the offender had a firearm. If the offender had a cutting instrument like a knife but no firearm, I would only report the knife. This reduces the amount of information, but from a self-defense perspective, it allows me to do percentages as long as there is a one-to-one correspondence.

LEOKA 2023

In my book, I covered Law Enforcement Officers Killed or Asssaulted (LEOKA). I think now that 2020, 2021, and 2022 have passed, 2023 provides a good opportunity to get back to a certain type of normalcy. However, in talking to many customer-oriented businesses, they report a large increase of rudeness after the pandemic. It is likely that this will carry over into other experiences, such as law enforcement assaults.

I would highly encourage you to read the LEOKA Felony Narratives, which describe how the officer died. In doing so, you’ll understand the traffic stop recommendations I provided in my book. Law Enforcement Officers have a very dangerous job.

LEOKA Main Page: https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/more-fbi-services-and-information/ucr/leoka

Crime Data Explorer Main Page: https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/le/leoka

LEOKA Annual Report Download Page: https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/downloads#leokaDownloads

The Double-Action Revolver for Home Defense

In this post, I expect my audience to be an ordinary civilian with no firearm experience. For whatever reason, you have decided to purchase a firearm for home defense and do not want to use a shotgun. What would I recommend?

It may sound boring and old school, but I would recommend a large caliber double action revolver. The primary reason is how well you can practice without shooting ammunition. In my view, many ordinary civilians won’t be going to the range as much as they should. In this case, you can still practice very well at home and your practice won’t invalidate how you handle your weapon.

What do I mean by that? Well, if you dry fire a semi-automatic pistol, you’ll either need to cock back the hammer, or continually rack the slide to get a trigger pull/hammer-drop/striker-fire. These are not things that you will normally do when shooting a normally operating semi-automatic pistol. Thus, you are training in a way that doesn’t make sense with how you use the weapon. Of course, you can spend money and fix this to a certain extent. For example, there exists a product called a Cool Fire Trainer which uses CO2 to simulate live ammunition, and it will cycle the slide on a pistol. You can also invest money in an infrared laser and infrared laser targets, or perhaps even set up a simulation environment like Point Blank Simulator or Smokeless Range.

A more cost-effective approach is to simply buy some snap caps for your double action revolver. These help to protect the firing pin of your revolver. You can also buy some more snap caps and put them in a speed loader to practice revolver unloading and loading. Snap caps allow you to inexpensively break in the trigger of your revolver, as after several hundred cycles will do, all without shooting any ammunition.

Here is how I would train inexpensively with snap caps:

  • First break in the trigger. I would recommend only shooting by pulling the trigger (double action mode) rather than cocking the hammer and pulling the trigger. You’ll simply load up the snap caps and pull the trigger 6 times (or 5 times depending on how many rounds your revolver holds). You can do this over several days. By the time you are done, you should have a broke in trigger. If it still feels yucky, you may want to take it to a trusted gunsmith and have them look at it.
  • Once you get the trigger the way you want, you can now work on your grip. You’ll want to get a good grip on your gun. Also, always use two hands. The Revolver Guy has a nice article on it: https://revolverguy.com/revolver-grasp-techniques/  (he refers to it as grasp).
  • Now you can work on sight picture. First, you’ll want to try different stances and see how each one impacts your sight picture. Here are some: https://www.police1.com/police-products/firearms/training/articles/the-3-shooting-stances-which-ones-right-for-you-LA3iowVFZFC9hE24/ For each stance, you’ll want to aim the revolver at a safe target (using snap caps of course). You’ll use your grip and slowly squeeze the trigger watching how your sight picture moves. You’ll want to be sure and steady. Don’t worry about speed. Just try and be smooth. You’ll want to focus on your sights staying on target through the trigger squeeze. There may be a stance that feels better for you and allows you to keep a good sight picture through a trigger squeeze. That is the one you should use.
  • When you are working on your sight picture, count each time you squeeze the trigger. When you get to the number of rounds your cylinder holds, you’ll want to reload. It is a good idea to have an extra set of snap caps and a speed loader. Again, we simply want to be smooth here, not fast. If you have a spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, or child, they can gather up the discarded snap caps and put them back in the speed loader while you continue to work on your sight picture. Then, your speed loader is ready for use again. By doing this practice, you’ll be keeping track of the number of rounds you shoot unconsciously.
  • Now you are ready for the range. You can set up a target about 10 feet away is all and practice with live ammo. Again, speed is not important. Being smooth is important. All you want to do is put your rounds in center mass of your target.
  • An excellent way to correct for flinching is to use snap caps when you are at the range. Using your practice ammo and snap caps, have a spouse or friend load the pistol with a random combination of live ammo and snap caps. They’ll place the revolver down and then you’ll pick it up and start shooting normally. When you hit a snap cap, your revolver should not move all over the place. If it does, recoil is impacting your accuracy because you are flinching or expecting recoil.

These simple techniques will make you a better shooter than many semi-automatic pistol shooters out there. The reason is that you are inexpensively practicing with your pistol in the same manner you will be using it. If your revolver goes click, you squeeze the trigger again, just like you do in practice. If you’ve squeezed the trigger 6 times (depending on your cylinder capacity), you reload, just like in practice. You can do all this without live ammunition. When you do use live ammunition at the range, you can mix in snap caps to correct any flinching that you may not realize you are doing.

In my next post, I’ll talk about selecting a revolver for home defense.

The Home Defense Shotgun – Part II

In my opinion, most ordinary civilians would be best served with a large-caliber (https://clayeolsen.com/archives/222) double-action revolver or a shotgun as a home defense weapon. I talked about some previous home shotgun suggestions here: https://clayeolsen.com/archives/359. I want to discuss some more considerations for shotguns here.


First, many ordinary civilians may want to purchase short tactical shotguns. These can be short-barreled shotguns (SBS), which require a tax stamp from the ATF, or perhaps have a pistol grip or a short stock. I recommend against this type of purchase because even though home defense ranges are short, you must still be accurate. These short shotguns make that much more difficult in stressful situations.


Second, some ordinary civilians may want to use a regular shotgun made for birds. These may have a 28″ barrel or longer. Depending on how you use them, these can work well. In general, though, I recommend purchasing a shotgun dedicated to home defense with a shorter barrel and a bright front sight (made for shooting things other than flying birds).


Third, some ordinary civilians may want to purchase a .410 shotgun. Here, ammunition selection is critical. Many handguns have been introduced that can shoot .410 shells along with regular .45 Colt or .45 Automatic ammunition. These handguns have rifled barrels, and the .410 defensive loads are made to shoot in rifled barrels (in most cases, this ammunition is labeled for handguns, but make sure with the manufacturer). Regular .410 shotguns have smoothbore barrels, and these rounds may not perform as well in those shotguns.


Given these considerations, what would I recommend? In general, I would recommend a 12 Gauge or 20 Gauge shotgun with about a 20″ smoothbore barrel and rifle-style (or ghost ring sights).

Here are some key questions:
How strong are you?
A fully loaded shotgun can be heavy. If you have a defensive room like the one I describe in my book, you can rest the shotgun on your defensive setup. Depending on what you are resting it on, you’ll need to lift it up to properly feed a pump-action shotgun with a bottom eject (common for left-handers).

What are the risks of overpenetration?
Any firearm used in the home risks overpenetration. Ken Whitmore has done a nice job of testing various firearms and loads here: https://www.pewpewtactical.com/home-defense-overpenetration/. A key point is that regular drywall is not a very good stopper. In my book Beyond Weapons, I discuss ways to help in this regard.

Do you have a lot of property to protect?
In my book, I discuss why it is usually a bad idea to confront 2-legged animals on your property. In this case, I’m talking about 4-legged animals that may be trying to get at your domesticated animals. Your home defense loads may not be right for this type of work.
Many pump shotguns are at a distinct disadvantage here. Unloading and reloading a pump shotgun with different ammunition is much more troublesome, and this process is also more likely to result in a negligent discharge. A couple of exceptions exist: (1) Mossberg makes the 590M, a magazine-fed shotgun. With the 590M, you can have two magazines, each with different ammunition – one for inside the home and one for the property. Some high-visibility tape is all that is required to differentiate between them. (2) Some shotguns, such as Kel-Tec, have dual magazine tubes where each magazine tube can hold different ammunition. A selector switch determines which magazine tube is used. Extreme care must be used in a home defense situation as you don’t want to select the wrong tube and have massive overpenetration problems due to the wrong ammunition being used.
Also, you’ll want a very good light on any shotgun used outside.

How much recoil can I handle?
Unless you handload your own shotgun shells, you’ll be limited to factory ammunition. Low recoil ammunition is typically in 00 Buckshot or slugs, which may result in overpenetration. Ultimately, be prepared to test whatever load you choose (refer to Ken Whitmore’s test process in the link above).

Red Dots & Compensators

In the Guns & Ammo January 2025 issue, James Tarr has an important article on compensators and red dot sights. He indicates that compensators have become more popular because of the popularity of red dots. The reduction of muzzle flip allows for easier re-acquisition of the red dot. However, he also indicates that even pros with compensated race guns sometimes have trouble picking up the red dot—a phenomenon he describes as “The IPSC Wobble.” He further points out that +P loads with lighter bullets see more recoil [muzzle flip] reduction than slower, heavier bullets.


Unfortunately, this is a case where gear dramatically increases training requirements. In my experience, most ordinary civilians new to firearms don’t train or practice enough for general proficiency with a double-action revolver, much less a semi-automatic pistol with a red dot and comp. Red dots are extremely sensitive to grip. With the wrong grip, it isn’t easy to find the dot. Throw in a lot of stress and a defensive reaction, and your chances of having a less-than-perfect grip are high. Another critical factor that should be considered is that an ordinary civilian should purchase ammunition with flash-suppressed powder when using a comp for low-light encounters.


What do our crime statistics say? Well, defensive gun use (DGU) statistics show that around 80% of the time, DGUs happen in the home or on the property of the home. Furthermore, the firearm is not discharged around 80% of the time. When civilians discharge a firearm in a DGU, research by Claude Werner shows that an average of two shots are fired at a distance of arm’s length. In short, red dots and comps may cause more problems in these situations and solve none.

The Rise of Fentanyl & Crystal Meth Arrests

This information comes from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Here is the full report for Methamphetamine, Cocaine, and Other Psychostimulant Offenses in Federal Courts, 2022

Unfortunately, the report seems to emphasize increases/decreases from FY2021 to FY2022 (FY = Fiscal Year). Since 2021 is still a “pandemic” year that suffers from a variety of governmental restrictions and social concerns with lifestyle (compared to 2019), and 2022 is a different beast, I don’t feel these comparisons make much sense. However, there are statistics available for 2002-2022, and the pandemic years won’t have as much influence on statistics.

The most interesting data, for me at least, comes from TABLE 1 – Federal and state arrests by the Drug Enforcement Administration, by drug type, FY 2002–2022. There is a line item called “Average annual percent change, FY 2002–2022[e footnote].” The footnote lists: “Calculated using fiscal year counts in 2002 and in 2022. See Methodology.”

The table breaks up drugs into Psychostimulants, Opioids, Marijuana, and Other/non-drug (which is defined in footnote d as “Includes non-opioid pharmaceutical controlled substances, other depressants, sedatives, hallucinogens, synthetic cannabinoids, other steroids, equipment to manufacture controlled substances, and drug-use paraphernalia”).

From this table, there are 13 columns. 8 columns are decreases in percentage while 5 columns show increases in percentage. Of those 5 column increases, only two of those columns have increases of 5% or more. These are:

  • Fentanyl: 39.9%
  • Other Opioids: 5.1% (Other Opioids: Includes oxycodone, hydrocodone, hydromorphone (Palladone), oxymorphone, opioid treatment pharmaceuticals, opium, and morphine.)

Let’s look at Fentanyl arrests for the years 2015 – 2022:

  • 2015: 60
  • 2016: 248
  • 2017: 697
  • 2018: 1,227
  • 2019: 1,759
  • 2020: 2,305
  • 2021: 3,138
  • 2022: 4,924

In the table, methamphetamine only increased 1.1% from 2002 to 2022. However, this hides an important distinction between crystal meth and powder meth, which is elaborated on by the report:

“On average, DEA arrests for crystallized (crystal) methamphetamine increased (up 12% annually) each year from FY 2002 to FY 2022, while arrests for powder methamphetamine decreased (down 5% annually)”

I didn’t see anything surprising about the arrestee’s sex and age for psychostimulants:

  • Men: 81.9%
  • Age: 21-49: 84.3%

Here are some tidbits:

“From 2014 to 2022, the majority of psychostimulant overdose deaths have involved an opioid”


“[In FY2022]…Most (84%) persons sentenced for a drug offense involving psychostimulants were U.S. citizens.”


“In FY 2022, drug trafficking was the most common (98%) conviction offense among persons sentenced in federal district court for a psychostimulant offense”


“[In FY2022]….Most persons sentenced for a drug offense involving crack cocaine (98%) or methamphetamine (90%) had a prior criminal history at sentencing”

Trends for Background Checks for Firearm Transfers, 1999–2018:The First 20 Years of the Permanent Brady Act Period

“Abstract:
The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Brady Act) requires a background check on an applicant for a firearm purchase from a dealer who is a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL). During the permanent Brady Act period, from 1999 through 2018, background checks were conducted on over 237 million applicants for firearm transfers or permits. During this period, nearly 3.5 million applications for firearm transfers or permits were denied by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or by state and local agencies. This report summarizes the number of applications for firearm transfers and permits, denials that resulted from background checks, reasons for denial, rates of denial, appeals of denials, and arrests of denied persons during the permanent Brady Act period. Statistics are presented at the FBI, state, and local levels. The report also provides a summary of significant changes in federal and state laws and regulations
related to firearm sales. Statistical highlights are presented in the body of the report, and complete details are included in an appendix”

This report is available here. What are some of the highlights?

  • From 1999 to 2018, the FBI conducted more background checks on applicants for firearm transfers or permits (129 million) than state and local agencies (109 million). The FBI had a lower denial rate (1.2%) than state and local agencies (1.7%).
  • A felony conviction, indictment/information/charge, or arrest was the most common reason (51%) for denial of a firearm transfer or permit application from 1999 to 2018. The second most common reason was being a fugitive from justice or having an active warrant (10%).
  • Among all agencies conducting background checks, 47% of denials were due to a felony reason (conviction, indictment/information/charge, or arrest) in 2018 compared to 73% in The percentage of denials for non-felony reasons increased from 27% in 1999 to 53% in 2018.

Unfortunately, there is no detail on the type of felonies that were committed. In the future, I would like to see at least violent/non-violent distinctions.