Anti-gun activists are getting so desperate that they are relying on incorrect methodology to spread their own gun control agenda in their battle against the firearm industry. Put simply: junk science will always be junk science. Regardless of whether the ‘scientist’ believes it or not.
Recently, The New York Times posted an article asserting that it is 2.7 times more likely that a homicide will occur in your home if you have a firearm. That claim comes from the 1993 Arthur Kellermann study, “Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home,” a study that is overflowing with falsehoods and biases. Kellerman’s study is bad enough that it’s been debunked before.
Biased Research Leads to Biased Findings
There are numerous falsehoods made by Kellermann to unpack here. So, let’s start at the top.
First, in the 1993 referenced study, Kellermann et al. break rule number one when creating an ethical scientific study: engaging in selection bias. The ‘controlled’ population in this study came from a cherry-picked population of reported burglaries in a single county, thus creating a biased population and variables.
Kellermann’s team also used data where the guns were brought to the victim’s home and not owned by the victim. It seems that Kellermann et al. already had their ‘conclusion’ settled before the “study” even began.
Further, Kellermann et al. don’t seem to know the difference between the general population and the population the study selected to fit its needs. As noted by Dr. Pat Baranello in a letter to the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Kellermann et al.’s findings do not represent the actions of responsible people.
Of course, a cherry-picked population encompassed by individuals with criminal records, aggressive behaviors, and homicidal tendencies are going to be more dangerous with a gun in hand than the average responsible, law-abiding gun owner. But in this false reality created by Kellermann et al., the two populations are one and the same.
Expanding on the biased-selected population by Kellermann et al. comes the question of whether this population is conclusive of the general population of gun owners in America. Many gun owners will deny owning a firearm. As noted in a law review article, many gun owners are hesitant to reveal that they own and possess a firearm. In cases where guns were not found by the investigative body, there is a chance that the family of the deceased could have entered the crime scene and searched for a firearm on their own. Therefore, the assertion that it is 2.7 times more likely to have a fatality in the house if you have a gun is based on the “truthfulness of the interviewees.”
These significant problems further the question even more as to whether Kellermann et al.’s biased chosen population is in any way representative of the general gun owning population at all. If Kellermann wasn’t so hypocritical, he would prefer that his own wife have a “.38 special in her hand” in case of an attack against her life so she could resist the attacker.
Kellermann’s Fraudulent Representation
Unsurprisingly, this isn’t the first time Kellermann has tried to use his own biases against firearms to assert a fraudulent “scientific” claim. In an article written in The New England Journal of Medicine, Kellermann and his coauthor mis-cited a book written by James Wright, Peter Rossi, and Kathleen Daly, Under the Gun.
Kellermann and his coauthor tried to assert that, “restricting access to handguns could substantially reduce our annual rate of homicide.” However, in their book, the original authors did exactly the opposite. With reference to that particular notion, as a Forbes article notes while debunking Kellermann’s multiple false claims, the authors actually said, “There is no persuasive evidence that supports that view.”
In another push of his own biased “science,” Kellermann again tried to assert a claim in the New England Journal of Medicine in which he said, “limiting access to firearms could prevent many suicides.” The referenced study actually concludes that individuals who are suicidal and do not have access to a firearm will still find another way to commit suicide.
Kellerman’s bogus 1993 study that asserted it’s 2.7 times more likely to have a fatality in the house if you have a gun has long been a point of ridicule, but that hasn’t stopped the lie from being repeated. The erroneous gun ownership study was one factor that led to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) being barred from advocating for widespread gun control.
Utilizing taxpayer dollars to advocate for gun control is abhorrent and illegal due to the 1996 Dickey Amendment. Unfortunately, the clearly one-sided research with pre-determined conclusions is still being misused today, including, unsurprisingly, by The New York Times.
Responsible Gun Ownership
Safe and secure firearm storage in the home is a pillar effort of the firearm industry under the Real Solutions. Safer Communities. initiative. One of the programs, Project ChildSafe, partners with local law enforcement agencies in every state and five U.S. territories to distribute free firearm safety kits, including a gun cable locking device, no questions asked, to anyone who requests one. The effort is meant to keep firearms in the home away from children and those who shouldn’t have access or perhaps are going through mental health difficulties.
To date, the firearm industry has distributed more than 40 million of these free firearm safety kits, and when coupled with the gun locks that are included by manufacturers with every firearm sold at retail, the total rises to more than 100 million free gun locks.
These firearm safety initiatives led by the firearm industry have had a real positive impact. Since data was first recorded in 1903, unintentional firearm deaths and accidents have trended down and recently hit the lowest levels on record.
Since the flawed 1993 Kellermann study that was included by The New York Times to make a false claim, things have changed. There have now been 47 months in a row of one million or more firearm purchases at retail, according to NSSF FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)-adjusted data. What’s more, the number of first-time gun owners has skyrocketed in recent years, including more than 8 million first-time gun buyers between 2020-2021.
With many still skeptical and refusing to tell random survey phone callers whether they own a gun in the household, the 2.7 figure used by The New York Times becomes even more laughable.
One thing remains abundantly clear — instead of concentrating on real solutions, the media continues to perpetuate anti-gun propaganda that supports their gun control agenda.
Salam Fatohi is the Director of Research for the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
I think the most important thing for communities to do today is form a Home Guard Self Defense group to protect themselves and their neighbors. Given the corruption of Federal Law Enforcement in particular where they exceed the bounds of issued warrants against Law Abiding Citizens and FFL dealers it is important to have people willing to confront them when they are exceeding their constitutional authority. They break the law with impunity and innocent people need to be protected from this USA version of the Gestapo and their Leftist enforcers like Antifa and BLM. The country western song about not trying that stuff in a small town is highly appropriate and I live in one that does just that by standing together with local law enforcement who respects the constitution. It works believe me.
is Waco a “small town”?…
“is Waco a “small town”?…”
In Texas, it is.
“That claim comes from the 1993 Arthur Kellermann study, “Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home,”
Arthur Kellerman produced a lot of false and biased and bogus stuff for the anti-gun industry either directly of by use of his stuff in other studies. He was their darling for a long time, a staunch anti-gun god among anti-gun and gun control people and one of the most used and cited researchers for anti-gun and gun control groups. Then one day he started coming out and debunking his own stuff and saying it was biased and the anti-gun idiots went crazy about it, after all everything they had been claiming was basically, in some way or another, based on his biased and now self-debunked (and debunked by others), but were still trying to bring him back into the ‘fold’ until one day he outright publicly admitted this > “If you’ve got to resist, your chances of being hurt are less the more lethal your weapon. If that were my wife, would I want her to have a .38 Special in her hand? Yeah.”
The anti-gun went nuts trying to scrub that from the internet, and mostly succeeded but it still exists in a few places and for some places they could not remove it from they managed to get the ‘work’ edited to remove or change it. They eventually got to him though, but you don’t see them using his stuff much any more or using him but will still sometimes reference one of his debunked studies.
“Research” statistics do not change minds, but merely confirm “beliefs”. Thus, math and logic also cannot actually be transformative.
No matter the massive evidence that DGUs vastly outnumber the death counts (individual and collective) from other cause, the useful idiots of gun control concern themselves primarily (exclusively) with “normal” people suddenly possessed with the intent to kill everyone in sight, people who frequent places such as schools, malls, retail stores (places where the anti-gun privileged congregate) fear not the actual criminals (“good people” don’t congregate in crime-ridden locations), but you, the legal gun owner.
Yes, the useful idiots truly believe that everyone else has a duty to die without defense, so that the useful idiots can justify their beliefs, and stoke their self-absorption.
The New York Times and the rest of the media complex in this country are nothing less than the most pervasive, most efficient propaganda machine the world has ever known. They are a malign force.
The modern media exists not to inform us but to control us by controlling what we know and therefore, how we think and how we vote.
“The modern media exists not to inform us but to control us by controlling what we know and therefore, how we think and how we vote.”
As has been the case for all time. Actual/true objectivity in “news” reporting was/is a fantasy; all “news” has an agenda, even the recorded history of whatever matter.
Nothing about “news” (media at large) is purely objective but, https://ground.news/about seems to be an attempt to gauge the bias of “news” reporting.
this is just preaching to the (anti-gun) crowd…nobody else is buying it as soaring gun sales tend to prove….
“this is just preaching to the (anti-gun) crowd…nobody else is buying it as soaring gun sales tend to prove….”
Just as “soaring gun sales” preaches to the other crowd. If soaring gun sales are not accompanied by an almost one-for-one matching increase of new gun owners, then, “nobody else is buying it” is perhaps undue optimism.
it’s just pushing a false narrative…most people feel safer with a gun around…if they didn’t they would get rid of it…(Hunter’s girlfriend?)…or never buy one in the first place…obviously…based on the sales figures…many opt for the former rather than the latter…it will always remain a personal choice and not the business of others
RE: “These firearm safety initiatives led by the firearm industry have had a real positive impact. Since data was first recorded in 1903, unintentional firearm deaths and accidents have trended down and recently hit the lowest levels on record.”
And after I posted how to make a safety plug from a tire valve stem for many striker fired firearms without a manual safety and noted a commerical version was available I was berated by oldshtgeoff who was too stupid to do some research before jumping into an abyss.
My crime in the mind of a pervert was providing information he could never, ever provide so he assumed my advice was a joke and his berating was going to, “get me.” It was a colossal demonstration of just how Gun ignorant oldshtgeoff is. It was a pathetic attempt to berate me and a product that has been around for years and is without question a million dollar idea.
So here it is again…A trigger plug can be made from the bulbous portion of a tire valve stem along with a bench grinder. To shape use a bolt to hold the portion otherwise you may shorten some fingers. Or buy one….
https://ndzperformance.com/saf-t-blok-glock-trigger-saftey-block-rh-post-98-saft-70121/
Langdon Tactical makes a device for safely holstering a Glock.
The Striker Control Device (SCD) is a cover plate for your Glock pistol that blocks the rearward motion of the striker when thumb pressure is applied to the back of the slide – similar to a hammer on a DA/SA hammer fired pistol.
Debbie, you’re no better than Geoff for keeping this spat going. One of you two should step up and be the bigger person. Just drop it.
The Saf-T-Blok is unsafe for a concealed carrier.
It’s a small rubber plug that fits in the trigger guard behind the trigger.
Since you use the front (face) of the trigger to shoot, this means you’ll have to remember to make two distinct motions as you draw your “blocked” weapon — index finger pushes the block out of the trigger guard behind the trigger, then index finger is moved to the front of the trigger, re-inserted into trigger guard to engage trigger and fire the weapon.
A 1911-style sweep-off manual safety actuated by the right thumb would be much quicker and better.
actually you use your “stink finger” to push the block out…and I find this works just fine…as an aside: I use a bit of electrical tape to attach the bloc to the trigger guard of the gun…this saves having to search the ground for it
Good to hear from an owner with experience. Do you feel that the bloc is necessary to ensure a “safe” weapon? Do you keep it on your carry gun?
Putting anything foreign into the trigger guard on a defensive firearm, just rings an alarm bell in my head.
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dude…Keep it in mind you replied to me.
Since you changed the subject to inject your scd you may want to bend over and keep your mouth shut should oldshtgeoff come along without any clue about a scd and posts trash to make a monkey out of you. If and when that happens then you can follow your own advice and leave a slanderous lowlife pos to party on. By his own words I know and you don’t know what oldshtgeoff is about. And because of that your head resides on your big behind.
I didn’t change the subject. You were talking about that trigger plug. I mentioned a different product that offers piece of mind while holstering a Glock. If you think people are interested in that trigger plug, then why wouldn’t they be interested in another product? As far as Geoff goes, I don’t care if people disagree with me. I’ve disagreed with every regular commenter on here at one time or another. I didn’t even give an opinion on that product. I was throwing it out there because someone (including you) might be interested in it.
She has to much testosterone Dude, she cant help herself.
For the love of God. You are so so but hurt you just can’t get past somebody disagreeing with you. This is a small website and most people here are probably in their 50’s. Please stop. You are ruining it.
The Best Second Amendment News You’re Going to Hear All Week.
Teens Face Multiple Felonies for BB Gun.
There have been many studies done and below is one that had zero to do with the Ketterman study. In fact the below study had EIGHT authors, some of whom were doctors of medicine. In the study they ALSO found it THREE more times likely that a homicide would occur in the home if there was a gun present proving you are less safe with a gun is NOT in the home.
I might also say that the “proof is in the pudding” and a ALL other nations with tough gun control and even those that ban pistols have way less husbands killing their wives and children proving that your chances of being killed in a break in are far, far, less than your chances of being killed by someone you know with a handgun that is in the home. No other industrialized nation slaughters 44,000 people every year from gun violence, and most of those 44,000 killed were killed by someone in the home.
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M21-3762
Correction. You are less safe when a gun is in the home not more safe.
Only when your a criminal.
Or a depressed liberal abusing xanax.
remember that “less safe” angle when someone comes crashing through the door…something that happens all too often these days…..
Yep.
Another thing – antigun kooks always specify “industrialized countries”. Interpersonal violence correlates to latitude. Mexico has gun laws that make Norway look anarchic – yet they kill each other like chickens…
How can you tell dacian is lying? It’s Saturday.
Ends in a …..day
@dacian
“There have been many studies done and below is one that had zero to do with the Ketterman study. In fact the below study had EIGHT authors, some of whom were doctors of medicine. In the study they ALSO found it THREE more times likely that a homicide would occur in the home if there was a gun present proving you are less safe with a gun is NOT in the home.”
100% False. Its false because they used the same biased methodology Ketterman used.
“In the study they ALSO found it THREE more times likely that a homicide would occur in the home if there was a gun present”
Its obvious that you have no idea what “THREE more times likely” means in this context.
But first, a small point, this term “homicide” you throw around. First, its a general term for a broad category that contains ‘Justified Homicide’ and ‘Murder’ and some other types. According to the FBI, more than 50% of ‘homicides’ are ordinary law abiding citizens using valid legal DGU for self/family/others/home defense or in other words ‘justified homicide’ and not murder or another . The remained according to the FBI are police shootings (justified or not) and criminals (murder) and other classes of ‘homicide’ by criminals.
But this study you bring up is done in one state, in California, 2004 to 2016, so your claim of “44,000 people every year from gun violence” is out of context with this but i”l include it anyway in the below… (oh, to note; your study has been debunked as junk science already by Rand, and the reason is mentioned below) – anyway try to keep up because for sake of brevity (because you are not worth the time for a full in-depth thing here) I’m going to hit high points and just say them.
So yeah, a criminal tries to harm one outside or in their home its a pretty good idea for a victim to defend and if the bad guy gets shot in the home that’s a ‘homicide’ called a ‘justified homicide’. Now why do I bring this up? Because, this point among others so wrong in this study you want to throw out, like Ketterman did in his bias methodology, your study also does not go to any great pains to differentiate various things and you calling it all ‘homicide’ to imply murder and that lack of differentiation biases the Kellerman methodology used which was intended to bias and that’s the reason Kellerman used that methodology. In other words its another example of junk science.
Anyway, more than 1.7 million times annually law abiding citizens use their firearms for valid legal defense, and ~130,000,000 law abiding gun owners have guns in their homes… and this leads me to this “THREE more times likely” thing. But I know you are pretty dumb so I will dumb it down for you. So lets go back to you ‘44,000’ and you implying murder and don’t know the differences in ‘homicides’… what “THREE more times likely” means in this context is that, ~175,000 people would have been victims in a gun related homicide in a home annually. I know this is all confusing to you … so I will ask you one simple question and that is … where are these ~175,000 people that you are basically claiming are victims in a gun related homicide in a home annually?
and yes dacian…even with your …
“Correction. You are less safe when a gun is in the home not more safe.”
…your study is still junk science and false, and your statements are still false. Not only that bias in your study, but it was a commissioned by an anti-gun group and used the same pre-conceived conclusion method Kellerman used to get paid.
to clarify in case it wasn’t clear. for this…”and if the bad guy gets shot in the home that’s a ‘homicide’ called a ‘justified homicide’.”
meaning shot by the victim of the criminal, a valid legal home defense scenario.
Oh yeah, in your study… the part where they slipped in ‘homicides’ that had not at all to do with guns by implying in the wording structure and sentence arrangement – that also happened. Then its blatant use of ‘suicides’ they used to skew their numbers by weighing it as a elevated risk if a gun is in the home and that’s already been shown to be false and has been debunked (suicides do not happen because a method is available – but in their study they assume the suicide happened only because they could get a gun and that is 100% false).
To Booger Brain
quote———–Its obvious that you have no idea what “THREE more times likely” means in this context.——–quote
Why you big blowhard you have no idea how the study I referred to was conducted as 8 different men conducted and contributed to the study. As usual you use wild speculation mixed with a large dose of your constant rectum gas.
And the proof is in the pudding. European and Asian gun control have reduced husbands killing wives and children to way below the slaughter of 44,000 people killed in the U.S. and most of those killings are women killed by their husbands.
Now Booger Brain try and lie your way out of this one.
@dacian
“Why you big blowhard you have no idea how the study I referred to was conducted as 8 different men conducted and contributed to the study. As usual you use wild speculation mixed with a large dose of your constant rectum gas.”
Oh yes, I know how the study was done and so did the independent researchers that debunked it.
Its simple math you moron. If you could do simple math you would find out for your self.
It doesn’t matter how many “men” did your biased study, the fact remains they lied.
Yes, Its obvious that you have no idea what “THREE more times likely” means in this context.
44,000? Again you lie. Most of those are suicides and not murder victims as you try to claim.
dacian. If you have to lie you have no point to make.
@dacian
I asked you a question, one you did not answer instead choosing to go on to obfuscation and lies.
so ill ask you another one to make it even more simple to point out the glaring falsehood in your comments and your study, its simple math….ok, the question is…. of your 44,000 homicides annually how likely would it have been in 2021 and 2022 for some of those victims in defunded police departments areas not to have been homicide victims?
Mathematical law – predicting individual fate using population-based statistics only works when investigating stochastic phenomena.
Gun safety is not a matter mainly controlled by luck. The methodology of these “studies” makes them mathematically invalid from the git.
Since most drug dealers carry weapons I guess that makes gun owners more likely to be drug dealers.
Well, my life doesn’t revolve around The New York Times.
actually that’s true for most of us…the NYT tends to live in a bubble…they have little knowledge of the world outside the five boros….
More likely to be killed by someone who knows you. Actually proves out. A majority of murder victims are killed by someone they know. Most murders result from money issues or romantic issues. You crossed some drug dealer by selling crack on his corner. You tried to pick up some thugs girl without paying him. Some young lady thinks she can change the chump who beat her ass for not getting him his beer. Tyrone and Hakeem got lit up on PCP and went nuts. Billy Bob and Jimmy Don got mad because their sister in law turned in their meth lab. Fred found out his cousin has been fooling around with his wife.
You get the picture. Guess what. You don’t need a gun to kill someone. Humans have been creative in finding ways of killing each other since, depending on your beliefs, Cain Brained Able with a rock, or we swung down out of the trees and Ugg thumped Groo with a branch.
As for the gun control crap, all that does is make life a little safer/easier for the criminals or government thugs to control or kill you. Being disarmed has never, nor ever will make you any safer. Being armed and capable of stopping an attempt to harm you and yours actually does make the law abiding citizen safer.
Well, well… Look what we FOUND HERE! (or for an alternate title …Kamala lying and being a hypocrite again… the hypocrite part it towards the end)
This is wild.. All Inmates Released, All Cases Being Dismissed – Sheriff’s Father Pretends To Be A Judge.
NYTimes Lies??? NO couldn’t be. Go try find a significant story that was NOT prog lies.
….UFO’s?…
Look a distraction……any time UFO’s hit the news I have found it is time to look for the scandal/pending war they don’t want anyone noticing.
@frank speak
“it’s just pushing a false narrative…”
Agree. The false narrative is the idea that increasing gun sales is de facto “proof” that gun control is losing ground with the public. The same people, buying more guns, isn’t the same as more people buying guns. Gun control is not losing credibility among the populace; court decisions upholding 2A are not equivalent to popular support for eliminating gun control.
“The same people” may not be accurate at all. I haven’t bought a gun in years and in fact have gifted a number of the guns I did own. I know a lot of first time gun buyers around me.
“I know a lot of first time gun buyers around me.”
The point I am not quite successfully making is that rising gun sales do not equate to growing anti-gun control gains, nor indicate that gun control addicts are losing political/popular ground.
Without thoughtful parsing of what growing sales of firearms means, it is just gibberish to claim success/failure of gun control. The new sales could be mostly anti-gunners buying firearms to temporarily protect themselves from POTG; and after vanquishing gun owners, those buyers will rush to turn in their guns. As always, any claim grounded in sales numbers requires legitimate context; which we don’t reliably have.
Related note: all gun control is simple legislation; legislation that can be enacted and also repealed. Pro-gun gains are always one vote away from losing, regardless of how many firearms are in the hands of the population.