Harvard (!) Study Finds Inverse Relationship Between Rates of Private Gun Ownership and Rates of Crime

[KLB]

According to a study in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, which cites the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the United Nations International Study on Firearms Regulation, the more guns a nation has, the less criminal activity.
In other words, more firearms, less crime, concludes the virtually unpublicized research report by attorney Don B. Kates and Dr. Gary Mauser. But the key is firearms in the hands of private citizens.
“The study was overlooked when it first came out in 2007,” writes Michael Snyder, “but it was recently re-discovered and while the findings may not surprise some, the place where the study was undertaken is a bit surprising. The study came from the Harvard Journal of Law, that bastion of extreme, Ivy League liberalism. Titled Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?, the report “found some surprising things.”
The popular assertion that the United States has the industrialized world’s highest murder rate, says the Harvard study, is a throwback to the Cold War when Russian murder rates were nearly four times higher than American rates. In a strategic disinformation campaign, the U.S. was painted worldwide as a gunslinging nightmare of street violence – far worse than what was going on in Russia. The line was repeated so many times that many believed it to be true. Now, many still do.

Read more at http://www.beliefnet.com/news/articles/ ... RlzVEbM.99

http://www.beliefnet.com/news/articles/ ... -link.aspx

[RoyGBiv]

It should be illegal to post an article on the internet without a publication date!
I seem to recall this story coming out some time ago.

ETA. https://dailycaller.com/2015/10/12/reme ... ess-crime/

[BCGlocker]

It should be illegal to post an article on the internet without a publication date!
I seem to recall this story coming out some time ago.

ETA. https://dailycaller.com/2015/10/12/reme ... ess-crime/

I agree with you. I search long and hard for a publishing date and only saw 2007 in the article. The data is still valid but a date would be very helpful.

[The Annoyed Man]

I have no problem with the article itself, but I wish they provided a direct link to the Harvard study itself. The problem is, I like to use social media to distribute information like this, and the naysayers will point to the fact that the article makes “claims” about the data without providing a link TO that data. Without that link, it’s easy for gun grabbers on Twitter to dispute the results, accusing belief.net of twisting the data to their own meaning. They are hardly a disinterested observer.

[flechero]

I have no problem with the article itself, but I wish they provided a direct link to the Harvard study itself. The problem is, I like to use social media to distribute information like this, and the naysayers will point to the fact that the article makes “claims” about the data without providing a link TO that data. Without that link, it’s easy for gun grabbers on Twitter to dispute the results, accusing belief.net of twisting the data to their own meaning. They are hardly a disinterested observer.

They don't even take the word of Harvard as left enough to be "credible" in their eyes?

[OneGun]

Here is a link to the PDF of the original study published at Harvard:

https://americangunfacts.com/pdf/Vol30_ ... online.pdf

[The Annoyed Man]

Here is a link to the PDF of the original study published at Harvard:

https://americangunfacts.com/pdf/Vol30_ ... online.pdf

Thank you! I appreciate that.

[RoyGBiv]

Here is a link to the PDF of the original study published at Harvard:

https://americangunfacts.com/pdf/Vol30_ ... online.pdf

Thanks!

[Paladin]

Good stuff!

Plato and Aristotle showed over 2,000 years ago that controlling ownership of personal arms only benefits oligarchs and tyrants:
The founders didn't conjure up the right to bear arms out of thin air.

whoever controlled the arms would control the government

[equin]

Wow. Very interesting thread with some informative, helpful links.

[oljames3]

According to a study in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, which cites the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the United Nations International Study on Firearms Regulation, the more guns a nation has, the less criminal activity.
In other words, more firearms, less crime, concludes the virtually unpublicized research report by attorney Don B. Kates and Dr. Gary Mauser. But the key is firearms in the hands of private citizens.
“The study was overlooked when it first came out in 2007,” writes Michael Snyder, “but it was recently re-discovered and while the findings may not surprise some, the place where the study was undertaken is a bit surprising. The study came from the Harvard Journal of Law, that bastion of extreme, Ivy League liberalism. Titled Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?, the report “found some surprising things.”
The popular assertion that the United States has the industrialized world’s highest murder rate, says the Harvard study, is a throwback to the Cold War when Russian murder rates were nearly four times higher than American rates. In a strategic disinformation campaign, the U.S. was painted worldwide as a gunslinging nightmare of street violence – far worse than what was going on in Russia. The line was repeated so many times that many believed it to be true. Now, many still do.

Read more at http://www.beliefnet.com/news/articles/ ... RlzVEbM.99

http://www.beliefnet.com/news/articles/ ... -link.aspx

So Harvard has corroborated that John Lott was right all along?!?

[KLB]

So Harvard has corroborated that John Lott was right all along?!?

Exactly. I meant to note that in my original post but forgot.

[WildRose]

So Harvard has corroborated that John Lott was right all along?!?

Exactly. I meant to note that in my original post but forgot.

Notice how this suddenly swept through every national newscast in the country and absorbed all of the conversational oxygen for a week.

Crickets.

[MaduroBU]

This isn't new. The Kellerman study, the source of the notorious "a gun in the home is 20x more likely to kill someone in the home than an intruder" claim, also found that a rifle or shotgun in the home reduced the risk of murder for the occupants (while finding that a handgun raised it). The big issue with that study was its use of Cleveland, Memphis, and Seattle without any effort to determine if the findings between the three sites were in any way similar. Since Seattle had a murder rate that sat around 15-20% of the other two cities in the study, that subgroup analysis probably would've shown that living in Cleveland or Memphis was far more dangerous than any factor related to firearm use. However, that would've been insufficient granularity.

Look up the book Don't Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner City America. David Kennedy, the architect of Operation Ceasefire in Boston, wrote it. Gun violence in America is a problem endemic to extremely small, hyperviolent communities that are a major factor in holding down poor black people in inner city America. The vast majority of the people who live in these neighborhoods are there because they cannot afford to get out and live in fear of these violent gang members. Focusing upon that tiny group stops gun crime. Focusing upon weapons, which the medical establishment has done in the service of its own bias for 30 years, does nothing to stop violence.

[WildRose]

This isn't new. The Kellerman study, the source of the notorious "a gun in the home is 20x more likely to kill someone in the home than an intruder" claim, also found that a rifle or shotgun in the home reduced the risk of murder for the occupants (while finding that a handgun raised it). The big issue with that study was its use of Cleveland, Memphis, and Seattle without any effort to determine if the findings between the three sites were in any way similar. Since Seattle had a murder rate that sat around 15-20% of the other two cities in the study, that subgroup analysis probably would've shown that living in Cleveland or Memphis was far more dangerous than any factor related to firearm use. However, that would've been insufficient granularity.

Look up the book Don't Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner City America. David Kennedy, the architect of Operation Ceasefire in Boston, wrote it. Gun violence in America is a problem endemic to extremely small, hyperviolent communities that are a major factor in holding down poor black people in inner city America. The vast majority of the people who live in these neighborhoods are there because they cannot afford to get out and live in fear of these violent gang members. Focusing upon that tiny group stops gun crime. Focusing upon weapons, which the medical establishment has done in the service of its own bias for 30 years, does nothing to stop violence.

Kellerman like the rest who tout the study ignored the qualification of "legally possessed in the home".

They also conveniently leave out how much more likely you are to be the victim of a crime involving guns if you or someone else in the home is currently or has recently been involved in crime.

Almost 90% of murders in this country are directly related to gang activity and illicit drugs. None of the above facts will ever get more than passing play in the major media in this country and for a very good reason, they don't actually want to have the public informed, just controlled.