Gun survey

I was floating aimlessly through the blogsphere when i found this lovely piece of information from Gun Watch:"Gun violence falls 63%". I personally think that is great. I then read the link that Gun Watch links to, but that source did not provide as much information as i wanted. So i went to the source of this survey: the Bureau of Justice Statistics. I found out how they came up with their numbers and what crimes were included into survey.

"Estimates are from data collected using the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), an ongoing survey of households that interviews about 75,000 persons in 42,000 households twice annually. Violent crimes included in the report are rape/sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault and simple assault (from the NCVS), and homicide (from the FBI's UCR program). Property crimes examined are burglary, motor vehicle theft, and property theft."

While this survey could be indicative of trends that are present in America, i think their are better tools that have more accurate crime stats. The survey actually uses some of that more accurate information to add to information they have no way of receiving by calling people. The Uniform Crime Reports of the FBI seems to be a much more accurate tool to judge the amount of crime in America, but they lack the pretty pictures the NCVS has.

The progun crowd accepts this information as good news,which it is. Though I saw no qualifiers of this being a survey and not a study. Which surveys are much to close to polls, for me to warm up to.

cube