Harvard Study Shows No Effect of Firearm Laws on Gun Deaths

[Acujeff]

Harvard medical researchers just published a scholarly paper in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, claiming that more firearm laws in a state are associated with a lower rate of gun homicides and suicides. However, examination of their data and research methods shows the opposite.
McMaster University researcher Caillin Langmann, MD, PhD noted that the Harvard authors’ own best analysis:

-Does not show that states with more gun laws have fewer gun deaths
-Demonstrates that “assault weapon” bans have no effect on homicide
-Demonstrates that laws prohibiting guns in public places have no effect on homicide

Full article at:
Harvard Study Shows No Effect of Firearm Laws on Gun Deaths | TheGunMag ? The Official Gun Magazine of the Second Amendment Foundation

 

[ProGun]

I have done very little research to back this up, but I can tell you right now I would feel much safer on the streets of almost any major city in a free state compared to say Chicago, Camden, Newark, or DC where only the gang bangers carry guns. You'll note that basically NO ONE outside of LEO can legally carry in those cities.

 

[Chris]

Doesn't surprise me.

Governments have been trying to 'control' guns for over 400 years. If any scheme was successful in reducing criminal misuse, it would be the model to follow. That after so many attempts and so many failures, one wonders why anyone wastes time and effort on the subject.

Heck, look at MA. This state spends millions of dollars every year to license, track, record, and prosecute people who own the wrong cosmetic feature, a magazine made on the wrong day, or having a legal product in the wrong place when there is no evidence of harm or even threat. The fact is, nobody can come up with a single example of a crime that has been solved from this data, and statistics show that none of these laws have made anyone safer - in fact the evidence points to just the opposite.

Yet, when presented with the fact that we are wasting a ton of money arguably making the criminals stronger, the answer so often given is that we need to spend more money and restrict the law abiding even more.

I don't know about you, but that kind of reasoning sounds like a real mental health issue.

Telepathically uploaded via Google implants.

 

[Another_David]

That's not what the study concluded at all. They stated,

Conclusions and Relevance A higher number of firearm laws in a state are associated with a lower rate of firearm fatalities in the state, overall and for suicides and homicides individually. As our study could not determine cause-and-effect relationships, further studies are necessary to define the nature of this association.

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1661390

This study is often referenced and I've looked at it before and it's grossly flawed. The gun homicides for NH and VT were unavailable, DC was omitted, and the largest problem of all is the statistics are aggregated by state. NYC laws are wholly different from upstate, Chicago crime is offset by the rest of the state, yet it's all averaged together, which is totally bogus. Even in Mass Boston, Springfield, and Worcester gun laws and crime are totally different from suburbia.

 

[cekim]

Wow, reading some of the support material:

JAMA Network | JAMA Internal Medicine | Responding to the Crisis of Firearm Violence in the United States Comment on ?Firearm Legislation and Firearm-Related Fatalities in the United States?Responding to the US Crisis of Firearm Violence
The United States has belatedly awakened to the knowledge that it is, in effect, under armed attack. More than 30 000 people are purposely shot to death each year—more than 300 000 since the World Trade Center was destroyed in 2001. Rates of firearm-related violent crime have increased 26% since 2008.1 Physicians have joined others in demanding a strong response to this crisis. We look to scientific research to provide the evidence on which that response should be based. Such evidence should include a thorough exploration of risk and protective factors and, most importantly, controlled studies showing which interventions work to reduce firearm violence and why.

The bold passage is grossly and intentionally misleading as approximately 60% of that 30k number WERE SUICIDES.

 

[Rob Boudrie]

Governments have been trying to 'control' guns for over 400 years.

Just look at the great Tokugawa sword hunt for an early example.

 

[soloman02]

Wow, reading some of the support material:

The bold passage is grossly and intentionally misleading as approximately 60% of that 30k number WERE SUICIDES.

Technically they are correct. The people who committed suicide with a gun did purposefully shoot themselves to death.

 

[calsdad]

There's one specific thing that could get banned that would drastically cut the murder rate - but nobody wants to deal with the problem.

Anybody who has even cursorily studied all the data about crime rates in recent years knows what it is.

I still blame it on liberals - because this problem didn't use to exist - and they're the ones who created the conditions that foster it.

 

[calsdad]

Wow, reading some of the support material:

The bold passage is grossly and intentionally misleading as approximately 60% of that 30k number WERE SUICIDES.

You're not supposed to kill yourself you know. It's against the law.

If there's been a huge increase in suicides, if they've increased by 26% - I still trace that back to the same root source as the problem I alluded to above: Liberals and statists.

They're the ones who refuse to see any sort of solution to the problems of mankind other than something run by the government and enforced by the barrel of a gun. Stop committing suicide! Or what? - We'll shoot you that's what!

Go back 10+ years or so and look at what has happened in that time period. Why would anybody wonder whether an increase in suicides is anything but a natural human response to the direction this country has taken in that period of time.

If somebody says to me: " There's been a huge increase in suicides over the last ten years" - my instinctual response would be " No shit Sherlock!"

 

[cekim]

Calsdad, I believe that any increase in suicide and mass murder events is a direct consequence of the "everyone is special and no one fails" BS they have been peddling in the schools.

They are robbing entire generations of the basic experiences and coping mechanisms that childhood used to provide to make for healthy, well adjusted young adults able to deal with adversity.

Vast swaths of youth programmed to believe that adversity, misfortune, and uneven talent and skill can be legislated away and everyone provided a smooth path to wild success.

Lacking proper parenting, experience and emotional control, when they run into something the government or mommy and daddy can't fix, they lash out either at themselves or those around them.

How can someone develop an understanding of how to deal with loss lacking not only the experience of losing themselves, but not even being able to observe others losing? Why would someone give 110% to win lacking not only the experience of true victory, but even able to observe others winning?

I am quite sure few in public schools mean to do it, some even fight it, but the proof is in the pudding that we are programming emotionally unbalanced entitlement slaves, not Americans.

Not that it is impossible to come through the system well adjusted, but those that do either have parents going above and beyond or would have thrived if thrown into a forest naked as a Spartan child. The default is to program adult children who expect reward for obedience at best, at worst reward because other people got rewarded and "that's only fair".

 

[vipprimo]

Was someone shocked that this is what they found?

Let me help all you so called smart Harvard types. Look at everywhere in the world. Notice that their lives are filled with war. Notice how gun control is a big deal, or should we say weapon control. Keeping poverty high and people oppressed.

Now lets look at the USA. Crickets. No war on our soil orher than ones we fought with ourselves and a sneak attack by Japan. Sure Canada isn't threatening and we've joined into some Mexico stuff but you don't see any invasions spilling in and in pretty sure they love killing each other down there.

So what's the big difference? Government? Nope, other places have voting etc. Religion, well lets not go there. Wait, the right to bear arms. No other country in the world has it. sure, were not the oldest, but I'm pretty sure no bombing runs or invading Germans have leveled any place I know. Take that Michael Moore!

Im pretty sure that all governments have done everything they've done through war and oppression at some point so the only places where all people are truly equal is when all people are armed .

now in sure you're saying it can't be true and you need another example. Fine, look up Switzerland. They have no standing army. They were never invaded during Ww1 or ww2. Sure people made mistakes, but no real war. Same as US. Is it because they say they're neutral? Why would that stop Germany? Oh yea, the people are all part of the military. They also have the second largest list of gun ownership.

 

[Horrible]

I would like to see a study that is not flawed (ie - includes NH,VT, and DC) and looks at VIOLENT CRIME, not just GUN CRIME and GUN HOMICIDES and see how gun laws have an effect on TOTAL VIOLENT CRIME.

Liberals constantly take the path that someone getting shot to death is somehow wayyy worse than someone getting stabbed to death or their brains beaten out of their head with a hammer.

Also, take suicide out of the mix. Someone who is suicidal will take their own life whether or not they have access to a gun. Japan has just as high a suicide rate as the US despite their lack of private firearm ownership (at least relative to the US).

 

[cekim]

I would like to see a study that is not flawed (ie - includes NH,VT, and DC) and looks at VIOLENT CRIME, not just GUN CRIME and GUN HOMICIDES and see how gun laws have an effect on TOTAL VIOLENT CRIME.

Liberals constantly take the path that someone getting shot to death is somehow wayyy worse than someone getting stabbed to death or their brains beaten out of their head with a hammer.

Also, take suicide out of the mix. Someone who is suicidal will take their own life whether or not they have access to a gun. Japan has just as high a suicide rate as the US despite their lack of private firearm ownership (at least relative to the US).

The Harvard study did some of this already.

The conclusion(s) IIRC was that there were examples in the US of "more guns less crime", but that correlation did not hold globally, the examples in the US (multiple) could not be reproduced outside the US.

As we know, there are places in the world with lots of guns and lots of crime.

What they could say conclusively is that there is not even a correlation between "less guns" and "less crime", much less any causation.

The reality is that crime is a demographic and cultural issue which is why I am not at all surprised that no correlation in either direction can be found on a global basis. Whether causation between increased gun ownership and reduced crime can be shown in the US to back the correlation examples still remains to be shown conclusively, but the correlation does exist (contrary to the one that the Bloomberg/Brady grabbers claim).

 

[bricktop]

Wow, reading some of the support material:

The bold passage is grossly and intentionally misleading as approximately 60% of that 30k number WERE SUICIDES.

According to the Central Bureaucracy, TECHNICALLY CORRECT is the best kind of CORRECT.

 

[Dadstoys]

Calsdad, I believe that any increase in suicide and mass murder events is a direct consequence of the "everyone is special and no one fails" BS they have been peddling in the schools.

They are robbing entire generations of the basic experiences and coping mechanisms that childhood used to provide to make for healthy, well adjusted young adults able to deal with adversity.

Vast swaths of youth programmed to believe that adversity, misfortune, and uneven talent and skill can be legislated away and everyone provided a smooth path to wild success.

Lacking proper parenting, experience and emotional control, when they run into something the government or mommy and daddy can't fix, they lash out either at themselves or those around them.

How can someone develop an understanding of how to deal with loss lacking not only the experience of losing themselves, but not even being able to observe others losing? Why would someone give 110% to win lacking not only the experience of true victory, but even able to observe others winning?

I am quite sure few in public schools mean to do it, some even fight it, but the proof is in the pudding that we are programming emotionally unbalanced entitlement slaves, not Americans.

Not that it is impossible to come through the system well adjusted, but those that do either have parents going above and beyond or would have thrived if thrown into a forest naked as a Spartan child. The default is to program adult children who expect reward for obedience at best, at worst reward because other people got rewarded and "that's only fair".

^
THIS!
Nailed it

 

[calsdad]

Calsdad, I believe that any increase in suicide and mass murder events is a direct consequence of the "everyone is special and no one fails" BS they have been peddling in the schools.

They are robbing entire generations of the basic experiences and coping mechanisms that childhood used to provide to make for healthy, well adjusted young adults able to deal with adversity.

Vast swaths of youth programmed to believe that adversity, misfortune, and uneven talent and skill can be legislated away and everyone provided a smooth path to wild success.

Lacking proper parenting, experience and emotional control, when they run into something the government or mommy and daddy can't fix, they lash out either at themselves or those around them.

How can someone develop an understanding of how to deal with loss lacking not only the experience of losing themselves, but not even being able to observe others losing? Why would someone give 110% to win lacking not only the experience of true victory, but even able to observe others winning?

I am quite sure few in public schools mean to do it, some even fight it, but the proof is in the pudding that we are programming emotionally unbalanced entitlement slaves, not Americans.

Not that it is impossible to come through the system well adjusted, but those that do either have parents going above and beyond or would have thrived if thrown into a forest naked as a Spartan child. The default is to program adult children who expect reward for obedience at best, at worst reward because other people got rewarded and "that's only fair".

When I got out of school reality smacked me in the face. Hell - it was even smacking me quite a bit when I was in school because I had to work my way thru college. The reality I had to deal with on a daily basis - was NOTHING like what I was "taught" in school and by the culture all around me. I used to spend a lot of time in the university library reading all the journals and scholarly dissertations and all that stuff from all the people who were all so educated and trying to tell the rest of us all their theories on how the world worked. So I still remember rather well how hard it was to actually figure out HOW THE WORLD REALLY WORKED - once I was out from under all my "schooling" and all that scholarly bullshit.

The fact of the matter is that my life got easier the further I left my "schooling" behind.

So when I look around at what I see getting drilled into kid's heads these days under the pretense of "educating" them - it pisses me off. Because I know a lot of those kids are going to enter the world and go "WTF" - when they are finally forced to deal with reality.

The flip side of that is that we are creating a massive class of people who just have no concept of reality - IMHO. They have been able to create a somewhat artificial environment to live in by virtue of the fact that the government has spread so much money around into so many places. There are an awful lot of people who think that the keys to success and fixing all the countries problems - lie in just voting in the "right people".

I don't think there's a lot of people who really think things thru. The whole premise that you can vote your way out of a problem - is basically just a form of socialism, because your underlying belief is that the government IS there to solve all problems and the government IS omnipotent.

I believe the government is just in the way - or worse. And that there are precious few problems in this world that are EVER solved by the application of more government.

Unfortunately I am being held under penalty of death and being forced to support the theories of people who are basically my enemies.

And people wonder why I think there's an awful lot of my "fellow citizens" who deserve any and all abuse that they receive, either from me - or from the world in general.

So when I hear people talk about "society"

 

[Saltydog]

eBaum's World - Video

Worth a look. Real data on crime stats US vs. UK.

 

[Pete85]

I would like to see a study that is not flawed (ie - includes NH,VT, and DC) and looks at VIOLENT CRIME, not just GUN CRIME and GUN HOMICIDES and see how gun laws have an effect on TOTAL VIOLENT CRIME.

Liberals constantly take the path that someone getting shot to death is somehow wayyy worse than someone getting stabbed to death or their brains beaten out of their head with a hammer.

Also, take suicide out of the mix. Someone who is suicidal will take their own life whether or not they have access to a gun. Japan has just as high a suicide rate as the US despite their lack of private firearm ownership (at least relative to the US).

GOAL did something like this a few years back in reference to the 1998 gun control act, they called it the "Decade of Disaster". They pointed out how murders, rapes, and other violent crimes had increased significantly, while firearms ownership decreased significantly. Someone from GOAL was debating one of the gun control supporters, and when they brought up the fact that despite firearms ownership being at record lows in this state, violent crime had exploded, the gun control advocate's response was something like "That's what we were hoping would happen."

 

[ptrainerchris]

Everyone has already made great points. I would point out that as prestigious as harvard is this isn't the first time they fudged their findings. I don't know if anyone knows of the framingham study but it is why people eat low fat diets. Harvard said they found that people that ate a lot of saturated fat and cholesterol had more heart disease. Their findings actually say the OPPOSITE. Supposedly the government wanted to promote low fat eating so harvard backed them up . Many of you probably still believe this today and it is one of the biggest lies ever told. I prob don't have to tell you this but low fat diets have never worked and more gun laws will be just as effective.

 

[bill o]

Everyone has already made great points. I would point out that as prestigious as harvard is this isn't the first time they fudged their findings. I don't know if anyone knows of the framingham study but it is why people eat low fat diets. Harvard said they found that people that ate a lot of saturated fat and cholesterol had more heart disease. Their findings actually say the OPPOSITE. Supposedly the government wanted to promote low fat eating so harvard backed them up . Many of you probably still believe this today and it is one of the biggest lies ever told. I prob don't have to tell you this but low fat diets have never worked and more gun laws will be just as effective.

The Framingham Heart Study is generally very well regarded. Do you have a citation for this (a reliable source, not a crank website)?

 

[ptrainerchris]

Depends on what you will consider citation..... It is highly regarded I would agree with you but their findings do not back up what they actually found. I have read the actual study and one can find many articles saying this and that both for and against

Consider the following if interested

The Cholesterol Myth: Part 2: Dietary Fats and Heart Disease

if you want the "cliff notes" version watch the movie named Fathead on netflix. Interesting look at nutrition myths. I have been a researcher before and if all goes well will be going for a PhD in human performance and imho that study is complete bullshit. Harvard is now actually trying to downplay their involvement. Most of the senior researchers have long since retired because it has gone on for so long and now have come out to say they fudged their research a little.