Anyone notice there are no unbaised studies on guns?

[Taverner]

They are one way or the other - either they are done by some Gun Control org, or the NRA. It's obvious to guess how the studies are going to come out :eyes:

[Barack_America]

1. Under which category does the University of Pennsylvania fall?

http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/2009/09/gun-possession-safety/

I believe this is the study most people are talking about these days.

[villager]

2. +1

[tridim]

3. Obviously that's a Liberal Elite study..

Science and statistics have a well known liberal bias.

:sarcasm:

[X_Digger]

25. Tooth Fairy Science

You could measure how much money the Tooth Fairy leaves under the pillow, whether she leaves more cash for the first or last tooth, whether the payoff is greater if you leave the tooth in a plastic baggie versus wrapped in Kleenex. You can get all kinds of good data that is reproducible and statistically significant. Yes, you have learned something. But you haven’t learned what you think you’ve learned, because you haven’t bothered to establish whether the Tooth Fairy really exists.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=44

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

4. Engaging in criminal activity increases your odds of getting shot.

That is what that study demonstrated. They included gang members and drug dealers who were gun carrying illegally and specifically excluded people with permits to carry concealed weapons.

[Barack_America]

5. Link please.

The link I provided does not state what you claim.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

10. It wouldn't make a very good story if they admitted it.

[Barack_America]

11. So you fabricated this "fact" about their research methods.

To discredit a study you did not like the results of.

Sounds like you have an interest in "good stories" too.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

12. I fabricated nothing. The press release doesn't mention research methods.

[Barack_America]

16. It described how they selected their participants, including their controls.

It described how they obtained data from these participants.

These are what are known as "research methods".

What it did not describe was what you claimed it did. That is a fabrication.

[X_Digger]

26. They did not exclude those categories of people..

They did not correlate the controls with the subjects on illegal drug use or previous criminal history.

From the study itself-

However, compared with control participants, shooting case participants were significantly more often Hispanic, more frequently working in high-risk occupations, less educated, and had a greater frequency of prior arrest. At the time of shooting, case participants were also significantly more often involved with alcohol and drugs, outdoors, and closer to areas where more Blacks, Hispanics, and unemployed individuals resided. Case participants were also more likely to be located in areas with less income and more illicit drug trafficking (Table 1).

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

29. They asked people who had been shot if they were armed when they were shot.

Then they asked people who hadn't been shot if they were armed when they weren't shot. Is that supposed to pass for science? Then they come up with the correlation that it was the gun that increased their chances of being shot. As if it didn't have anything to do with activity, lifestyle, etc.

[MajorChode]

21. I'm glad I have my boots on

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Euromutt]

40. A paraMEDIC who works for a FIRE department

At least, that seems the obvious explanation to me. As opposed to a paramedic who works for an ambulance service or a hospital.

[BurtWorm]

18. That's absolutely untrue. Most people who are shot have shot themselves.

And I don't think it's because they're commiting a robbery.

http://harvardmagazine.com/2004/09/death-by-the-barrel.html

Statistically, the United States is not a particularly violent society. Although gun proponents like to compare this country with hot spots like Colombia, Mexico, and Estonia (making America appear a truly peaceable kingdom), a more relevant comparison is against other high-income, industrialized nations. The percentage of the U.S. population victimized in 2000 by crimes like assault, car theft, burglary, robbery, and sexual incidents is about average for 17 industrialized countries, and lower on many indices than Canada, Australia, or New Zealand.

"The only thing that jumps out is lethal violence," Hemenway says. Violence, pace H. Rap Brown, is not "as American as cherry pie," but American violence does tend to end in death. The reason, plain and simple, is guns. We own more guns per capita than any other high-income country—maybe even more than one gun for every man, woman, and child in the country. A 1994 survey numbered the U.S. gun supply at more than 200 million in a population then numbered at 262 million, and currently about 35 percent of American households have guns. (These figures count only civilian guns; Switzerland, for example, has plenty of military weapons per capita.)

"It’s not as if a 19-year-old in the United States is more evil than a 19-year-old in Australia—there’s no evidence for that," Hemenway explains. "But a 19-year-old in America can very easily get a pistol. That’s very hard to do in Australia. So when there’s a bar fight in Australia, somebody gets punched out or hit with a beer bottle. Here, they get shot."

In general, guns don’t induce people to commit crimes. "What guns do is make crimes lethal," says Hemenway. They also make suicide attempts lethal: about 60 percent of suicides in America involve guns. "If you try to kill yourself with drugs, there’s a 2 to 3 percent chance of dying," he explains. "With guns, the chance is 90 percent."

Gun deaths fall into three categories: homicides, suicides, and accidental killings. In 2001, about 30,000 people died from gunfire in the United States. Set this against the 43,000 annual deaths from motor-vehicle accidents to recognize what startling carnage comes out of a barrel. The comparison is especially telling because cars "are a way of life," as Hemenway explains. "People use cars all day, every day—and ‘motor vehicles’ include trucks. How many of us use guns?"

Suicides accounted for about 58 percent of gun fatalities, or 17,000 to 18,000 deaths, in 2001; another 11,000 deaths, or 37 percent, were homicides, and the remaining 800 to 900 gun deaths were accidental. For rural areas, the big problem is suicide; in cities, it’s homicide. ("In Wyoming it’s hard to have big gang fights," Hemenway observes dryly. "Do you call up the other gang and drive 30 miles to meet up?") Homicides follow a curve similar to that of motor-vehicle fatalities: rising steeply between ages 15 and 21, staying fairly level from there until age 65, then rising again with advanced age. Men between 25 and 55 commit the bulk of suicides, and younger males account for an inflated share of both homicides and unintentional shootings. (Males suffer all injuries, including gunshots, at much higher rates than females.)

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

31. So you don't believe that criminals are at an increased risk of being shot?

[Euromutt]

36. There's a small problem with that claim that "The reason, plain and simple, is guns."

Or rather, two problems.

The first is that the rate of homicides committed by means other than a firearm in the U.S. exceeds the total homicide rate of rather a lot of other wealthy industrialized countries. How does the prevalence of firearms in American society explain why Americans stab, beat and anything but shoot each other to death at a higher rate than the French, Germans and British kill each other overall?

The second is that the U.S. suicide rate is quite unremarkable compared to other wealthy industrialized nations. Evidently, the comparative absence of guns in countries like Germany, Sweden, France and Japan (all of which have higher suicide rates than the U.S.) does not reduce the lethality of suicide attempts. Hemenway knows this, of course, and it's notable that in his comparison of fatality rates, he chooses drug overdose to compare shooting to, rather than the leading method of suicide worldwide (and second most common in the U.S.), to wit hanging. Perhaps that's because suicide by hanging has a 70% fatality rate, compared to which firearms aren't quite so shocking. Jumping in front of an oncoming train has a 90% fatality rate as well, by the way.

[TheWraith]

37. Problem with that: our suicide rate is much lower than most industrialized countries.

In other places like Australia, England, Canada, et al, the suicide rate is a lot higher than it is in the US.

[Euromutt]

39. The UK actually has a lower suicide rate than the US

And countries like Canada and Australia have very similar suicide rates to the U.S.'s.

On the other hand, France, Germany and Sweden, to name but three, do have much higher suicide rates than the U.S.

The WHO's compilation of last year's suicide rates is available here: http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide_rates/en/index.html

[Taverner]

7. OK - didn't know about that - have they done other studies?

Try googling gun studies - every one is made by one or the other

[Statistical]

8. worthless

"Penn researchers investigated the link between being shot in an assault and a person’s possession of a gun at the time of the shooting. As identified by police and medical examiners, they randomly selected 677 cases of Philadelphia residents who were shot in an assault from 2003 to 2006. Six percent of these cases were in possession of a gun (such as in a holster, pocket, waistband, or vehicle) when they were shot."

So they picked 677 random people who had been shot to determine if they had a firearm.

Well CRIMINALS tend to get shot about 7x more often then law abiding ciizens.
CRIMINALS also tend to carry illegally.

Had they done the most basic of statistical work like excluded persons:
a) committing a violent crime at the time they were shot
b) had a felony conviction at the time they were shot
c) were no legally carrying the firearm at the time they were shot

then MAYBE the study would have some value. As is the only conclusion you can draw is some people (both criminal & law abiding) get shot and some of them have guns.

[Taverner]

9. Beleive me, this is better than most studies

I went looking for anything unbiased - and such a thing doesn't exist

This is the closest we get, unfortunately

[Statistical]

14. It IS biased though.

Criminal records are public records so are arrest records.

So once they had names of gunshot victims comparing that to felony conviction records & arrest records to remove people in group a & b would be trivial.

Now do you think
a) they were too stupid to figure this out (first year statistical stuff).
b) they INTENTIONALLY didn't exclude felons (even those shot by police while in committing a violent crime) to pad the numbers

I'll put money on b.

[Taverner]

17. Agreed - and it illustrates my point perfectly

[Euromutt]

41. Just a note on your point b) there

I'll give the researchers this: they did only look at shooting classed as "assaults" by the police, and excluded "legal interventions."

However, that does still mean that the numbers include incidents of drug dealers killing each other in "business disputes."

[Barack_America]

20. Can provide a link showing that is true of inner cities like Philadelphia?

Thank you.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

32. So only people who carry guns in Philadelphia are at an increased risk?

[slackmaster]

19. That one makes no distinction between lawfully and unlawfully carrying a weapon

It's obviously biased against gun possession.

But the biggest problem with that one is the incorrect statements that have appeared in the media about the results. The study does not claim to have concluded that carrying a gun increases the probability that a person will be shot.

[Barack_America]

22. I don't really see why that distinction matters.

Particularly in a city like Philly where gun ownership is biased towards illegal ownership and carry.

I saw no claim from the study that their results apply to different socioeconomic regions. Their results are applicable to Philly and perhaps other American inner cities and that's just about it.

Honestly, I see a bigger design flaw in not explicitly excluding gun owners that shot themselves. Inclusion of those people would dilute their findings as they assume all participants had been shot by someone else.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

27. It 100% matters.

If you're an honest citizen that owns or carries a gun, that study does not apply to you.
by default, that study represents a demographic you DO NOT belong to.
If you illegally carry your weapon or engage in nefarious activities, then you should become familiar with this study.

To further extrapolate, citizens with Concealed Handgun licenses are:
Not convicted felons
Not convicted of domestic abuses
Generally law abiding citizens with a background check. (do you honestly think gang bangers & criminals apply for a CCW permit?)

By not differentiating and correlating the data, the research ostracizes the largest segment of the public from the scope of the study: law abiding citizens unarmed citizens versus law abiding armed citizens. At the very least significant concern and doubt can be cast onto any conclusions applicable to a particular demographic. I'm surprised this paper passed peer review, much less published and upheld as a "credible" study.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

30. Why not include concealed carry permit holders as a control?

There are over 29,000 of them in Philadelphia.

[X_Digger]

24. Kellerman II, the Sequel

See the continuing saga of our hero, the epidemiologist, as he tries to navigate the perils of criminology without a net! Thrill as he jumps to conclusions so far from fact that he can't see the other side! Chill as he leverages data into the form that he had already laid out.

We'll sell you the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge!

Playing now at the Hawthorne at 1:25 3:10 4:45 5:20 7:00 8:40 9:00 and a special 1/2 price showing at midnight.

[benEzra]

28. Given the fact that the "study" didn't bother to study people legally carrying guns...

and the "control group" consisted of calling random people out of the phone book, asking them if they were carrying a gun at the moment, and assuming that there were zero false "no" answers, it's pretty clear that the "study" was an exercise in justifying a foregone conclusion.

The gun-control lobby has funded anti-gun studies at Harvard, so I wouldn't be surprised if they funded a couple at UPenn also.

[aikoaiko]

6. Organizations or individuals with agendas.

To an extent its easy to see why people who feel passionately about this topic get involved in research. One really has to take them as a whole and distinquish between reasonable good methodology and flawed methodology.

[Enrique]

15. no

I've seen many studies on guns from major universities.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

34. Funded by the NRA or the Joyce Foundation.

[damntexdem]

23. No, it's that there are no unbiased responses to studies on guns.

The topic is very difficult to research, which means that good research ends up not having definite findings -- but that gets lost in the spin.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

33. There are many suggestions here that would have made this study more credible.

Simple, cheap suggestions that would have made the studies results look far different and far more accurate.

[TheWraith]

35. Sure there are. You just have to look at actual scientists.

Probably the most respected researcher today on the subject of firearms violence and self defense is a guy at FSU named Gary Kleck. He's a lifelong Democrat, member of the ACLU, and has published dozens of scholarly papers, books, and studies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kleck

[Euromutt]

38. There are, but the unbiased ones don't "publish by press release"

They're also mostly done by criminologists instead of medical/public health researchers.

Because they don't "publish by press release" the way that public health studies tend to do, the criminological studies don't anywhere near the amount of news media attention the public health ones do. There's also a matter of publication bias. "Study finds prevalence of firearms makes no significant difference to violent crime rate" isn't sufficiently attention-grabbing to be deemed newsworthy.