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Here is one of a number of threads containing and discussing the data referred to as "The Armed Citizen Analysis".
I base my numbers largely on this data, but also on the lack of data showing otherwise. This current thread is one of MANY that I have personally seen in which there is a request made for actual circumstances wherein "high-cap" or multiple magazines was the determining factor (or even played a part) in a civilian defensive scenario. To date, I have seen ZERO.
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Well, I think we should all be grateful to Mr. Werner for taking the time to do that analysis and share the information from it. However, I can see some big problems with using that data to determine probability.
The Armed Citizen is basically a short summary of an existing new story published by the NRA. The
NRA's Armed Citizen is a great resource; but limited. For example, today's highlight comes in at 95 words.
From today's example, we can determine the location, the type of crime, the weapon used, that more than one shot was fired, the one known assailant was killed and that there was communication prior to the shooting. However, we cannot determine the number of rounds fired, the caliber used, the location of wounds, or whether there was a reload.
The Armed Citizen publishes around 9-10 stories per month. The analysis you linked to says it covers 1997-2001 (making 482 stories). As someone who has read my fair share of Armed Citizen stories, it seems to me that a lot of those 482 stories are going to be lacking the data necessary to make the assumptions Mr. Werner made.
For example, he states:
"Even small caliber handguns displayed a significant degree of instant lethality (30 per cent immediate one shot kills) when employed at close range."
But we don't know how many of the 482 stories he analyzed had sufficient information. For all we know, that could be a total of 3 incidents and one were it resulted in instant lethality. The data already has significant problems with being non-random and only including positive outcomes; but now we don't even have a good idea of the sample size for specific sets of claims (such as reloads, small caliber, etc.)
He states "Reloading was required in only 3 incidents." Yet, how many stories even discussed the number of rounds fired? For example, take this
Clayton Cramer Armed Citizen example from the May 11 Modesto Bee:
Quote:
Police: 1 killed, 4 wounded in Ariz. shootout
Police say one man is dead and three others are wounded after they attempted to rob an Arizona store and got into a shootout with the owner and an employee.
Police say the shooting happened Tuesday night after the four men entered and tried to hold up the Tucson store M&M Customs, which sells auto alarms and stereos.
While the men confronted an employee, the store’s owner brandished a gun and a shootout ensued. At some point, the employee also pulled a gun and fired at the suspected robbers.
Police say one of the robbers was killed, another suffered life-threatening injuries, and two others were not seriously wounded.
No names were released.
Police say the business owner suffered a non-life-threatening wound
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Any reloads there? How many rounds fired?
Don't get me wrong, it is a great effort by Mr. Werner and I appreciate it; but I think using it to establish a reliable average number of rounds fired in an average citizen defensive firearm use is probably a stretch. To further emphasize the point,
give the first page of Clayton Cramer's Armed Citizen blog a read. How many of those expressly state the number of rounds fired by any participant? In most cases, you have to infer the number of rounds fired based on the newspaper reporting (which we all know is never wrong on guns) - and in many cases, it just isn't possible to say beyond "more than one."