The report is in Guns Cause Death

[philip964]

http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/ab ... 013.301409" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Anyone have the errors in this report?

[puma guy]

http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/ab ... 013.301409

Anyone have the errors in this report?

I'll bet states with higher automobile ownership have more car wrecks. I'm in agreement with Mark Twain regarding statistics.

[sjfcontrol]

Although we could not determine causation, we found that states with higher rates of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides.

Makes sense, the higher the death rate, the higher the percentage of people that want to have firearms to protect themselves. (i.e., which is the cause and which is the effect?)

[DocV]

The abstract makes no mention of how the authors define the term "gun ownership". Further, inferring causality is risky. My interpretation of the abstract raises the question of whether or not the authors got their conclusion backwards. That is, the "robust correlation" might supported the conclusion of increased firearm homicide rates is a significant predictor of gun ownership. That is, every 0.9% increase in the firearm homicide rate causes a 1 percent increase in gun ownership.

[WildBill]

The abstract makes no mention of how the authors define the term "gun ownership". Further, inferring causality is risky. My interpretation of the abstract raises the question of whether or not the authors got their conclusion backwards. That is, the "robust correlation" might supported the conclusion of increased firearm homicide rates is a significant predictor of gun ownership. That is, every 0.9% increase in the firearm homicide rate causes a 1 percent increase in gun ownership.

The term "robust correlation" should be mathematically supported by a high confidence in statistical probability, not by the opinion of the author.

By definition, the abstract does not contain or explain all of the observations and data.
I am not willing to spend my hard earned money to join this organization so I can pay to download the full paper.

[WildBill]

Although we could not determine causation, we found that states with higher rates of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides.

Makes sense, the higher the death rate, the higher the percentage of people that want to have firearms to protect themselves. (i.e., which is the cause and which is the effect?)

Not all homicides are bad, either.

"Homicide" simply means "one person killing another", and many may have been perfectly legitimate self-defense cases - it does NOT mean "murder" as most people would automatically assume. However, antis love to twist things around with the clever use of language, and the use of the word "homicide" should be an alert to look for bias (along the same lines as "common sense gun laws", "high-capacity clips", "assault weapons", etc.

Very good point AndyC.

[The Annoyed Man]

Although we could not determine causation, we found that states with higher rates of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides.

Makes sense, the higher the death rate, the higher the percentage of people that want to have firearms to protect themselves. (i.e., which is the cause and which is the effect?)

Not all homicides are bad, either.

As in....."he needed killin'!"

[tbrown]

Not all homicides are bad, either.

As in....."he needed killin'!"

Consider two scenarios.
1. A college student is raped, beaten, and hospitalized for weeks.
2. A serial rapist is shot and killed, preventing their next rape.

If forced to choose between only those two outcomes, the anti gun lobby would pick the first every time. On the other hand, most people I know would prefer the second. I suspect the majority of Texans, with the exception of the legislature, would also prefer the second, even if that's only because they see it as the lesser of two evils.

[mr surveyor]

Not all homicides are bad, either.

As in....."he needed killin'!"

Consider two scenarios.
1. A college student is raped, beaten, and hospitalized for weeks.
2. A serial rapist is shot and killed, preventing their next rape.

If forced to choose between only those two outcomes, the anti gun lobby would pick the first every time. On the other hand, most people I know would prefer the second. I suspect the majority of Texans, with the exception of the legislature, would also prefer the second, even if that's only because they see it as the lesser of two evils.

"lesser of two evils"?

What is evil about flushing the gene pool?

[baldeagle]

Although we could not determine causation, we found that states with higher rates of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides.

Makes sense, the higher the death rate, the higher the percentage of people that want to have firearms to protect themselves. (i.e., which is the cause and which is the effect?)

Do you see what they did there? Higher RATES of gun ownership lead to more RAW numbers of deaths. That's comparing apples to oranges and saying aha! A typical tactic of the left. Did they lead to higher RATES of deaths? Probably not, or they would have said so - gleefully.

[SecurityGeek]

I'm ripping off Dan Veganza here, but as he so correctly points out, the average temperature of the earth has been rising as the number of pirates sailing the oceans of the world has declined, therefore it is logical to assume that global warming is caused by the elimination of high seas piracy.

Here's a chart proving my point (paste link in your browser):
http://www.venganza.org/images/spreadword/pchart1.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Correlation and causality are different concepts, often mistakenly used. A person determined to arrive at a pre-chosen conclusion can usually find "data" to get him there.