“New research published in JAMA Pediatrics, shows that kids who watched a short movie with guns were more likely to pull the trigger on a real (unloaded) gun following the film compared to kids who watched a movie without guns,” quartz.com reports, using the picture above to illustrate. The study’s all over the news . . .
as it involves kids (children aged 8 to 12) pulling the trigger on a REAL GUN! Not that the media actually read the study. Because if they did they’d see that its authors’ — PhD’s Kelly P. Dillon and Brad J. Bushman — acknowledge that their methodology sucked had fatal flaws major limitations:
Like all studies, this study has limitations. Only 1 modified handgun was available for the participants to find and with which they could engage, but 2 Nerf guns were available. This may have inadvertently invited coplay with Nerf guns but not with the real handgun.
Although the hidden camera could record the entire room, it was stationary and unable to capture all actions of all participants.
Finally, most participants were from suburban or urban neighborhoods, possibly limiting their exposure to and training with firearms. Rural households tend to have a greater likelihood of gun ownership,17 and exposure and experience with firearms may negate the novelty of finding a hidden gun, resulting in less curiosity and play.
We also did not ask parents or participants about previous gun safety training, such as the National Rifle Association’s Eddie Eagle program. Although these programs have been found to be helpful in teaching children to repeat verbal commands, they have also been found to increase the likelihood of children handling found guns. Future research should take into account previous experience and training as a covariate.
Did you catch that? While there’s no formal study proving that the NRA’s gun safety program reduces accidental or negligent firearms injuries or deaths, there is certainly no evidence that the “Stop, Don’t Touch, Tell an Adult” increases the likelihood of children handling found guns.
The study authors’ unsubstantiated, off-hand comment reveals their pro-gun control bias. Not that they’re trying to hide it. Here’s the Introduction:
Nearly 60% of US households with guns do not secure them. If children find these guns, the consequences can be deadly. Most unintentional gun shootings happen at home, typically as a result of children playing with a loaded, unlocked gun. Children in the United States are 10 times more likely to die by unintentional gun shootings than children from other developed countries.
Safe storage laws! Less violent movies! We’re from the academic community and we’re here to help!
Or at least increase the level of anti-gun hysteria to the point where we can force Americans to disarm. And if not disarm, at least render their firearms useless for home defense, removing one major reason to own one. And thus, reduce firearms ownership.
Isn’t it amazing what hoops anti-gunners jump through to make their case seem rational and reasonable? And how slavishly the anti-gun mainstream media repeats their lies, distortions and half-truths?
that explains what happened after i watched “the devil in miss jones.”
Something went bang?😄
When I was little, my dad took me outside, showed me the pistol that he owned, and fired it. It was really loud, really scary, and really surprising. Later he performed a Coup de grâce on a opossum that had been chewing up the chickens that the dog had tackled and detained for his finishing touch. It was all pretty gory. At that point, I had zero interest in going anywhere near that gun, knowing its capabilities. Certainly didn’t want to touch it, or pull the trigger.
It’s called education. Kids need to know what a gun can do and why they shouldn’t play with them.
Me thinks the AMA is a monopoly…
Reminds me of the stuff a certain attorney disbarred for putting gay porn in court documents would cite…
Funny… My kids have learned to leave my guns alone unless we are out at the range shooting and I’m supervising them.
Funny my kids leave my guns alone unless we’re at the range and they have permission to fire.
I guess somebody needs to inform the Liberals in Hollywood to stop making movies. Especially movies where Sean Penn and Ben Afleck(among others) pretend to be retired Special Forces or CIA deep cover.
So does this mean that California is going to require a background check for dangerous Nerf guns? Either that or they will require a featureless Nerf butt stock.
So if this is all true??
then all the baby boomers that watched cowboy western films and cowboy TV shows like gunsmoke, the lone ranger, big valley and others are murders that will go on shooting sprees??
Or the not so well eduBAcated doc is talking out of his ass?
It took a whole study to confirm “Monkey see, monkey do”?
Aside from the waste of money, so what?
“Nearly 60% of US households with guns do not secure them.”
Citation please?
Oh, wait……….they can’t!
That one particularly struck me. I have never before seen that contention, for one, and the real question is not whether 60% of households with guns secure them, the correct question is “What percentage of households with children fail to secure their firearms?” I bet it is a whole lot less than the (I am sure assumed) 60% figure. Heck, I am one of those households, but I have neither children nor grandchildren nor children of others visiting here; I therefore have no reason to secure my firearms to prevent misuse by a child. Moreover, the claim completely ignores that the total number of children (and I do mean children) accidentally injured by a firearm is less than 5000 per year, and less than 500 deaths, out of an estimated 100 million households with firearms.
My guns are unsecured. I have no kids so they don’t need to be and if I need to protect my wife and myself do they want me to say hang on while I go unlock my safe? The question is how many households with guns need to have them secured and away from kids who haven’t been taught about gun safety?
Golly me and the family just watched Kingsman 2. Profane and gloriously violent. But I know it’s not real. Duh…
I remember years ago, a tv show titled Murphy Brown made history with the main character who was single had a baby out of wedlock.
Much moaning about social mores and the possibility of single parenthood being encouraged. The star’s response was, “she’s a fictional character”.
But apparently fictional guns do have an effect.
Interesting.
Well, if you vote Democrat at this point you should just disarm yourself voluntarily.
For the children.
The rest of us will keep our guns. Thanks!
Well, duh…children imitate what they see others do…called learning. I think the study is just more evidence for teaching your children gun safety, since they are going to see guns used either on film, in games, or by someone in their home. It’s like teaching your children to swim at a very young age if you have a swimming pool – just common sense.
Funny they didn’t mention “first shooter” video games, a much bigger and more important factor in the misuse of guns. But then, that is a factor is a later age group and has a huge vested, well funded lobbying group involved. Many adults still do not realize the video game business is way bigger than Hollywood.
Bingo….. And there is no more common sense or sense. Not at least in politics, government, the media, academia, etc. Lt. Col. Grossman’s book “On Killing” goes into detail how video games are similar to the training modern armies give their soldiers to help them overcome the inhibition to kill an enemy. A very good read.
JAMA or NEJM or Lancet + Behavioral Research = Garbage.
Prestigious journals in the medical world that seemingly can’t separate wheat from chaff.
Exactly. There was a time when scientific journals could be counted on to have the highest possible standards. Submitting an article to a first-rank journal guaranteed that it was going to be vetted by people using the highest scientific standards. Those standards still exist by the way only they’re no longer used. If they were used crappy “research” like this would never be given the legitimacy of being published in a respected journal.
The “study” fails because of a pretty obvious methodological fault: if you cherry-pick your population, limiting it to only those kids who haven’t been exposed to guns or gun-safety training, you’ll get the results they report. What they don’t tell you—and what they don’t want you to know, of course—is that children who have a knowledge of guns and who have been given gun-safety training will not “pull the trigger on a REAL gun”.
Did I read that right? They used a real gun (modified, I suppose, to be nonfiring)?!
All I can say is, if my kids were in that study, no way they’d touch that gun.
Like Garrison says, your kids would have been removed from the study population to avoid that result.
This article is a pretty good example of us getting too far over our skis. Of course the study had limitations, they all do. And of course kids’ seeing how guns work in visual media is going to make them more likely to handle found guns (as the NRA program itself does). I’m pro-2A but if we lampoon ourselves like this we’ll marginalize ourselves.
All this study showed me was that we need to educate our kids about gun safety and pay attention to the safety practices of the families we let them visit. But then, we all already knew that, right?
So, what happens when you put these kids in a room with candles and a box of matches?
Do they look both ways before they cross a street, or do they just walk out into traffic?
Do they know how to swim, or do they often swim unsupervised and, possibly alone? Taught not to go near rushing water?
Do they know the difference between someone’s lost pet dog and a rabid coyote? Or unfriendly pit bull?
These are just a few things my kids learned, along with “Don’t touch ANY gun”. Until they were old enough to learn more. When my daughter started baby sitting, she had chose not to shoot guns, but she was agreeable to learn how to clear them. A little older, she learned to shoot, strip and clean guns.
Ladies and Gentlemen the walkers are here instead of feasting off the flesh of the living, the brain dead walkers (Liberetards) go from society to society with their “progressive” ideals and feel good to the ears legislation.
I grew up in a household with a shotgun in the corner of my parents room. No lock. None of my brothers or I touched it. It was Dad’s and he let us see it and handle it with him right there. By the time we were old enough to load it, we had gone out with Dad and had shot it. We were taught to respect guns and to know the difference between real ones and toy ones. Just a little bit of time spent with me and my brothers on teaching us about guns and safety was all that was necessary.