gun article in the Herald

[efowke]

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/na...e_to_find_an_answer/srvc=home&position=recent

 

[flintoid]

The UPenn researcher probably took data from completely different sample sets as the article explains. Unless your control group lives/works/eats/sleeps like your research group, you aren't going to prove too much.

hooray 'ivy league'

 

[wolf223]

Branas compared a group of shooting victims to a similar set of "controls" who had not been shot. His results, he said, show that guns did not, on average, protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault — and in fact raised the risk by four times or more.

Researchers randomly chose 677 of those victims for the study. They came from various occupations — taxi drivers, bartenders, nurses and drug dealers. Fifty-three percent had criminal records. Six percent had guns with them when they were shot.

....

 

[Woodstock]

Brilliant piece

You can really draw universal conclusions from a study of a few hundred Philly gangbangers and dope dealers. No question they all had the proper licenses and lots of safety training. (Sarc. off)

 

[Bob P]

Hmm, the 'gun group' was mostly 'outside' during the period in which they got shot and the control group was at home 80% of the time.

Doesn't sound like a valid sampling to me. All that says is you're more likely to get shot when you're out as opposed to home. Duh.

 

[hminsky]

A good quote which summarizes the criticism of the study

Adding corrections for race, neighborhood, sex and even drug trade ties, as Branas did, "doesn’t alter the underlying flaw in the reasoning," Kleck said.

In an e-mail, Kleck explained his view with an analogy. "It is precisely as if medical researchers found that insulin use is more common among persons who suffer from diabetes than among those who are not diabetic (something that is most assuredly true), and concluded that insulin use raises one’s risk of diabetes."

 

[ScottS]

Oh, this is some quality work here.

Does carrying a gun make you safer? Researcher uses science to find an answer

By Faye Flam / The Philadelphia Inquirer | Thursday, October 15, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Around the Nation

Branas compared a group of shooting victims to a similar set of "controls" who had not been shot. His results, he said, show that guns did not, on average, protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault — and in fact raised the risk by four times or more.

"People shouldn’t feel that firearms are going to enhance their safety," Branas said. The study was published in the current issue of the prestigious American Journal of Public Health.

Several statisticians, however, called this conclusion a stretch, and questioned whether the Penn group could account for all differences between the shooting victims and the comparison group.

Researchers randomly chose 677 of those victims for the study. They came from various occupations — taxi drivers, bartenders, nurses and drug dealers. Fifty-three percent had criminal records. Six percent had guns with them when they were shot.

 

[ASHDUMP]

If or when carrying a gun, do you feel more inclined to help or step up into a situation which could result in someone getting shot? This is probably the only good point this entire article made.

Branas offered several possible explanations. Having guns could induce people to behave differently, he said, perhaps emboldening them to stand up to attackers. Another possibility, he said, is that people are having their firearms turned on them.

 

[Pilgrim]

This has been discussed here:

http://northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=79924&highlight=University+Pennsylvania

and in several other posts.