Armed Resistance to Crime The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun

KLECK & GERTZ
[Vol. 86
eral government, an R who reports a DGU may believe that he is placing
himself in serious legal jeopardy. For example, consider the issue
of the location of crimes. For all but a handful of gun owners with a
permit to carry a weapon in public places (under 4% of the adult
population even in states like Florida, where carry permits are relatively
easy to get) 28 , the mere possession of a gun in a place other than
their home, place of business, or in some states, their vehicle, is a
crime, often a felony. In at least ten states, it is punishable by a punitively
mandatory minimum prison sentence. 29 Yet, 88% of the violent
crimes which Rs reported to NCVS interviewers in 1992 were committed
away from the victim's home, 30 i.e., in a location where it would
ordinarily be a crime for the victim to even possess a gun, never mind
use it defensively. Because the question about location is asked before
the self-protection questions, 31 the typical violent crime victim R has
already committed himself to having been victimized in a public place
before being asked what he or she did for self-protection. In short, Rs
usually could not mention their defensive use of a gun without, in
effect, confessing to a crime to a federal government employee.
Even for crimes that occurred in the victim's home, such as a
burglary, possession of a gun would still often be unlawful or of unknown
legal status; because the R had not complied with or could not
be sure he had complied with all legal requirements concerning registration
of the gun's acquisition or possession, permits for purchase,
licensing of home possession, storage requirements, and so on. In
light of all these considerations, it may be unrealistic to assume that
more than a fraction of Rs who have used a gun defensively would be
willing to report it to NCVS interviewers.
The NCVS was not designed to estimate how often people resist
crime using a gun. It was designed primarily to estimate national victimization
levels; it incidentally happens to include a few self-protection
questions which include response categories covering resistance
with a gun. Its survey instrument has been carefully refined and evaluated
over the years to do as good ajob as possible in getting people to
report illegal things which other people have done to them. This is the
exact opposite of the task which faces anyone trying to get good DGU
estimates-to get people to admit controversial and possibly illegal
28 Patrick Blackman, Carrying Handguns for Personal Protection 31 (1985) (unpublished
paper presented at the annual meetings of the American Society of Criminology)
(Nov. 13-16, 1985); KL..cR, supra note 18, at 412.
29 Kent M. Ronhovde & Gloria P. Sugars, Survey of Select State Firearm Control Laws, in
FEDERAL REGULATION OF FIEARMs 204-05 (H. Hogan ed., 1982) (report prepared for the
U.S. SenateJudiciary Committee by the Congressional Research Service).
30 U.S. BUREAU OFJUSnCE STATISTICS, supra note 26, at 75.
31 Id. at 124, 128.