The NRA Suppressing research into Gun Violence

[Hashi Lebwohl]

But I also believe that some guns don't have any legitimate uses.

Who gets to define what "legitimate use" means, though? I am currently not actively studying iaido but I have a katana. As I am neither a hobbyist collector of weapons nor a vendor selling bladed instruments, what "legitimate use" does my katana serve other than "personal satisfaction"? Is this sufficient for "legitimate use"?

[Avatar]

Good question. (Even a collection is a "personal satisfaction" thing.)

--A

[wayfriend]

This is interesting news. It doesn't advocate any side of the argument, I don't think. But I bring it forward with this note on my reason for doing so. If you (general "you") believe that statistics about guns show that gun control doesn't work, regardless of the fact that correspondence doesn't mean causality, then this directly refutes your argument, on the same basis. But if, like me, you think statistics without demonstrating a link aren't a useful measure, then this article supports that point of view -- with gun advocates making the case! -- which also refutes your argument.

Fewer gun deaths in states with most gun laws, study finds

States with a heavier dose of firearm laws tend to have the lowest rates of gun deaths, according to a study released Wednesday by Boston-based researchers who argue their findings show "there is a role" in America for more rigid gun-control legislation.

"It seems pretty clear: If you want to know which of the states have the lowest gun-mortality rates just look for those with the greatest number of gun laws," said Dr. Eric W. Fleegler of Boston Children's Hospital who, with colleagues, analyzed firearm-related deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2007 through 2010. [link]

I chuckle where the pro-gun spokesman "suddenly" realizes that use of this kind of data is more of a propoganda move than science.

"If they are dancing around this cause and effect, I'm not sure that the public should warm up to that kind of a conclusion because it really doesn't conclude it, it only suggests or intimates something," said Workman, who served three terms on the National Rifle Association board of directors.

"It's presumably the result they wanted to get in order to have the public believe something. Is that fair? Is that good science? Is that good research? I don't know."

(I wonder why he would know so much about manipulating data to get the public to believe something?)

I super-chuckled when he followed up with

"And, as proof," he added, "I give you the city of Chicago."

I guess he hopes we've forgotten what he just said?

[Cail]

It's not really news that there are more gun-related deaths in places that there are more guns. However, if you take out the suicides and accidents and drill down to just the gun crime, you'll find the statistics are exactly what's been stated.....Violent crime rates are higher in areas with strict gun control.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I concur--citing statistics without a link is weak. Of course, the article you quoted doesn't link to the actual study, itself, only that it is published in the online version of the JAMA Internal Medicine.

A different article on the same study says:

But Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine physician and director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, urged caution in interpreting the study in an accompanying editorial published in the journal.

"Correlation does not imply causation," he wrote. "This fundamental limitation is beyond the power of the authors to redress."

He added that the list of laws takes no account of differences between states in the specifics of laws and takes no account of how hard states worked to enforce those laws.

The biggest difficulty, Wintemute continued, is that almost all of the associations between more laws and fewer deaths disappeared when the investigators took into account the prevalence of gun ownership in each state.

"This is a problem because there are two completely opposite explanations for why that might be the case," Wintemute said in a video issued by his university. "One is that these laws work, and that they work by decreasing the rate of gun ownership in a state, because we know that the rate of gun ownership is associated with the rate of violent death in a state.

"But the other possibility, that's at least as plausible, is that it's easier to enact these laws in states that have a low rate of gun ownership to begin with. Gun ownership is not as important in those states, there's less opposition."

He added, "We really don't know what to do with the results. We cannot say that these laws -- individually or in aggregate -- drive firearm death rates up or down."

He predicted that policy makers would not be able to draw useful conclusions from the work. "The conclusion that I draw is we need to get this question answered right."

From wayfriend's original article:

As proof, Fleegler pointed to the firearm-fatality rates in law-laden states such as Massachusetts (where there were 3.4 gun deaths per 100,000 individuals), New Jersey (4.9 per 100,000) and Connecticut (5.1 per 100,000). In states with sparser firearms laws, researchers reported that gun-mortality rates were higher: Louisiana (18.0 per 100,000), Alaska (17.5 per 100,000) and Arizona (13.6 per 100,000).

One other thing to recall with statistics is whether you are looking at actual numbers or rates; it appears the study considered only rates per 100,000.

Fortunately, I did the hard work and found the actual article from JAMA Internal Medicine which also includes this graph detailing death rates for both motor vehicles and firearms per 100,000 from 1950 to 2010. If you look closely, the rate for guns really rose from 1965 to 1975 then stayed elevated until about 1995, at which point in dropped. The 2010 rate is only slightly higher than the 1950 rate, so essentially the rate of gun-related deaths has not changed much in 60 years.

Wait...no...I was incorrect. This is the actual study entitled "Firearm Legislation and Firearm-Related Fatalities in the United States" from JAMA. I am not going to edit my earlier comments--I have written too much. Anyway, I did the hard work and found the actual study for us all to read, as well as the "answer" article from the same journal.

There is a lot in the original article so take your time and read it all. I will...later...because I am on my lunch hour now.

[Orlion]

Looks like the study was funded by the Joyce Foundation. From its Wikipedia article:

Since 2003, the Joyce Foundation has paid grants totaling over $12 million to gun control organizations. The largest single grantee has been the Violence Policy Center, which received $4,154,970 between 1996 and 2006, and calls for an outright ban on handguns, semi-automatic and other firearms, and substantial restrictions on gun owners. The Joyce Foundation's position on gun control has led to frequent opposition and criticism from gun rights groups, particularly the National Rifle Association, which calls the Joyce Foundation an activist foundation whose "shadowy web of huge donations" leads "straight to puppet strings that control the agenda of gun ban groups".

It should be noted that the Joyce Foundation itself is not a gun control group. It's main focus is to implement policy change for the benefit of the Great Lakes Region.

[Avatar]

Seems strange that they fund gun control groups then. Either way, the money is enough to raise questions about bias in the study.

--A

[Zarathustra]

This is interesting news. It doesn't advocate any side of the argument, I don't think. But I bring it forward with this note on my reason for doing so. If you (general "you") believe that statistics about guns show that gun control doesn't work, regardless of the fact that correspondence doesn't mean causality, then this directly refutes your argument, on the same basis.

This statement seems to indicate that you don't understand either the argument or the evidence. If I make a prediction that a certain action will have a certain effect, and the opposite effect occurs, then my hypothesis or prediction has been proven to be false. That's irrefutable. Without question, we know the action didn't cause the effect which I had predicted, because the effect didn't even occur. Just because correlation doesn't prove causation doesn't mean that we can't definitively point out a lack of a specific causation. It is 100% certain that a specific act didn't cause a specific result, when that result didn't happen. This isn't claiming that a correlation proves causation. It's using the lack of correlation to show that there's not even the possibility of a causation (in the specific way predicted).

Falsifying a theory is a lot easier than proving it. And in either case, the logic doesn't work in exactly the same way. It certainly doesn't work in the reverse, like you're trying to do here.

But if, like me, you think statistics without demonstrating a link aren't a useful measure, then this article supports that point of view -- with gun advocates making the case! -- which also refutes your argument.

But our argument isn't the one which depends upon a link. Our argument simply says: gun control laws haven't been shown to reduce gun violence. Saying that something hasn't been shown to be effective requires absolutely no link to be demonstrated, because it's an observation of the absence of a link.

In other words, we don't have to prove that gun control laws increase gun violence in order to claim that they haven't been proven to decrease gun violence. All we have to do is refute the gun control advocates' position that their desired action will have the effect they predict. And pointing to Chicago does exactly that. No one is saying that Chicago's gun laws cause higher gun violence. But it is self-evidently true that Chicago's gun laws don't lower the gun violence compared to other places with fewer laws (and less violence).

The criticism I was going to raise against the article was actually in the article itself:

All they counted in that analysis was the number of laws in each state, not which laws. There's no information in this study on the specifics of the (state) laws and whether they were enforced or not."

"So in a sense, the only conclusion you could draw would be: Pass more more laws but it doesn't matter which ones or what they're intended to do," Wintemute said. "That's just silly."

Exactly. If you don't look at the specific laws themselves to see what they do, or the enforcement of those laws to see if they're having an effect, then this correlation is meaningless because you don't even know if those laws are aimed at preventing gun violence. Using this logic, we could pass laws about the color of guns, and then expect gun violence to go down. I can't believe JAMA published such crap.

[wayfriend]

This statement seems to indicate that you don't understand either the argument or the evidence.

Stop telling me what I don't understand. This is BELLIGERENCE.

If I make a prediction that a certain action will have a certain effect, and the opposite effect occurs, then my hypothesis or prediction has been proven to be false. That's irrefutable.

It is so OBVIOUSLY, PATENTLY, SIMPLY refutable, that I have to take this comment as an obvious troll posted to be inflammatory.

I enact gun laws. Crime rises 10%. Did the laws fail?

I enact gun laws. Crime rises 10%. Investigation shows the rise in crime is due to a rise in unemployment. Did the laws fail?

I enact gun laws. Crime rises 10%. Investigation shows the rise in crime is due to a rise in unemployment. Further investigation shows that the rate probably would have risen 20% without the gun laws. Did the laws fail?

It's amazing what information can do. Same premise, add more information, a different conclusion emerges,

So you are absolutely, positively wrong. If I make a prediction that a certain action will have a certain effect, and the opposite effect occurs, then you can't make any judgement without investigating the details.

Unless your a misinformationist. Then you tell people that the conclusion derived without the details is irrefutable.

[Cail]

I enact gun laws. Crime rises 10%. Investigation shows the rise in crime is due to a rise in unemployment. Further investigation shows that the rate probably would have risen 20% without the gun laws. Did the laws fail?

That's unknown, as no one can say with any degree of accuracy what would have happened otherwise. It's a supposition that cannot be supported by evidence.

What isn't arguable, and what is provable, is that you enacted gun laws and crime went up. May there have been other factors? Sure. But if you enact a law and related crime goes up, there's a problem with the law (assuming it's being enforced).

[Zarathustra]

This statement seems to indicate that you don't understand either the argument or the evidence.

Stop telling me what I don't understand. This is BELLIGERENCE.

Stop failing to notice that I said, "This statement seems to indicate ..." This is willful negligence. You quoted it. You must have seen it.

What difference does it make if I say, "Your statement seems to demonstrate a lack of understanding of our argument," vs "You are wrong about our argument"? Don't those two statements mean the same thing? I have no idea what you actually understand. But you're wrong. And being wrong usually seems to indicate a lack of understanding. You're free to disagree and provide an argument why I'm wrong to infer that. But whining about it and describing my personality in negative all-caps terms isn't such an argument.

It is so OBVIOUSLY, PATENTLY, SIMPLY refutable, that I have to take this comment as an obvious troll posted to be inflammatory.

I enact gun laws. Crime rises 10%. Did the laws fail?

I enact gun laws. Crime rises 10%. Investigation shows the rise in crime is due to a rise in unemployment. Did the laws fail?

I enact gun laws. Crime rises 10%. Investigation shows the rise in crime is due to a rise in unemployment. Further investigation shows that the rate probably would have risen 20% without the gun laws. Did the laws fail?

Did I say anything whatsoever about the law failing? I clearly said, "my hypothesis or prediction has been proven to be false." It's entirely up to me to state my hypothesis/prediction in terms which take into account mitigating factors. If I fail to frame a hypothesis in the correct terms, it's not the fault of those who point out my hypothesis was disconfirmed.

The prediction in MA was that gun crime would go down. Not that it would go up due to other factors which weren't in the prediction, but still be reduced by X amount after all other factors have been taken into account. Since that's not the prediction which was made, it's accurate to say that the evidence falsifies the specific prediction that was made. Which is clearly what I said, several times: "a certain effect," "a specific result," "the effect which I had predicted," "a causation (in the specific way predicted)."

You ignoring that I said this multiple times seems to indicate a lack of reading comprehension. But whether or not it's reading comprehension or willful negligence brought on by a powerful, blinding, emotional reaction, I can't say for certain. But, you missed my point, multiple times. Maybe it was my lack of clarity. I should have said a few more times, perhaps.

If I make a prediction that a certain action will have a certain effect, and the opposite effect occurs, then you can't make any judgement without investigating the details.

No, you can make one specific judgment: the predicted effect didn't occur. The prediction was therefore wrong. We can say with 100% certainty that the evidence does not show the causation which the people who made the prediction want to show. That doesn't mean that the causation in question doesn't exist. It's not even the same as saying that the causation doesn't exist. It does, however, show a lack of causation for the specific result which was predicted. It's impossible to cause something that didn't happen. A careful reading--coupled with the kind of emotional detachment that will keep one from making accusations of "misinformationalist," "troll," "belligerent," "inflammatory,"--will help make this distinction clear.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I enact gun laws. Crime rises 10%. Investigation shows the rise in crime is due to a rise in unemployment. Further investigation shows that the rate probably would have risen 20% without the gun laws. Did the laws fail?

If someone passes a law then it is impossible to state, or even accurately guess, what would have or could have happened had the law never been passed. We do not have the ability to peek into alternate realities even though we might make some educated guesses. When the topic is crime, though, it is completely impossible to make any sort of educated guesses about what might have happened had our actions been different because there are too many unknowns--the economy, extreme weather event, meteor strike, large prison outbreak, etc. can all lead to an increase in crime, including gun-related crimes.

Did anyone actually read the articles yet? I linked them for your perusal--if you are going to talk about this you might as well talk about the source material. I will be truthful--I haven't read them yet. *shrug* I will read them this weekend, though, and then give my commentary on them afterwards.

[wayfriend]

I enact gun laws. Crime rises 10%. Investigation shows the rise in crime is due to a rise in unemployment. Further investigation shows that the rate probably would have risen 20% without the gun laws. Did the laws fail?

That's unknown, as no one can say with any degree of accuracy what would have happened otherwise. It's a supposition that cannot be supported by evidence.

Almost there ... but now remember that it only needs to be possible, not provable, to disprove the opposing conclusion. If it's possible that crime was reduced from what it would have been otherwise, then you haven't proven that there was no effect.

If someone passes a law then it is impossible to state, or even accurately guess, what would have or could have happened had the law never been passed.

That's exactly my point. But ... if you cannot say, DON'T SAY. Don't say, for example, that the law has no effect.

No, you can make one specific judgment: the predicted effect didn't occur. The prediction was therefore wrong.

Wow. Really? After I just posted a concrete, simple, obvious example that proves you're wrong, your sticking that? This statement seems to imply that you don't have brains enough to follow simple logic.

If I predict gun control LOWERS crime, you would need to compare what the crime rate WOULD HAVE BEEN against the crime rate that IS to show me right or wrong. Anything else is a statement that seems to imply that you want to misinform people about guns as much as possible.

[Cail]

If I predict gun control LOWERS crime, you would need to compare what the crime rate WOULD HAVE BEEN against the crime rate that IS to show me right or wrong.

This is impossible. No one short of Walter Bishop or Olivia Dunham can look into alternate universes to see what would have happened.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

If I predict gun control LOWERS crime, you would need to compare what the crime rate WOULD HAVE BEEN against the crime rate that IS to show me right or wrong.

This is impossible. No one short of Walter Bishop or Olivia Dunham can look into alternate universes to see what would have happened.

Not exactly how I was going to say it but this is what I was going to say. It is not possible to accurately what the crime rate would have been had other circumstances occurred.

The best we can hope to do would be to take two statistically similiar cities--roughly the same population and demographics, economic status, unemployment rate, average income, etc.--then enact tough gun controls in one city but not the other and wait to see what happens over the next 5 to 10 years.

erm...just out of curiosity, who are Walter Bishop and Olivia Dunham? These names are not familiar to me.

[Orlion]

If I predict gun control LOWERS crime, you would need to compare what the crime rate WOULD HAVE BEEN against the crime rate that IS to show me right or wrong.

This is impossible. No one short of Walter Bishop or Olivia Dunham can look into alternate universes to see what would have happened.

Not exactly how I was going to say it but this is what I was going to say. It is not possible to accurately what the crime rate would have been had other circumstances occurred.

The best we can hope to do would be to take two statistically similiar cities--roughly the same population and demographics, economic status, unemployment rate, average income, etc.--then enact tough gun controls in one city but not the other and wait to see what happens over the next 5 to 10 years.

erm...just out of curiosity, who are Walter Bishop and Olivia Dunham? These names are not familiar to me.

*looks it up* And here I thought one of those was a Dead Zone reference! You disappoint me, Cail

As far as finding what could/should have been, there's another way as well: extrapolation. You create a model that has a sort of trend and use that to find out what 'could' have been. You compare that to regular data and see if there is any significant change (Gun crime has gone down, but maybe it does not deviate that much from the trend). An actual case for the relationship, though, is made stronger by: reproducible results/more examples of the same and also, as Hashi pointed out, comparison with a sort of control city. Though that would make for a stronger case, the world is still not a scientific laboratory and objections in the form of thousands of variables will always be present.


As for the article, I've decided that a director of a children's hospital in Boston is no more qualified than I or several other people or even the NRA at looking at FBI stats and drawing conclusions. As a result, I'll just ignore this one.

[Cail]

It's a Fringe reference Hashi, though Johnny Smith from The Dead Zone works too.

Control cities are OK, but unless they're demographically identical, they still aren't a perfect analogue.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

*poof* Thread necromancy!

Can someone please look up the definition of the words "ironic" and "hypocrisy", please? You have to scroll down a little but Democracy Now! is reporting about the NRA's gun-owner list they have compiled.

The National Rifle Association has reportedly built a secret database of tens of millions of U.S. gun owners without their consent. According to the website Buzzfeed, the NRA has compiled a list of current, former, and potential gun owners by culling state and national lists of gun permit holders, class registrations, gun-show attendees and subscribers to gun magazines. The database has been used to build the NRA’s membership base and rally support for its policies. It has maintained the list even while fiercely opposing a national registry of gun owners.

What the hell? I can understand them not wanting the government to have such a list but to compile a list of their own invites disaster. If such a list exists then it could be hacked and stolen or simply copied and then sold/given to the government. I thought the NRA was smarter than that but I guess not.

I managed to track down the original story from BuzzFeed. The article isn't too terribly long but is a decent read.

This also dovetails with the corporate/government spying on citizens thread via Big Data. How many NRA members who strongly oppose cell phone providers handing metadata over to the government don't mind being on the NRA list even if they didn't ask to be put on it?

[Zarathustra]

Hey, they're just "collecting what someone else collected."

I wouldn't like it if I was an NRA member. But there's a difference between private data and public records. I didn't like it when the media printed an interactive map of gun owners. I thought it was irresponsible to publish such informaton in order to shame or hurt them. But I can't argue that newspapers shouldn't have access to public records. And I can't think of a reason why the NRA (or anyone else) shouldn't have access to them, either.

But I'd support legislation to make certain public information about private individuals inaccessible, in certain cases.

[Avatar]

Lists are an essential part of marketing. Ethical marketers build their own lists, unethical ones buy them. And that's why 200 billion spam emails get sent every day.

--A