| The National Crime Victimization (NCV) Survey from
part of the 1990s (extracted from Table 7.1 of Armed by Gary Kleck and
Don Kates) shows injury rates (pre-self protection and post- self
protection) for crime victims who take a variety of self protective
actions. The actions range from attacking the offender with a gun to
yelling at offender and turning on lights to taking no self protection
measures at all. A recent improvement in the NCV Survey allows analysts
to separately identify injuries inflicted after the victim engaged in
some form of self-protection. When investigating whether the
self-protection measures are effective at reducing the likelihood of
injury, it is necessary to compare the post-self protection injury rates
for the different strategies with the injury rate when no self
protection measure is taken.
Taking the examples of confrontational robbery and
assault shows an interesting story. After the self-protection method was
employed, the rate of sustaining injury or further injury was lower in
every instance than was the rate of sustaining injury when no
self-protection measure was employed at all. Note that aggravated
assaults are much more common than robbery. Data covering a longer
period of time makes an even stronger case for defensive gun use.
| Percent Injured after Self Protection Action |
| |
Robbery |
Assault |
| Any SP with gun |
7.7% |
3.6% |
| Chased, tried to catch O |
9.6% |
9.0% |
| Ran/drove away; tried to |
4.9% |
5.4% |
| Screamed from pain, fear |
22.0% |
12.6% |
| Threatened O without weapon |
5.8% |
13.6% |
| No SP measures at all |
23.6% |
55.2% |
|
