SteelShooter
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CHICAGO (AP)
The researchers also used data on gun control measures in all 50 states compiled by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a well-known gun control advocacy group.
Editorial author Dr. Garen Wintemute, director the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, said the study doesn’t answer which laws, if any, work.
In the dozen or so states with the most gun control-related laws, far fewer people were shot to death or killed themselves with guns than in the states with the fewest laws, the study found. Overall, states with the most laws had a 42 percent lower gun death rate than states with the least number of laws.
I call bull on this one. First, if someone wants to do themselves in, that does not really hurt me or my family (although theoretically it is a harm to society but this argument fails as there is Doctor assisted suicide, pulling the plug and abortion). Second, if you took out suicides my guess would be most crimes happen in states with the most gun control. It also looks like this study may be looking at "rates" rather than raw numbers. I would venture that while Alaska may have a high "rate" the actual number of deaths is far below Chicago.
During the four-years studied, there were nearly 122,000 gun deaths, 60 percent of them suicides
In the dozen or so states with the most gun control-related laws, far fewer people were shot to death or killed themselves with guns than in the states with the fewest laws, the study found. Overall, states with the most laws had a 42 percent lower gun death rate than states with the least number of laws.
There is is that is the only way to make the numbers work
If they looked at overall homicides, they might not like the answers they get.
This is why they have to throw suicides in the mix and ignore rapes stabbings, etc.
If they did the exact same study on the VIOLENT CRIME rates in states with more gun control, you would see far different results. Best example, MA and VT share a border. One state is the most dangerous of the 9 northeast states, the other is the safest. One state has draconian gun laws the other has some of the loosest. We all know which states are which.
Here's a little background of their agenda....
Good research is expensive, and there's been almost no money available to do gun control research for a long time now. Grant money is restricted by federal law, and gun control organizations don't have any membership or donor base beyond a few lefty groups. This is good.
Public health researchers have been lobbying to free up CDC grant money for gun research. Until that happens, they're doing cheap retrospective correlation studies to keep the issue current. Their goal is acceptance of gun violence as a public health problem, as deserving of funding as cancer or influenza.
If I were to submit a well-written article to JAMA, describing a strong correlation between the incidence of heart disease and the number of McDonalds in a state, it wouldn't get past the senior editor. This is because it's not real science. There are conceptual and statistical issues involved that would make the study uninteresting and unworthy of recognition in the field. Do the same correlation study for gun deaths and it's JAMA gold. This is amazing to me.
I second the bull-call. Mexico has a complete ban on the private possession of firearms. Why is their firearm-related homicide rate so high? Maybe cartel gangsters and other assorted criminals do not believe in obeying gun lawa? Maybe that is why they are called criminals?I call bull on this one. First, if someone wants to do themselves in, that does not really hurt me or my family (although theoretically it is a harm to society but this argument fails as there is Doctor assisted suicide, pulling the plug and abortion). Second, if you took out suicides my guess would be most crimes happen in states with the most gun control. It also looks like this study may be looking at "rates" rather than raw numbers. I would venture that while Alaska may have a high "rate" the actual number of deaths is far below Chicago.
Garen J. Wintemute said:Their main finding is that having more laws on the books is associated with having lower rates of firearm-related homicide and suicide. This would be an important finding—if it were robust and if its meaning were clear.
Ecological studies of association are inherently weak, however; correlation does not imply causation. This fundamental limitation is beyond the power of the authors to redress. And there are additional concerns. The study's list and scoring system for firearm laws were based on information from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence (formerly the Legal Community against Violence) and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, both advocacy organizations. The scorecard has never been validated for research purposes, as the authors acknowledge. It does not account for variations between states in the specifics of their laws and includes no measure of whether or how effectively the states enforce them. The model is additive, making no provision for interactions between laws. The laws are evaluated altogether or in subsets, never individually.
The results also raise concerns. There was no change when the analysis incorporated weights for expected differences in the effect of individual laws. This is difficult to explain, unless the weights were poorly chosen—or the laws have no effect, making the weights irrelevant. Suicide accounted for 94% of the observed decrease in firearm-related mortality (6.25 of 6.64 deaths per 100 000). Intuitively, however, these laws should have their greatest effect on criminal violence; they were almost certainly enacted for that purpose.
When Fleegler et al2 accounted for the prevalence of firearm ownership, the association between firearm laws and firearm fatalities essentially disappeared. Perhaps these laws decrease mortality by decreasing firearm ownership, in which case firearm ownership mediates the association. But perhaps, and more plausibly, these laws are more readily enacted in states where the prevalence of firearm ownership is low—there will be less opposition to them—and firearm ownership confounds the association.
While there is a different anti-gun article in the latest issue, I'm pretty sure this is referring to a JAMA article from March 6, 2013, Vol 173, No. 9 does separate out suicide from homicide. New Hampshire has such a low homicide number that they couldn't quantify it in their table (below), but makes up for it in suicides.
There's a funny response from another anti-gun researcher on the JAMA website, it says in part