I would also like to point out the new angle the gun control industry has taken, isolating the discussion to “gun deaths.” I first encountered this debating Rebecca Peters on Al Jazeera, and again today on a local PBS round table. Since gun control advocates have lost the self-protection argument vis-à-vis violent crime rates, they have switched to “gun deaths” as a new measure.
Guy Smith www.GunFacts.info From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of GunCite Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2013 7:46 AM To: Olson, Joseph E.; Firearms Reg, List Cc: post_Heller_list Subject: Re: JAMA, the statistician's Bible. What so many seem to be missing is the sleight of hand done by that study. States with the strictest gun laws tend to have the least amount of guns per capita (gun ownership prevalence link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/interactives/guns/ownership.html). It's hardly news that regions with the most guns are more likely to have more gun homicides and suicides than regions with fewer guns (after allowing for other factors). The study did not address the affect of firearms on overall homicide and suicide rates... nice, old parlor trick most are falling for. This article displays a typical headline reporting the study: "More gun laws = fewer deaths, 50-state study says" (http://news.yahoo.com/more-gun-laws-fewer-deaths-134804944.html) The study attempted no such thing. _____ From: "Olson, Joseph E." <[email protected]> To: "Firearms Reg, List" <[email protected]> Cc: post_Heller_list <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, March 8, 2013 12:48 PM Subject: JAMA, the statistician's Bible. A Critique of the JAMA “Study”: ...Fleegler classified the 50 states according to how many gun laws they have. Using an alternative measure, he classified them according to the effectiveness of their gun laws as rated by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. He then looked at gun-related fatalities on a state by state basis, including both homicides and suicides, from 2007 through 2010. The key data are summarized in Table 2, which shows how the 50 states are ranked and the suicide and homicide statistics that Fleegler used. In making his findings, Fleegler purports to have controlled for a wide array of other variables. It will take some time for those with expertise in statistics and access to Fleegler’s data to determine whether there are technical flaws in his analysis. But what jumps out at you when you read Fleegler’s article is that the decrease in fatalities that he documents relates almost exclusively to suicides. What his study really shows is that strict gun laws have little or no impact on gun homicide... [The same result Gary Kleck reached 15 years ago.] http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/03/new-study-finds-firearms-laws-do-nothing-to-prevent-homicides.php -- **************************************************************************************************************** Professor Joseph Olson, J.D.(Hon. Duke), LL.M.(Tax. Florida) o 651-523-2142 Hamline University School of Law (MS-D2037) f 651-523-2236 St. Paul, MN 55113-1235 c 612-865-7956 [email protected] http://law.hamline.edu/constitutional_law/joseph_olson.html _______________________________________________ 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 Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
_______________________________________________ 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 Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
