Black Crawling Systems Archive Release 1.0/Black Crawling Systems Archive Release 1.0 (L0pht Heavy Industries, Inc.)(1997).ISO/tezcat/Spooks/FBI_Justifiable_Stats.txt

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I wasn't able to talk American Rifleman into publishing this one, but I think
our activists will want to know about it.  The print version has some
pie charts to go with the tables, but those don't convert to ASCII easily. :-)

     Misusing The FBI's Justifiable Homicide Statistics



  Gun  control proponents like to quote FBI statistics about
the  number of civilian justifiable homicides done with guns
each  year.   The number is usually between 300  and  400  --
which sounds pretty small, relative to the number of murders
committed  with guns each year. Gun control advocates  claim
that because the number of civilian justifiable homicides is
so small, guns are not useful for defense.
  Gun  control  advocates may use some  variation  of  these
numbers,   such  as  the  number  of  civilian   justifiable
homicides  there were with handguns, or how many justifiable
homicides were done with guns by women.  Make sure that  you
find  out  from  where they get their number of  justifiable
homicides.   If they get the numbers from the FBI's  Uniform
Crime  Reports, explain that "justifiable homicide"  to  the
FBI  has  a meaning a bit different from what it means  when
the  rest of us use that same phrase -- and even by the FBI's
own   very   technical  definition,  the  FBI   dramatically
undercounts justifiable homicides.



"Justifiable Homicides" Aren't What You Think

  "Justifiable  homicide" is a term with slightly  different
meanings  in  different jurisdictions.  There is  a  set  of
shared definitions, however.  A justifiable homicide  is  an
event  where  one person kills another person to  prevent  a
felony,   and  the  law  considers  it  legally  acceptable.
Everywhere in the United States, if you use deadly force  to
protect yourself or someone else from death or great  bodily
harm, you are within the law.  Increasingly, many states are
updating their justifiable homicide statutes to presume that
if someone breaks into your home, that they intend you great
bodily  harm,  and therefore you are justified  in  shooting
someone who breaks into your home.[1]
  There  are  some  special exceptions. If  you  provoked  a
fight with someone, refused to back down from the fight, and
then  killed the person, you are going to have a  hard  time
getting the courts to call it "justifiable homicide."[2]  In a
few  states, you must back away from an attacker as long  as
you can do so -- even if it means leaving your own home.
  In  some  states,  especially  in  the  West,  justifiable
homicide  can  include killing to suppress a  riot,  prevent
arson of an occupied building, or to prevent a fleeing felon
from  escaping.[3]  The courts, however, tend to take  a  very
dim view of private citizens "playing policeman," and while
the  statutes in some states clearly allow civilians to  use
deadly  force to stop a fleeing felon, you would be  foolish
to  use  deadly  force unless you saw the  person  commit  a
murder  or  rape.   Even police officers  are  now  severely
restricted from shooting a fleeing felony suspect because of
the U. S. Supreme Court decision Tennessee v. Garner (1985).



Excusable Homicide

  There  is  another category of killing, called  "excusable
homicide."  California's  law is like  that  of  many  other
states,  and includes two categories of excusable  homicide.
The  first category is homicides "committed by accident  and
misfortune,  or  in  doing any other lawful  act  by  lawful
means,  with  usual and ordinary caution,  and  without  any
unlawful  intent."[4]  This is the case  where someone  does
everything  right to go shooting, and someone  else  wanders
into the middle of the range and gets shot.  In other words,
it's an accident.
  But  the  second  category  of excusable  homicide  is  so
similar to justifiable homicide that you may not immediately
see   the  difference:  "When  committed  by  accident   and
misfortune,  in  the heat of passion, upon  any  sudden  and
sufficient  provocation, or upon a sudden  combat,  when  no
undue advantage is taken, nor any dangerous weapon used, and
when  the killing is not done in a cruel or unusual way."[5]
If  someone ran up to you on the street, knocked you to  the
ground,  and you pulled out a gun and shot them, this  would
be  an  excusable  homicide.  Why  isn't  it  a  justifiable
homicide?  Because you weren't in danger of death  or  great
bodily  harm.   On the other hand, excusable  homicide  laws
recognize  that  under the circumstances of "sudden  combat"
you don't have time to make that subtle distinction.



Civilian Legal Defensive Homicides

  Gun  control  advocates  often  point  out  that  civilian
justifiable  homicides  with  guns  are  only  1.4%  of  all
murders,  and conclude, therefore, guns are not an effective
method of self-defense.  It is certainly true that the FBI's
Uniform  Crime Reports only showed 308 civilian  justifiable
homicides  with guns in 1992.[6]  But there is  evidence  that
these  figures greatly understate the total number of  cases
in  which  a civilian shoots and kills a criminal.   If  you
want  to  know how many civilians kill criminals each  year,
you need to look at not only justifiable homicides, but also
the  "sudden combat" excusable homicides.  Let's  call  this
combination  of  civilian  justifiable  homicides  and   the
"sudden   combat"   excusable  homicides   "civilian   legal
defensive homicides" (CLDHs).
  One  reason for underreporting is that the FBI  makes  the
distinction between "justifiable" and "excusable" homicides.
The distinction is very subtle -- but the police record these
distinctions,  and  the  FBI  only  totals  the  justifiable
homicides, not the excusable homicides.[7]  Another problem is
that police report CLDHs less carefully than murders.
  There  is  no  data available for the United States  as  a
whole  that tells us the yearly number of CLDHs.  But  there
have  been several studies of different cities and  counties
that  tell  us  how many CLDHs there are,  relative  to  the
number   of   murders   and   manslaughters.    The    noted
criminologist  Gary  Kleck  has concluded,  based  on  these
studies,  that  the number of CLDHs with guns  per  year  is
typically  7.1% to 12.9% of the murder rate (at  least  five
times the FBI's "justifiable homicide with a gun" figures).[8]



"Seven Deadly Days" & CLDHs

  There  is  another  problem with  the  FBI's  figures  for
justifiable  homicides: it significantly understates  CLDHs,
and   significantly  overstates  murders.   If  the   police
investigate  a  homicide and ask the  district  attorney  to
charge someone with murder or manslaughter, that is reported
as  a  murder  or manslaughter to the Uniform Crime  Reports
program.  But district attorneys often investigate  a  case,
find evidence that the killing was indeed, a justifiable or
excusable homicide, and then drop the charges.
  Some  of  these murder charges are found to be justifiable
or  excusable  homicide at trial, when it  becomes  apparent
that  the  killing was done in self-defense.  This  is  very
often  the  case in spousal abuse situations where  a  woman
defends  herself  or  her kids from a current  or  estranged
husband.[9]   If a murder turns into a CLDH after the  initial
report, there is a strong possibility that this change won't
make it into the Uniform Crime Reports data.
  How  do  we  find out how many such cases there  are?   We
have   an  especially  interesting  source  of  information,
because  it  was originally produced as a piece  of  antigun
propaganda.   In  1989, Time magazine ran an article  called
"Death  by  Gun."   It included photographs and  information
about every person killed by a gun in one week in the United
States.
  The  week was May 1-7, 1989.  Was this a typical week  for
gun deaths in the U. S.?  Reasonably so.  There were 464 gun
deaths  reported  in  the  article.   Of  these,  216   were
suicides,  14  were  initially reported as  CLDHs,  13  were
police justifiable homicides, and 22 were accidents.[10]  This
leaves 199 murders.
  To  scale  up  the May 1-7 gun deaths to determine  yearly
rates  for the United States, we can't just multiply  by  52
weeks per year.  Murder rates peak in the summer months; May
1989, had 7.8% of 1989's murders.[11]  To scale up May 1-7 gun
deaths  to  an annual rate, we multiply by 100.0/7.8  (May's
murder  percentage), and then multiply by 30/7 (the fraction
of  May  days  that included May 1-7).  This  gives  us  the
following  results (remembering that the "per year"  figures
on the last line are extrapolations):

Seven Deadly Days total   gun suicides  CLDHs  police  accidents murders
                 deaths
initial report    464         216          14     13         22     199
initial report % 100.00%     46.55%      3.02%  2.80%      4.74%  42.89%
per year          25,495   11,868         769    714      1,209  10,934


Let's  compare  the numbers we extrapolated  from  the  Time
article with the figures for the FBI's figures for the whole
year  1989.   The  FBI  reported  11,832  gun  murders,  236
civilian  justifiable homicides, and 360 police  justifiable
homicides in 1989.[12]
  That  the  FBI's  1989 figures for gun  murders,  civilian
justifiable  homicides,  and  police  justifiable  homicides
don't match our extrapolations isn't very surprising.   Only
about  half of all police justifiable homicides are actually
reported  to the FBI;[13] the data above fits well  with  this
fact.  The 769 CLDHs is far higher than the FBI's figure for
civilian  justifiable homicides, but we've already discussed
why the FBI's numbers are too low.
  We  talked  a few paragraphs back about Professor  Kleck's
estimate that CLDHs with guns should be 7.1% to 12.9% of the
total  murder  rate.  For 1989, that would be between  1,346
and  2,445  gun CLDHs -- not 769.[14]  Remember that  the  Time
article,  like  the FBI's reporting, showed  the  number  of
civilian  defensive uses initially reported.  A year  later,
  Time followed up on the murder cases, to see how the courts
handled them.  Instead of 14 CLDHs, now there were 28  --  14
of  the murders reported in "Death by Gun" were now found to
be justifiable homicides.

Seven Deadly Days total   gun suicides  CLDHs  police  accidents murders
                 deaths
one year later    464         216         28     13     22          185
one year later % 100.00%     46.55%     6.03%  2.80%  4.74%       39.87%
per year          25,495    11,868     1,538    714  1,209       10,165



  This  number  of  CLDHs (1538) is at the low  end  of  the
range that Professor Kleck's estimates would give.  However,
at  least 43 murder cases had still not gone to trial,15] and
it  was  still  possible that some of these would  be  found
"justifiable."  It does seem unlikely, however, that most of
these  cases  still awaiting trial one year later  would  be
found to be justifiable or excusable homicides.
  Our extrapolated CLDH count for 1989 is at the low end  of
Kleck's estimates. The most likely explanation is that Kleck
based  his estimates on studies conducted in urban counties.
It is logical to expect in urban counties, where crime rates
are  highest, that there would be more CLDHs, even  relative
to the overall population.
  The  conclusion  we  can  reach  from  this  exercise   in
statistical  analysis  is  that  not  only  do   the   FBI's
statistics  understate  CLDHs, but  they  overstate  murders
committed  with guns, by perhaps as much 3%.  Unfortunately,
because  no  annual  totals are  kept  of  CLDHs  --  and  no
adjustments are made to reflect murders that are later found
to  be legal homicides -- it calls into question the accuracy
of  the  murder  statistics published in the  FBI's  Uniform
Crime Reports.
  Thus,   when   someone  cites  the  FBI's  statistics   on
justifiable homicides, be aware that there is strong  reason
to  believe that the FBI's figures, collected in  an  honest
and consistent manner, consistently overstate the number  of
murders  in America, and understate the number of  civilians
who use a gun in self-defense.


______________________________

  1  California Penal Code sec.198.5 is an example  of  such  a
statute.
  2 California Penal Code sec.197 is one example.
  3  California  Penal  Code sec.197 allows  deadly  force  "to
apprehend  any  person  for  any  felony  committed,  or  in
lawfully  suppressing any riot, or in lawfully  keeping  and
preserving  the peace."  The courts (at least in California)
have  narrowed the section about apprehending fleeing felons
to  just the crimes that were felonies under English  common
law (e.g., murder, rape).
  4 California Penal Code sec.195.
  5 California Penal Code sec.195.
  6 FBI, Crime in the United States 1992, 22.
  7 FBI, Crime in the United States 1992, 22.
  8  Gary  Kleck, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America,
(New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991), 111-114.
  9 Kleck, 114.
  10 "Seven Deadly Days", Time, July 17, 1989, 30-60.
  11 FBI, Crime in the United States 1991, 14.
  12 FBI, Crime in the United States 1992, 18, 22.
  13 Kleck, 114.
  14  FBI, Crime in the United States 1992, 18.  There  were
18,954 murders in 1989 from all causes.
  15 "Death by Gun: One Year Later", Time, May 14, 1990, 30-
31.


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