Justifiable homicides rising but still dramatically undercounted
USA Today has this. My problem is that so few of these cases are reported that it is hard to know whether there is an increase in the number or a slight change in the rate that they are reported.
The 391 killings by police that were ruled justifiable in 2007 were the most since 1994, FBI statistics show. The 254 killings by private individuals found to be self-defense were the most since 1997. . . .
Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck says the FBI underestimates self-defense killings by citizens because the ones that are not precipitated by felony crimes may not get counted. "Less than a third of (citizen killings) are reported," he says.
Labels: DefensiveGunUse, justifiable homicides
posted by John Lott at 2:44 AM
3 Comments:
What I see of more interest in the graphic published by USA Today is that police and civilian actions rise and fall together. This would indicate to me a rising and falling in the commission of crimes by criminals if that data were added to the graph.
What isn't pointed out is the dead-straight obvious. No justifiable shootings if criminals aren't committing crimes.
Criminals cause justifiable homicides. Citizens should continue to be armed to help reduce the number of predators.
I just looked at our 2007 numbers on the Civilian Gun Defense Blog, and we documented at least 1,000 DGU's. Where does USA Today get its less-than-300 number??
A defensive firearm use doesn't by necessity result in a "homicide". If I produce a gun and turn away a carjacker (without firing a shot)this inicident is very likely to go unreported. If a bar owner is known to wear a pistol under his apron, and the knowledge of this fact deters an assault or robbery, there is no incident to report or quantify...but is a "use" of the gun unto itself. /ss/rick the v.
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