" It's deja vu all over again." -- Yogi Berra
Shades of
Kellerman -- they are at it again.
First, to
paraphrase an statement John R. Lott, Jr. frequently is known to say -- a gun
control law has costs and benefits. It
potentially might prevent harm which is a benefit. But, it
might cost society by preventing a person from defeating a
criminal attack because the prevented him from owning a firearm. This
paper is rather typical of ideological pro gun-control pseudo-science in that it
addresses only one side of this two sided equation. This paper addresses
the potential benefit of guns being absent (banned by law) by counting lives
lost that might have been saved, but it ignores the potential of lives lost
(and other injury to decent citizens not prevented) by not accounting for lives
saved and injuries which have been prevented by a firearm being
available in the home.
I'm tempted
to ask what a study might show about the risk of being killed in an automobile
accident in household which own a car? I'm sure it is many times higher
than exists for households that do not own an
automobile.
Ignoring benefits from owning a firearm is not the only failing --
only the failing about the biggest potential benefit to society.
The paper shows its lack of scientific merit by its blindness to this issue even
when the data might have shown benefit. For example, the study
authors didn't appear to examine whether any of the homicides
were justified -- whether the person killed was the aggressor in an
attack.
Other
failing include: the paper didn't report whether the person killed was
killed by another gun brought into the home by an intruder ("the gun in the home
may not have been the gun used in the death"); they excluded "deaths
of undetermined cause ... on the basis that they could be
homicides or suicides" without recognizing that they might be justified
homicides; they didn't consider the criminal or accident record of the
gun owner (was the gun owned contrary to law, did the owners have a history of
accidents or drug abuse or alcohol abuse) or of the killer; while they report
"over three quarters ... of the homicide victims knew their assailants" they did
not report whether the person killed resided in the home or was an intruder or
whether the assailant was a family member; while they reported nearly a third of
the homicides happened during a family argument, they didn't examine whether the
killing was justified in any of the cases or whether the family argument
produced a family death or death of another.
Another big
failing is bigotry expressed by the "study" in scientific terms ("male
sex and living in the South were important predictors of firearm
suicide"). Maryland is a southern state with lower than
national average suicide rates including males suicides with firearms
(and there are many states such as Montana, Nevada or Wyoming with higher rates
of male firearm suicides than most southern states). So, they paint
with a broad brush that is not sufficiently uniform to justify their
selection of the south as a target.
They also
say nothing about southern suicide rates in general (many southern states
have lower rates of suicide than Montana or Nevada or Wyoming and rates
comparable to Oregon, Oklahoma, and Colorado). So, why, other than
bigotry, would the southern states be singled
out?
(For
these comparisons, I used CDC data from http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate9.html for the years 1994
through 1998).
I would
celebrate the "study's" finding that gun storage was not
correlated to homicide if I thought it had any scientific merit. It
is always nice to see one more bit of evidence that gun storage laws are
meritless, but this "study" is no more likely to be right about that than the
other conclusions presented.
Phil
Lee
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Guy Smith
Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 11:42 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: Guns in Home Increase Danger to Occupants, Survey FindsSome parts of the report are informative:"Persons living in high-crime neighborhoods or involved in illegal behaviors may acquire a gun for protection. The risk comes not necessarily from the presence of the gun in the house but from these types of environmental factors and exposures. ""our analysis was restricted to violent deaths in the home. The dynamics of homicides or suicides occurring in other locations may be very different. ""We were unable to ascertain the risk of a nonfatal outcome and were also unable to weigh the risk of a violent death against any protective benefits of gun ownership"-----Original Message-----Guns in Home Increase Danger to Occupants, Survey Finds
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of dr Zox
Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 9:01 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Guns in Home Increase Danger to Occupants, Survey Finds
11/5/2004
http://www.jointogether.org/gv/news/summaries/reader/0,2061,575116,00.html
Having guns in the home increases occupants' chances of being killed or injured by firearms, according to the Nov. 15 issue of the Journal of American Epidemiology.
The Journal analyzed findings from a survey that sought to identify the relationships between gun storage practices, types of gun, and number of guns in the home and risk to occupants.
The survey found that persons with guns in the home were more likely to die from gun homicides in the home, but that the risk varied by age and whether victims lived with someone else at the time of death.
While the study found that having a gun in the home increased the risk of firearms homicide and suicide, the effect that storage practices and types and numbers of guns had on risk was unclear.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
http://aje.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/160/10/929
ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS
Guns in the Home and Risk of a Violent Death in the Home: Findings from a National Study
Linda L. Dahlberg1 , Robin M. Ikeda2 and Marcie-jo Kresnow3
1 Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA.
2 Epidemiology Program Office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA.
3 Office of Statistics and Programming, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA.
Data from a US mortality follow-back survey were analyzed to determine whether having a firearm in the home increases the risk of a violent death in the home and whether risk varies by storage practice, type of gun, or number of guns in the home. Those persons with guns in the home were at greater risk than those without guns in the home of dying from a homicide in the home (adjusted odds ratio = 1.9, 95% confidence interval: 1.1, 3.4). They were also at greater risk of dying from a firearm homicide, but risk varied by age and whether the person was living with others at the time of death. The risk of dying from a suicide in the home was greater for males in homes with guns than for males without guns in the home (adjusted odds ratio = 10.4, 95% confidence interval: 5.8, 18.9). Persons with guns in the home were also more likely to have died from suicide committed with a firearm than from one committed by using a different method (adjusted odds ratio = 31.1, 95% confidence interval: 19.5, 49.6). Results show that regardless of storage practice, type of gun, or number of firearms in the home, having a gun in the home was associated with an increased risk of firearm homicide and firearm suicide in the home.
Key Words: firearms; homicide; suicide; violence; wounds and injuries
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