Studying Firearm Related Violence

[steronz]

@Bone

Is it fair to say that conversely you believe that DGUs should not be treated as zero, and that they do in fact occur?

Yeah, sure.

@Bone

In your hypothetical, if a mugger would only take a person’s wallet and not otherwise harm them, is it a DGU if a person shoots that mugger and the mugger dies? This is assuming perfect knowledge for the sake of sussing out definitions, in reality you’d never be able to know this.

Sure, it’s a DGU. It’s a DGU even if the weapon isn’t fired. But if we know that a life wasn’t saved, merely the contents of a wallet, then what do we do with that? How do we compare that against, say, an accidental gun death? I’m not saying that these sorts of scenarios aren’t DGUs, I’m saying that DGUs don’t really mean anything.