Since the 1.2% and 3.6% are percent of guns used in crime, the reduction (if there are enough counts to provide a statistically meaningful result) should indicate a change independent of the general crime trend. No one has cited a confidence interval for the result or said the magic words that the reduction is significant at some level.
Another point to make, it would be interesting to know where this data is taken. If it is from ATF trace data, that has well known meaningless statistical properties (Kopel has a paper on this subject). Phil > > > Concerning "the Justice Department has reported that assault weapons > > >represented 1.2 percent of the guns used in crimes in 2002 down from 3.6 > > >percent in 1995," I wonder whether the 1.2% represent only AWs defined by > > >the federal gun control law or whether they include the functionally > > >similar guns. > > > > More likely, if the usual dance is being done here, the phrase "used in > > crime" have nothing to do with the actual use of a gun at all. For > > example, after the cops break in the door of a counterfeiter, child > > molester, meth cooker, or whatever, and take the residents off in > > manacles, they search the building. Any firearm found is logged and > > eventually makes its way into a report as a "gun used in crime" -- even > > though the gun was never actually involved in printing bogus hundreds, > > abducting little boys, or titrating Clorox into Robitussin. > > I don't have the stats handy, and don't know if the cited study compared > them adequately, but does the decline in AW "criminal" use mirror the > overall violent crime reductions since 1991? I general reduction in crime > and violent crime in particular would look like a reduction in AW crime as > well. > > -------------------- > Guy Smith > Silicon Strategies Marketing > 630 Taylor Avenue > Alameda, CA 94501 > 510-521-4477 (T) > 510-217-9693 (F) > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > www.SiliconStrat.com > > > _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof
