And the 2009 Junk Science for gun research goes to...

[Nicodemus38]

of these shootings, how many of those shot were in fact muggers who were darwinized when they picked an armed victim? how many of the actual victims, ie citizens, were shot from behind before they could do anything?

 

[Jim K]

First of its kind? Those "studies" have been funded by various anti-gun groups for years and they always come (surprise!) to the same conclusion because they just photocopy the last fake study.

Jim

 

[DblGonzo]

And today we learn BHO just announced that the NIH will be getting 4 billion dollars. I guess we can look forward to more of this crap.

 

[IndianaBoy]

This genius can come over to my house anytime.

Stand 20 yards from me, and 20 yards from my wife, armed with her glock 19. He can then decide who he wants to fight.


See how much he believes in this crock of a study.

 

[StealthyBlagga]

The devil is always in the detail in these kinds of studies. Note this section:

These shooting cases were matched to Philadelphia residents who acted as the study’s controls. To identify the controls, trained phone canvassers called random Philadelphians soon after a reported shooting and asked about their possession of a gun at the time of the shooting. These random Philadelphians had not been shot and had nothing to do with the shooting...

The statistics for shooting victims given in this study have no particular meaning until they are compared with the control group - the "4.5x" data comes from comparison with this control group. Unfortunately, this control group is totally flawed (willfully so, I suspect) as follows: suppose an assault happened at 1am, and the interviewer asked an uninvolved control respondent whether they had been armed at that precise moment, what are the chances that someone is going to have been wearing a holstered gun while tucked up in bed (as most would have been) ? Thus, it seems very likely that the control group will artificially depress the apparent number of people who are armed but not shot.

I have to agree that this indeed seems to be junk science... very disappointing, but not surprising.

 

[Kino74]

Notice that the study does not mention anything about criminal background. How does one know if this is not criminal on criminal crime of which consists 70% of all murders?

 

[jad0110]

First of its kind? Those "studies" have been funded by various anti-gun groups for years and they always come (surprise!) to the same conclusion because they just photocopy the last fake study. (emphasis added)

Can you say "Kellerman study retread"? :banghead:

 

[akodo]

they randomly selected 677 cases of Philadelphia residents who were shot in an assault from 2003 to 2006. Six percent of these cases were in possession of a gun (such as in a holster, pocket, waistband, or vehicle) when they were shot.

criminals are most likely to be shot by other criminals. Are these 6 percent who have guns a reasonable sample or a skewed sample? I suspect if you look at the likelyhood of these same individuals having rap sheets and known gang ties, it would be very high.

To identify the controls, trained phone canvassers called random Philadelphians soon after a reported shooting and asked about their possession of a gun at the time of the shooting. These random Philadelphians had not been shot and had nothing to do with the shooting.

by looking at people who contact the police you immediately greatly decrease the likelyhood of them being gang members/criminals, hence you are setting up a very unequal comparison.

I am unsure what is even going on with this group. Are they attempting to determine a baseline for the likelyhood of having a gun? As these people were not involved in a shooting in any manner, how could they be the 'opposite' of the victims?

It seems like the study is attempting to compare the number of people who were shot because they had a gun during an assault and the number of people who 'won/avoided' an assualt because they had a gun. They looked at victims to see how many were armed (which while biased, makes some sense) but they looked at a totally unrelated group for some reason for the second half.

 

[c919]

Sounds like a lawful CCWer would be treated the same as a criminal in this study.

Exactly what I was saying. +1 Rob. When are they going to publish the study on how many CCWers have died because they had a gun?

Sure, if 50 out of 100 guntoting crackheads get shot while trying to stick up their crack dealer, and one CCWer gets killed in a robbery, then lets just make a survey saying "the majority of the subjects in this study died because they had a gun". Ugh.

 

[flrfh213]

ok lets do a new study...

how many people here carry a firearm?

how many have shot somone with said firearm?

ok now to be fair here... how many of you have been shot with a legal firrearm, by a legal carrier... hmmm can we post these results too???

***, it seems only fair....

 

[coloradokevin]

In my mind, the most alarming part of this study is how likely it is to be read as gospel by many of the academically minded folks who have had no prior exposure to guns in their lives!

I have an aunt and uncle who have two daughters. The parents are both clinical psychologists with very impressive resumes, and the daughters (my cousins) are in the process of completing their graduate level degrees. Unfortunately, all of this education fails to give them a common sense view of guns.

I actually had a conversation with this side of the family around Thanksgiving of last year, and they argued with me for more strict gun control laws, citing (in part) the "fact" that guns often just "go off", and that you are more likely to be a victim of homicide if you own a gun.

Keep in mind, these highly educated family members know that I'm a career police officer, and are very well aware of the fact that I've been shooting since childhood. Yet, they still believe that I'm wrong when I tell that that guns don't just "go off", and they still don't believe me when I tell them that the studies they are reading don't really tell the whole story!

 

[Apple a Day]

I'm with Cosmoline... I have absolutely no faith in phone call based surveys constituting valid data. I don't know about y'all but everybody I know who gets survey calls just hangs up on them. People who sit there and answer the questions are either bored or have an axe to grind. Either way, you get answers from the fringe not the norm.

 

[Madcap_Magician]

The two major flaws with this study, from what it appears, are the same ones that are repeated time and time again in medical "research" about guns.

1) The vast majority of people who are victims of violent crime are themselves criminals. Correcting the study to reflect those victims of assault who were carrying firearms and also had recent criminal records or gang affiliations is likely to result in a drop in their numbers.

2) There is no attempt to include any defensive uses of firearms that warded off an assault. The study's control does not seem to be in any way related to the variable. They called random people and asked them if they had a gun at the time of a shooting in which they were uninvolved? Seriously? What is that going to tell them?

 

[willbrink]

It's stunning to m that in 2009, where similar "studies" have been ripped apart so easily, anyone would bother to publish something so easy to debunk. It's truly disgusting.

 

[Tropical Buzz]

A 2005 National Academy of Science report concluded that we continue to know very little about the impact of gun possession on homicide or the utility of guns for self-defense. Past studies had explored the relationship between homicides and having a gun in the home, purchasing a gun, or owning a gun. These studies, unlike the Penn study, did not address the risk or protection that having a gun might create for a person at the time of a shooting.

Penn researchers investigated the link between being shot in an assault and a person’s possession of a gun at the time of the shooting. As identified by police and medical examiners, they randomly selected 677 cases of Philadelphia residents who were shot in an assault from 2003 to 2006. Six percent of these cases were in possession of a gun (such as in a holster, pocket, waistband, or vehicle) when they were shot.

This is the point that many missed. Only 6% of the people who were actually shot were in posession of a gun at the time of the shooting. THAT SAMPLE INDICATES THAT THOSE NOT CARRYING A GUN WERE 15.5 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO BE SHOT IN AN ASSAULT than those who did have a gun.
Of course this does not jive with their agenda, so they went on to canvass a large sample of people who were not shot and were not in any way involved with the shootings to establish whether or not they were in posession of a gun at the time the other shootings occurred!

These shooting cases were matched to Philadelphia residents who acted as the study’s controls. To identify the controls, trained phone canvassers called random Philadelphians soon after a reported shooting and asked about their possession of a gun at the time of the shooting. These random Philadelphians had not been shot and had nothing to do with the shooting. This is the same approach that epidemiologists have historically used to establish links between such things as smoking and lung cancer or drinking and car crashes.

At the time the actual shootings occurred, those uninvolved people who were canvassed may have been asleep in bed, on a fishing trip or sitting in church. Any number of bogus conclusions could be drawn from those results, depending on what agenda one wants to push. In this case, the ridiculous assertion is that the mere state of being in posession of a gun can somehow act as a magnet to armed assailants, therefore increasing your chances of being shot!! Once again, the study conveniently ignores the glaring fact that 94 percent of the people who were actually shot DID NOT have a gun at the time the shooting occurred.

 

[spartywrx]

Full text of the paper

http://www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/AJPH...urcetype=HWCIT

need an account to get in. Any college students here with their PubMed account?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum

Here's the study!

Courtesy of my university Attached below.

 

[BTin]

81.5% of all statistics are made up.

 

[RS14]

This is the point that many missed. Only 6% of the people who were actually shot were in posession of a gun at the time of the shooting. THAT SAMPLE INDICATES THAT THOSE NOT CARRYING A GUN WERE 15.5 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO BE SHOT IN AN ASSAULT than those who did have a gun.

This is simply wrong.

Consider as illustration a hypothetical population of 100 individuals, 10 of whom carry guns. Suppose that 30 unarmed people are shot and that 10 armed people are shot. Then armed people make up 25% of those who are shot. The unarmed people make up 75% of those who are shot.

Unarmed people are not 3 times as likely to be shot, however. In this hypothetical population, 100% of armed people are shot, while only 30% of unarmed people are shot.

The purpose of contacting uninvolved people is to establish what percent of the population as a whole carries a gun.

Also: spartywrx, Thanks very much for the pdf. I'm taking a look at it now.

 

[damien]

81.5% of all statistics are made up.

Wrong. 92.73% of all statistics are made up.

 

[RS14]

The study actually seems fairly reasonable. They did collect data on unemployment, previous arrest history, illicit drug involvement, etc. I'm not a statistician (I've never even taken a statistics class), but I believe they account for these factors. Presumably they compare control individuals with no arrest history, no drugs, etc. with shot individuals in those same categories. (Is that what "adjusting for confounding factors" means?)

There are some likely causes of error. For instance, "We assumed that the resident population of Philadelphia risked being shot in an assault at any location and at any time of day or night. ... As such, we reasonably chose not to exclude participants as immune from hypothetically becoming cases because they were, for instance, asleep at home during the night or at work in an office building during the day." The authors also state "We also did not account for the potential of reverse causation between gun possession and gun assault. Although our long list of confounders may have served to reduce some of the problems posed by reverse causation."

I get the sense that Dr. Branas probably does not support the ownership of guns. However, he does not seem to totally dismiss the defensive use of guns. If we give the study the benefit of the doubt, it can be interpreted to show simply that "a gun is not a magic wand to make the BG stop." Individuals producing a gun without a willingness to use it are putting themselves in a very dangerous situation, yes. I think many of us have heard of the Texas airplane mechanic who was shot with his own gun in a confrontation with a burglar outside his home, or some similar story. These things happen. We should recognize the danger inherent in unskilled and untrained self defense (relative to trained and skilled SD), and should prepare ourselves to ensure they do not happen to us. Go take a CCW class.

There are some flaws, yes. I'd personally love to see others found by more knowledgeable people than myself.

 

[eye5600]

I have not looked at the study, but consider that the errors are as likely to arise from people who report on the study but don't understand it, and use catch phrases to substantiate their biases.

So, to particularize, cops (who carry) are more likely to get shot than kindergarden teachers (who don't carry). Small business owners in rough areas are more likely to carry and more likely to get shot than business owners in safer areas.

To some extent, the decision to carry is based on a subjective assessment of risk. It's hard to see how they figured that it.

 

[Werewolf]

Methodology??

It is very possible that when someone with a firearm on board is accosted by a mugger and the acostee pulls a gun and the mugger flees many if not most of the incidents aren't even reported.

Thus the incidents we/police know about are only those that make it to a police blotter.

 

[StealthyBlagga]

The study actually seems fairly reasonable. They did collect data on unemployment, previous arrest history, illicit drug involvement, etc. I'm not a statistician (I've never even taken a statistics class), but I believe they account for these factors. Presumably they compare control individuals with no arrest history, no drugs, etc. with shot individuals in those same categories. (Is that what "adjusting for confounding factors" means?)

There are some likely causes of error. For instance, "We assumed that the resident population of Philadelphia risked being shot in an assault at any location and at any time of day or night. ... As such, we reasonably chose not to exclude participants as immune from hypothetically becoming cases because they were, for instance, asleep at home during the night or at work in an office building during the day." The authors also state "We also did not account for the potential of reverse causation between gun possession and gun assault. Although our long list of confounders may have served to reduce some of the problems posed by reverse causation."

I get the sense that Dr. Branas probably does not support the ownership of guns. However, he does not seem to totally dismiss the defensive use of guns. If we give the study the benefit of the doubt, it can be interpreted to show simply that "a gun is not a magic wand to make the BG stop." Individuals producing a gun without a willingness to use it are putting themselves in a very dangerous situation, yes. I think many of us have heard of the Texas airplane mechanic who was shot with his own gun in a confrontation with a burglar outside his home, or some similar story. These things happen. We should recognize the danger inherent in unskilled and untrained self defense (relative to trained and skilled SD), and should prepare ourselves to ensure they do not happen to us. Go take a CCW class.

There are some flaws, yes. I'd personally love to see others found by more knowledgeable people than myself.

RS14

You seem like a nice trusting guy, but a bit naive. The world of social sciences is awash with bogus, agenda-driven studies like this, and when I see them I now assume they are bogus until I can prove to myself otherwise. This is true on both sides of the debate on guns, and many other subjects. I do have a background in statistics - have you never heard the maxim "there are lies, damned lies and statistics" ?

Looking at the small print, the publishing record of this particular team/institution, and the people funding them, its hard not to conclude this is a "hit piece" masquerading as science. Their primary goal is to ask questions for which they already know the answer they want, then parade their "data" as a fact with which to sway politicians and the general public. You saw them trying to justify why a person asleep in bed is still a valid datapoint in their survey - like the CarTalk guys would say, thats Boooooooooooooogus ! IMHO this study is so confounded by uncontrolled or miscontrolled factors as to be worthless from an academic standpoint... its only raison d'etre has to be advocacy of a policy position. I hope to see the NRA digging through this study and tearing it apart... I hope you are an NRA member and will be able to read about it in a future issue of American Rifleman.

 

[cavman]

Methodology??

" The final 6 months of this period were limited to only fatal cases.We excluded self-inflicted, unintentional, and police-related shootings,..., and gun injuries of undetermined intent. We excluded individuals younger then 21 years because it was not legal for them to possess a firearm in Philadelphia....."

 

[RS14]

You seem like a nice trusting guy, but a bit naive. The world of social sciences is awash with bogus, agenda-driven studies like this, and when I see them I now assume they are bogus until I can prove to myself otherwise. This is true on both sides of the debate on guns, and many other subjects.

I'm going into Mathematics, and at present nearly all of my courses are in the hard sciences. So yes, I suppose I expect scientists to write accurately and to the best of their ability about their work. Of course you are right; it doesn't always happen.

You saw them trying to justify why a person asleep in bed is still a valid datapoint in their survey - like the CarTalk guys would say, thats Boooooooooooooogus ! IMHO this study is so confounded by uncontrolled or miscontrolled factors as to be worthless from an academic standpoint... its only raison d'etre has to be advocacy of a policy position. I hope to see the NRA digging through this study and tearing it apart... I hope you are an NRA member and will be able to read about it in a future issue of American Rifleman.

You're quite right. It's not quite as heavily distorted as some other comments would suggest. They claim to attempt to account for criminal history, as they should. It's not that they're going out and collecting the control group so they can fabricate results, as Tropical Buzz suggested.

Any miscontrolled factors would be very interesting to hear about. That would be the sort of fabrication that would seem easiest to pull off. They don't give details, so could in theory do anything. Whereas the people asleep are at least counted openly.