"Phil Lee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> "Tim Lambert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>> "Phil Lee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>>
>> > Lambert's case, as illustrated in his 3 points below, illustrates an
>> > approach he regularly argues which I'll call the "tobacco company
> defense."
>> > The argument, which has valid elements, is that correlation between
> events
>> > (smoking and cancer, hot burglary rates and lack of firearms) do not
> prove
>> > there is a causal relationship.
>>
>> You turn the truth on its head. I have pointed out before
>> that there is no correlation between hot burglary rates and gun
>> ownership. See Ludwig and Cook's study.
>
> Cook and Ludwig state "Rather, our analysis concludes that residential
> burglary rates tend to increase with community gun prevalence" -- that is,
> they assert a correlation between gun prevalence and burglary rates. It did
> seem that by citing that paper Lecturer Lambert was arguing community gun
> prevalence was correlated to residential hot burglary rates.
No, by citing the paper in which Cook and Ludwig wrote:
The results from a cross-sectional analysis of NCVS data from
1994-1998 are presented in Table 10. The first column of estimates
are of the effect of gun prevalence on the likelihood that someone
is at home when there is a burglary (22 percent on average). While
the coefficient estimates are negative in every case (suggesting a
deterrent effect), they are not discernibly different from zero,
and in all but the simple regression have t-statistics less than
one. While null findings may sometimes simply reflect a lack of
statistical power, in this case the NCVS data support a quite
precise estimate, with the standard errors all less than one-tenth
of one percentage point.
I was referring to their result that the hot burglary rate (the
proportion of burglaries that are hot) was not significantly
correlated with gun prevalence.
> 3. None of these measures account for "chicken and egg" issues. I've not
> seen analyses determine whether gun prevalence being high is due to high
> burglary rates rather than the other way around.
So you haven't actually seen their paper?
The new results reported here suggest that if there is such a
deterrent effect, it may well be swamped by other factors
associated with gun prevalence most likely, it seems to us, the
fact that guns are particularly attractive loot. Cross-section
analysis of the NCVS and panel-data analysis of the UCR yield
quite similar findings: a 10 percent increase in our measure of
gun ownership increases burglary rates by 3 to 7 percent. These
results are not likely to be due to reverse causation: Among other
evidence on this matter is the findings from our
instrumentalvariable estimates, which are consistent with the OLS
results. Most important, we find that gun prevalence has little
effect on the fraction of residential burglaries in which someone
is at home, and that the hot-burglary victimization rate tends to
increase with gun prevalence. These results are robust to
alternative specifications and data sets.
>>
>> Again you turn the truth on its head. The evidence tells us what they
>> think others believe. It is speculation to argue that they believe
>> the same thing themselves. You can speculate if you want but you
>> should accurately describe what Wright and Rossi's survey found and
>> not make false claims about their findings. They DID NOT conclude
>> that the higher hot burglary rate in Britain was caused by American
>> burglars fear of being shot.
>
> Lecturer Lambert is certainly confused about who turns truth on its head
> with Wright and Rossi's results. Wright and Rossi found that gun control
> laws have relatively little effect on violent criminals;
No. They didn't even study the effects of gun control laws.
> they found more than half of the convicts would not attack a
> potential victim known to be armed;
Nope. Again, this was a statement about what other criminals would
do.
> more than half feared encounters with armed citizens more than
> encounters with police;
Nope. This was another statement about what other criminals felt.
> and that approximately one-third of them had been
> scared off or defeated by an armed citizen.
Closer. That should be "armed victim".
And Wright and Rossi DID NOT conclude that the higher hot burglary
rate in Britain was caused by American burglars fear of being shot.
Please try to accurately report their results.
>> (BTW, how come you give Olson a title and not me?)
>>
> I hope that by finding your title and using it, you are mollified at my
> previous gaucherie. You can continue to use Lee with no title. Although I
> have a PhD in Mathematics, I'm happy with the reputation that attaches to my
> name and it need no inflation.
I did not ask you to give me a title. I asked: "how come you give
Olson a title and not me?" You don't seem to have answered my
question. Not giving me a title is not gauche, but giving me an
incorrect title over and over again, is. I don't really care if
whether you give me a title or not, but if you do, "Dr" or "Mr" is
correct.
--
Tim
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