Reply #16: The link that your data comes from points out the faults with the study...

[spin]

Gun rights advocates counter that the entire study is not only suspect for the integrity of it's data, but also that it is entirely mis-leading in it's basic methodology to the point where it proves nothing more interesting than the fact that suicides make up the bulk of gunshot deaths, which has been known since gunshot death records begin. Gun rights advocates state that the only purpose for this biased and carefully manipulated study was to create a useful headline for the gun control lobby to use to frighten the public with.

'Objections:\' (In no particular order)

* No peer review- The primary source for the data were case files which were reviewed only by the study's authors and categorised and tabulated only by their judgment. Neither the case files nor any extracts from them have ever been made available for peer review or published. Clear oppoutunity for bias with no chance of achedemic review.

* Small sample area- The study was conducted in one single county in the USA out of several thousands of USA counties. King county, Washington state (includes Seattle). No study with such a tiny sample area can be validly applied to the entire USA for such a complex issue.

* Lethal-only filter- The study excluded all cases where an attacker was either wounded or unharmed and survived the encounter with the armed gun owner. Fatal self-defense uses of firearms account for far less than 1% of all defensive gun uses (DGU). Gun owners, even while defending their own lives, will avoid firing their gun except as a last desperate resort to stopping an attack. The lack of a dead body does not mean the gun failed to protect the gun owner or their family.

* Stranger-only filter- The study classifies as "homocides for self-protection", (ie, the "good case") only those cases where the attacker was a total stranger to the gun owner. This means that if the gun owner is violently attacked by someone he/she knows, even slight aquaintences, and the gun owner uses a gun to stop the attack by killing the attacker, this study still counts that case as a "criminal homocide".

* Accusation equals guilt assumption- The study authors assumed that any gun owner who is accused or charged in relation to a case of gunshot homocide in his home was automatically guilty of the crime and thus the case was placed in the "criminal homocide" category. The authors made no effort to discover if the charges were later dropped by the police after further investigations cleared the gun owner. Other studies have found that as high as 40% of jury trials for such cases find the gun owner was justified in the shooting. Such cases where the gun owner was later vindicated would properly reduce the number of "bad cases" and increase the number of "good cases".
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgaga.html

Some people actually do look at the links you provide.