40% Boston Students Knife/Gun (10/22 Globe)

[MaverickNH]

I'm confused on the demographics - maybe it's because whites don't send their kid's to public high schools?

Note they don't say 40% have a gun, or 40% can get a gun - but 40% believe they can get a gun.

Not that 40% carry a knife - but have carried a knife.

It all points to the poor job the schools do in protecting students - they are pretty much on their own as far as self-defense. No doubt Menino will promote programs that help more studnets obtain guns for self-defense ....

Now just waiting for another junk science paper to issue from Harvard School of Public Disarmament.

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High rate of violence seen in teens' lives
Survey details gun use, assaults
By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff | October 22, 2007

More than 40 percent of male high school students in Boston say they have carried a knife and more than 40 percent of all students believe it would be easy to get a gun, according to a new public health survey.

One in five students has witnessed a shooting and does not feel safe in his or her neighborhood, the survey found....

The survey was conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health. Half of the surveyed students were black, 28 percent Hispanic, 12 percent white, and 6 percent Asian. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/10/22/high_rate_of_violence_seen_in_teens_lives/


Race in Boston, MA
53.54% of people are white, 24.91% are black, 8.06% are asian, 0.42% are native american, and 13.32% claim 'Other'. 15.68% of the people in Boston, MA, claim hispanic ethnicity (meaning 84.32% are non-hispanic). http://www.bestplaces.net/city/Boston_MA-PEOPLE-52507000010.aspx

 

[Another_David]

There are a lot of people that live in the city that don't have children like students and young working professionals. Many of these people will move to a community with better schools before they raise children. Some even move back after the children graduate high school.

As far as school options in Boston besides the regular public schools there are charter schools, test schools (Boston Latin), private schools, and the METCO program, which sends a select number to the suburbs. I've met people that moved out of Boston when their children didn't get chosen for an alternate school. I've seen some families sacrifice A LOT so they can live in a community with better schools and I have a lot of respect for these people.

 

[Riverside]

The survey was conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health. Half of the surveyed students were black, 28 percent Hispanic, 12 percent white, and 6 percent Asian. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/10/22/high_rate_of_violence_seen_in_teens_lives/


Race in Boston, MA
53.54% of people are white, 24.91% are black, 8.06% are asian, 0.42% are native american, and 13.32% claim 'Other'. 15.68% of the people in Boston, MA, claim hispanic ethnicity (meaning 84.32% are non-hispanic). http://www.bestplaces.net/city/Boston_MA-PEOPLE-52507000010.aspx[/QUOTE]
Race in Boston: According to the last census, the white population was less than 50 %. Boston has a Minority Majority population. I live in the city and I haven't seen any influx of white faces to my neighborhood; not enough to push the white count up over 50%. In fact, I'm willing to bet that a good chunk of the population in Boston are not here legally and that the people in charge of this survey counted transient college students which bumped up the white population number. Boston is the new Babylon, English is not the language of the majority.
You are correct is stating that young people starting families move out of Boston when the kids are school age. A lot of folks who cannot move out invest a lot of money in private schools. Older folks stay because it is too expensive to make a move at this particular time in their lives.
Best Regards.

 

[Rob Boudrie]

Note they don't say 40% have a gun, or 40% can get a gun - but 40% believe they can get a gun.

Asking a urban youth if he "can get a gun" is like standing before a classroom of 15 year old boys and saying "All virgins please raise you hand".

 

[Ripach]

Asking a urban youth if he "can get a gun" is like standing before a classroom of 15 year old boys and saying "All virgins please raise you hand".

+1 I don't doubt that some of the kids surveyed may have exaggerated their ability to access weapons.

 

[sig shooter]

no doubt they have liers, they would shit there pants if they knew i much i carry my asst opening gerber.

 

[MaverickNH]

And now, the rest of the story:

"Six percent of Boston public high school students said they carry a gun, and more than 40 percent of all students said it would be easy to obtain a gun, according to the study. Half of those carrying a gun were involved in gangs, the study found." http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=520246

I can't find the actual report "released to the community" by Menino as all the websites just reference one another but I'll inquire.

I did, however, find the 2005 survey and it seems that self-reported carry has dropped from 8% in 2004, to 6% in 2006. Rather than highlight progress (25% reduction) they just say "guns" & "schools" and "children" in the Globe and forget to mention "gangs".

Oddly, work from Harvard shows that students overestimate gun carrying by peers which, in turn, leads to an increase in gun carry. The numbers: 6% carry, while thinking 28% carry, which doubles their liklihood of carrying. http://apha.confex.com/apha/135am/techprogram/paper_158511.htm

Either way, that 40% who believe their peers carry guns got the big press, not the fact that 6% actually said they carried guns.

The firearms & public policy debate/debacle is well characterized by this year's abstracts at the American Public Health Association annual meeting http://apha.confex.com/apha/135am/techprogram/session_22272.htm As usual, you find data confirming lack of efficacy of firearms laws, declining rates of violent homicide, etc., with conclusions that we need more laws restricting legal gun ownership.

 

[jcr]

This is just another survey by the Harvard School of Public Health, and has no real world usefulness. but, its alarmist statement are reported and exagerated by the press.

First, they make prominent that the students were in High School. This is so that one subconsciously conflates the results with happening in High School. If they didn't want this result, they could have said the survey was taken by 15-18 year old young adults.

Second, back in the '60s in NJ, they could have polled me in 4th grade, and I would have answered "Yes" to "have you carried a knife". I would change clothes after school, and I always had my pocket knife in my dungarees (they call them jeans, now). So, really, this question tells us absolutely nothing -- but it makes for scare headlines.

Aside -- I have this recollection, but now it seems so amazing that it seems impossible. IIRC, it was okay to have a pocket knife in your pocket at school -- as long as you didn't take it out on school grounds. What was bad, and punished, was if someone "pulled [out] a knife". Could this be? What would make me think it, if it was not so.

As far as the "access to a gun", beyond the exageration that has been mentioned, any student whose father legally has guns could also answer positively to this -- I don't think the "access" question was quallified with words like "without authorization" or "for the purposes of doing harm". Kid thinks, "Access, yeah, all I have to do is ask Dad to 'show me'/'take me to the range'."

But if these Schools of Public Health don't publish this gibberish, they've got nothing to do.

 

[Chris]

I've carried a knife in my pocket every day since my dad gave me my first Swiss Army Knife when I was 6 or 7. And yes, that included every day at school. As for "pulling it out", I did so on several occasions to repair something that wasn't working from projectors to computers.

So what?

Today, I'd be expelled. I guess they call that progress.

 

[MaverickNH]

But if these Schools of Public Health don't publish this gibberish, they've got nothing to do.

They can be sure to get press, which gets political attention, which gets more meaningless laws passed. All a whole lot easier and more politically productive than trying to take criminals off the streets. It's a win-win proposition for the academics and politicians.

Harvard has gotten smart these last several years - they issue press releases before anyone has a chance to read their studies in the journals. After the fact, there are no retractions or clarifications of overzealous news releases - the academics' honesty is judged by what they pubublish, not the sound/news bites they quip to reporters. I seldom, if ever, get a reply from an academic on their published work - as soon as I start asking hard questions, they cease all contact.

The new twist is getting politicians AND the press involved before making data available. They fabricate reality for profit - political power, grant money, prominance in their field, etc. The truth - not even worth the time to be damned.

 

[Another_David]

You have to back up one more level. Boston Public Health Dept. funds the study. Then HSPH makes the survey and does the analysis. Boston Globe runs the headline "40% have access to guns" and buries the fact that this was actually a decline since the last study. Now the process will come full circle and the City of Boston will want to spend more money for more feel good laws to boost public opinion, etc. Then Globe will report again that the City acted after their article. Harvard will want more money to do another study. Meanwhile nothing really gets done to address the crime but these people that make the policy, do the research, and write the articles don't send their kids to these schools anyway.

 

[MaverickNH]

Meanwhile nothing really gets done to address the crime but these people that make the policy, do the research, and write the articles don't send their kids to these schools anyway.

... and I feel bad doing animal research to cure diseases and save lives. How do these bastards sleep at night? No doubt, like babies.

 

[Another_David]

It's a self perpetuating system. I'm sure each person in the system would claim they're just doing their job and wouldn't take ownership of the lack of results.

If the NRA were to fund a HSPH study there would be different questions and different results. I wouldn't expect to see this happen anytime soon but my point is it's not just who does the study but who funds it. Nobody will fund a project that could potentially hurt their organization's interests. Furthermore, it's not uncommon for these researchers to later get hired by the same organizations that fund their studies so there are real benefits to 'favorable' results.

 

[MaverickNH]

Back to the demographics issue, maybe a Brit said it wrongly or rightly in a debate with Kopel:

"I often ask myself why there isn't more of an outcry about this. And I fear that the dirty little secret is race. Take a look at the FBI homicide figures, as broken down by the race of the victims. Now, the homicide rate among white victims is 3.3 per 100,000 which is actually pretty high when you compare it to the rest of the free world, but is still a lot less than the headline figure. Among blacks, the rate is an absolutely appalling 19.7 (though it's fair to point out that the number has come down sharply since the 1970s, when it was almost twice as high). Imagine that you had a 19.7 homicide rate among whites, and I think you'd see an extremely powerful backlash against the sale of guns, and a refusal to accept the constantly repeated nostrum that there is nothing to be done about it because the guns are "out there". Because the victims are disproportionately blacks, it doesn't seem to matter as much."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-dustup26apr26,0,5618950.story?coll=la-promo-opinion

Among the black community in the 90s, there was much talk about black-on-black violence - not something that is PC to talk about if you are white. This is not just a US issue, as the Aug07 Times notes:

"In London 75 per cent of victims of murders by firearms and other shootings come from the African-Caribbean community. From the same community come 79 per cent of all suspects in gun crimes in the capital." http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2324223.ece

So, to put it bluntly, do we disarm the suburban white population so the urban black population stops shooting at one another? Well, we tried that in a whole country - the UK - and it didn't work. But Boston politicians (Menino, Patrick, etc.) want to follow in the UK's footsteps.

To the many who say that, since there appears to be a strong link between illegal drugs and guns we should legalize drugs, I say WTF could you possibly be thinking?!?! Let's let the UK try that too while we sit back in wonderment as they deny increases in crime, death, unemployment, etc.

 

[Chris]

True students of history will tell you that no prohibition edict has EVER resulted in a net reduction of crime, and in many cases has actually increased crime rates.

And yet, like the stereotypical lemming, so-called 'leaders' still see such enactments as solutions to problems.