Dr. Michael S. brown writes:
The headline at the top of Thursday’s front page of The Columbian: 50-state study says more gun laws equal fewer deaths. It’s an AP story based entirely on an article published in JAMA Internal Medicine called Firearm Legislation and Firearm-Related Fatalities in the United States. The study is a heavily biased, scientifically unsustainable piece of “research” cobbled together from suspect data, created by the usual suspects (e.g., Harvard’s David Hemenway). For years, small groups of Northeast intellectuals have been churning out anti-gun agit prop supported by grants from liberal donors. They never stand up to careful scrutiny . . .
The text of this document includes the following admission: “our study could not determine cause-and-effect relationships.” And no wonder. The Brady Campaign to prevent Gun Violence and another notoriously anti-gun Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence provided the data. The Joyce Foundation provided funding.
Anyway, here’s the stated methodology:
Using an ecological and cross-sectional method, we retrospectively analyzed all firearm-related deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System from 2007 through 2010. We used state-level firearm legislation across 5 categories of laws to create a “legislative strength score,” and measured the association of the score with state mortality rates using a clustered Poisson regression. States were divided into quartiles based on their score.
The process is riddled with “issues.” “All firearms related deaths” includes suicides, which account for 60.9 percent of these fatalities. The correlation between firearms laws and suicides is both unlikely and unproven. The Brady Campaign chose the “5 categories of laws” applied in the study. They examined laws that . . .
(1) curb firearm trafficking; (2) strengthen background checks on purchasers of firearms beyond those required by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act; (3) ensure child safety; (4) ban military style assault weapons; and (5) restrict guns in public places
Not only are the categories ridiculous vague (“ensure child safety”) and arbitrary, they are misleading and scientifically dubious. As less than five percent of all homicides involve a rifle of any sort, why consider laws banning “assault rifles” when attempting to examine the cause and effect relationship between gun control and homicide rates?
Bottom line: this is a throw-away study. Another piece of faux scholarship [rightly] discounted by independent researchers and dissected by bloggers. of course, its publication has nothing to do with social science; it’s a key part of the civilian disarmament movement’s plan for influencing fence straddlers.
Each study is picked up by the mainstream media, reduced to a headline or a few soundbites and spewed forth into the news stream to make a single, brief, anti-gun, impression on the public consciousness. Almost everyone will read the headline, very few will read the uncritical article, and virtually nobody will actually go online and look up the study itself. That’s how editors get away with publishing junk science, they know you won’t look behind the curtain.
I was surprised that good folks at The Columbian were taken in by the anti-gun propaganda machine, but then I noticed that there was also an editorial calling for more gun laws and it started to make sense. When I saw the unflattering cartoon depicting the President of the NRA, I finally got the complete picture. The Columbian simply hates guns and they don’t care who knows it. They chose to run the sycophantic AP article, because it appeared to back up their appeal for more gun laws.
I decided to take a look at the Elway poll mentioned in the editorial. While some anti-gun measures did get a majority, it does not look like Washingtonians are strongly in the mood for more gun laws. In fact by 55 to 37 percent, respondents said they felt protecting gun rights was more important than controlling gun ownership. It sounds to me like some people are simply confused and I don’t blame them a bit.
The gun debate has always been carried out with a distinct lack of logic and evidence. The fight is waged with emotional soundbites and buzzwords intended to obfuscate and influence opinion without causing any deep thinking. Most people don’t have the time or inclination to do their own research online and bypass the media mavens who feel they know what is best for you. Fortunately, that is slowly changing.
Dr. Michael S. Brown is a member of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership
If the need arose, I would volunteer, wholeheartedly, to work as a resourse officer at one of the schools nearby my home. I would not hesitate to take a day or two off work a month to walk and/or patrol them on a volunteer basis. Whatever training necessary, I’ll do it, at no cost to the district. I’m also sure that many others would do the same.
The big zero’s insanity is an acquired condition, given his liberal, communist upbringing, but there’s only one race on this planet that is clinically insane from birth – and she’s a member of it.
Ok!! Here is the solution:
1. All anti gun medical people must work in the hospitals/medical facilities that ban firearms on the premises.
2. All pro gun medical people will have their own medical facility that allows them and anyone else legally allowed to carry on the facility grounds.
3. All anti gun medical personell are only allowed to use a non edged, bendable catheter to defend themselves with. Nothing else.
4. No member of any anti gun medical facility will be allowed to call for armed assistance until they have completed a Federal Form 9987 “Request For Armed Intervention Because I Am A Pu$$y” in triplicate at least forty five days prior to the incident!!
5. Crawl you sorry bast&&ds!!
Ok off of soapbox now!!
This is one form of segregation we can all stand behind! Darwin might have even called this “natural selection.”
You heard it from the horse’s mouth,boys and girls in uniform. Remember this when and if you ever get orders to confiscate The Guns From The People….
“AR’s [sic] are completely different. Due to the rifle’s design and offset between the sights and barrel only about the bottom half of the stock’s heel [sic] should be in the shoulder.”
No to be picky but it should read:
ARs are completely different. Due to the rifle’s design and offset between the sights and barrel only about the bottom half of the stock’s butt should be in the shoulder.
OK, yes, I am being picky! And yes again, I knew what you meant.
I love my nagant revolver. I think 5 spare mosins, and 5 spare nagants and you can arm anyone with simple and reliable arms that are plenty lethal. Kinda ties into the buying guns for your neighbor post you made the other day. that, and several spam cans of ammo and you are prepared for whatever comes your way. If you can teach a Russian conscript to use them effectively, you can teach anyone to use em.
Leeland
Q – I know this is a dumb question, but I just have to know, doesn’t the old US v Miller case say that only military weapons are protected by the 2nd ammendment? So governments can only ban any weapon that is NOT in use by the military? So we can own all the “assault weapons” we want?
Q – How can I help you?
I recently read that it’s basically pointless to get an 03/c&r in California. Opinions?
Respect for life: DiFi net-worth is around 100 million. So, how does a professional politician accumulate that kind of wealth over their career?
GAKoenig et al: Two things I’d add to the EOTech comments. The reliability of many early EO’s was due to a battery compartment defect. A fix is available and works. My oldest EO needed it. I’ve never had an “it turns itself off” problem with more recent EO’s, and find them excellent generally, robust and fast. About the pixilated reticle: Many have pointed out the value of using the lowest viewable power setting. I would add that astigmatism, either in your eyes or your eye pro, causes massive pixilation and for some a perception that the reticule is moving about. If you don’t have relatively astigmatism-free eyes (or good correcting lenses) the EO isn’t for you at more than CQB distances and low power settings.
True story – Combat Veteran – went out to the woods and hunted, get alone time etc. to help with his combat trauma. Finally went to the VA to get support for PTSD – they took his gun permit away in case he was a risk to himself or others.
And you wonder why veterans don’t seek help for PTS – there is enough stigma as there is without idiot politicians blaming gun violence on PTSD. It is more often to do with poverty and despondancy that combat trauma.
“With the possibility of a federal assault weapons ban dead in the water…”
Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.
+1 on not looking like a cop.
About 18 months ago I took a defensive carbine course at Sig with John Farnum.
Prior to the start of the first days class a bunch of students gathered in the hall outside of the classrooms. Amongst them was the only woman a short, gray haired, grandmother type. I remember thinking that it was great that there was at least one woman in the class.
She turned out to be Vicki Farnum, John’s wife and an instructor. I never would have guessed.
She looked like your average grandmother, that is if Grandma had a plate of chocolate chip cookies in one hand and an M1 carine in the other.
The caliber part of this makes a lot of sense. For example, you always read: “get a .30-30 lever action, the ammo is always readily available”, and so on. Well that is NOT TRUE. The more common the caliber, the quicker it disappears from the shelves in any panic situation like the present one.
I’ve been keeping track of ammo for the last two months and guess what? .38 Super +P is still available in 50 rounds for $19.99, and in 1000 round cartons for less. And, .30-30 is nowhere to be found while .45-70 is, and so forth. Conventional wisdom is WRONG, especially for calibers that are used by LE, DHS and the military.
Hire plainclothes SRO’s to do custodial work. Kid’s have no problem with talking to the custodians because they’re just regular Joes. If they’re cleaning they won’t get bored and do something stupid like pulling their gun out when it’s not needed.
Or was it the SRO’s shotgun that pulled the trigger?
I agree with Andrew. This is why there should be mental screening & an IQ test to own a gun.
Let me tell you this. The term felon used to hold weight in old english law now its an excuse to take rights and have a new group of people to discriminate against since you cant the blacks anymore. A felony was originally a crime punishable by death or life in prison, then a person forfeited their property now its anything over a year. Pathetic. Certain people find it reasonable like “yeah criminals cant have guns yay!” the other half just like being able to have a gun while someone else cant, it makes them feel tough. Well, check this out felons since you cant vote, hold office, have a gun, have no rights under law why pay taxes to a gov you have no say in? Why do you, seriously? Real criminals dont fill out forms anyway and tagging “felon in posession” to a murder charge isnt gonna mean a damn anyway after the fact someone is dead. so take your stupid ass laws and fuck off.
Except that it’s useless in my state.
Should have been Rand Paul, he is a new crossover sensation.
Ugh, come on NRA, do something right for a change. Get creative.
Aww, come on, really? We’re getting our knickers in a knot over Glenn Beck speaking at an NRA event? This is like bitching about how someone arranged the deck chairs on the Titanic. If G.B. speaking at an NRA event is seriously going to affect the viability of the 2A in the post-Sandy Hook USofA, then we’re screwed already. Best to get it over with.
This whole idea of “its the messaging, and not the message” is a load of crap. If someone can’t grock the greatness of liberty and living free, no amount of suave, charming enticement, or careful demographically-sensitive packaging is going to matter.
What the hell is going on around here?!
Well there’s 6 minutes and 11 seconds of my life that I’ll never get back.
Meanwhile, I believe a painting of Teddy Roosevelt, looks on in the background. While I’m not an admirer of TR’s imperial policies he was anything but the low-life metro-sexual politicians in office today.