Busting Drudge’s hump, and some dumb gun articles.
Not that it means anything, but Drudge has a headline right now that annoys me so bad, maybe because it’s not true:
In case you can’t see the image, the headline is: “BLOODBATH: 5 Killed in Iowa City Shooting…” and it links to this article, which says:
Police arrived at the scene and found the house unlocked. They entered the home, fearing for the family’s safety, and found the bodies of Sheryl Sueppel and her four children. Sueppel’s husband, Steven Sueppel, wasn’t there and the family’s tan Toyota Sienna minivan was missing. Police haven’t confirmed the cause of death, but did say that the incident was not a shooting.
And it doesn’t say anything whatsoever about the scene that’d make you think it was a “bloodbath”.
I’m just sayin’.
Drudge has several million visitors a day, I understand. I wonder how many of them will see that headline, say to themselves, yep, guns ‘r’ bad, and not bother clicking on the link like I did.
Speaking of guns, I saw this at HuffPo today, which links to this, which says:
Legislatures have misguidedly enacted a radical deregulation of gun use in the community. Thirty-five states issue a concealed-weapon permit to anyone who requests one and can legally own guns; two states have dispensed with permits altogether. Since 2005, a total of 14 states have adopted statutes that expand the range of places where people may use guns against others, eliminate any duty to retreat if possible before shooting, and grant shooters immunity from prosecution, sometimes even for injuries to bystanders.
Such policies are founded on myths. One is that increasing gun ownership decreases crime rates — a position that has been discredited. Gun ownership and gun violence rise and fall together. Another myth is that defensive gun use is very common. The most widely quoted estimate, 2.5 million occurrences a year, is too high by a factor of 10.
Policies limiting gun ownership and use have positive effects, whether those limits affect high-risk guns such as assault weapons or Saturday night specials, high-risk persons such as those who have been convicted of violent misdemeanors, or high-risk venues such as gun shows. New York and Chicago, which have long restricted handgun ownership and use, had fewer homicides in 2007 than at any other time since the early 1960s. Conversely, policies that encourage the use of guns have been ineffective in deterring violence. Permissive policies regarding carrying guns have not reduced crime rates, and permissive states generally have higher rates of gun-related deaths than others do.
Mmmkay. So the cops are making this shit up?
Anyone want to clue me in? That quote is from the New England Journal of Medicine and it cites its data. I’m too lazy/busy to do the necessary research but am I right in assuming they’re full of bullcorn?
Both of those two articles make a big deal out of the higher suicide rates among gun owners. You know what? Tough shit.
If people want to kill themselves, that’s their business and it’s got nothing to do with whether or not it’s correct or useful for me to keep my guns loaded and ready to fire. The HuffPo guy goes on about how the NRA itself says, “ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.”
I don’t give a fuck what the NRA says, I’m not keeping my guns unloaded in my house. Why would I do that? They’d be worthless to me unless the clip was right there with them, which totally defeats the whole purpose of keeping it unloaded in the first place. It makes no sense!
These kind of writers always seem to assume that every single house in America contains children. Mine doesn’t so there’s no reason in heaven or hell for me not to keep handguns stashed all over the place, loaded and ready for action. I do have a couple of trigger locks but one is a combo lock that I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to work in the dark while fearing for my life, and the other takes a freakin’ tiny key. Yeah. That’s just what I want to have to find and insert in a tiny hole while in the midst of any situation that I’ve determined requires the gun.
The HuffPo guy, italics his:
More disturbingly, [the Supreme Court justices] seemed to suggest that keeping firearms loaded and unsecured in the home was the most prudent storage practice.
Jesus. Honestly, just JESUS. Yes pal, sometimes that is the most prudent practice. It is the prudent practice all the time for me and there’s nothing “disturbing” about it. Grow up.
A few points:
1. The NEJM article is very misleading in that it assumes that the only bad thing that can happen to human beings is death. Of course, there will be higher gun-related deaths in states where guns are more readily available. What needs to be considered is the effect on other crimes like assault, rape and armed robbery. The prevalence of these crimes in carry states is significantly lower than in states with more stringent gun control laws. So, the tradeoff is a slight increase in the chance that you will be shot, coupled with a dramatic reduction in the probability of being beaten, robbed or raped.
2. A lot of homicides are of no great concern to me, as they are one thug shooting another thug, usually over gangs or drugs. Maybe I am a callous soul, but I’m not bothered by this any more than a zebra is upset about one lion killing another lion. It’s one less predator to worry about.
3. A question that never seems to get asked: When are constitutional rights subject to cost-benefit analyses? The right to bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution; it’s not negotiable (except when justices are halfwits who can’t read - about half the time).
March 24th, 2008 at 2:24 pmESTDearRachel,
The NEJM article is a classic case of “how to lie with statistics.” By which I mean, selective fact picking and interpretation.
Here are some quotes that make me (shall we say) “doubt” the study’s honesty and/or accuracy:
1. “The disheartening 30% case fatality rate is 18 times that for injuries to motorcyclists.” That means less than 2% of people injured in motorcycle accidents are fatally injured - I wonder why so many states mandate helmets for such a trivial problem?
2. “Living in a home where there are guns increases the risk of homicide by 40 to 170% and the risk of suicide by 90 to 460%.” That means that if you live in a home with a gun you are certain to be murdered (170% being greater than 100%), but only after you commit suicide more than four times (460%).
3 “In 1976, Washington, D.C., took action … prohibited further registration of handguns, outlawed the carrying of concealed guns, and required that guns kept at home be unloaded and either disassembled or locked. These laws worked. ….Homicides rebounded in the late 1980s with the advent of “crack” cocaine, but today the District’s gun-suicide rate is lower than that of any state.” Classic cherry picking. Since the high number of gun homicides does not support their thesis, they simply pick something that does - gun suicides.
mike
March 24th, 2008 at 2:49 pmESTForget about facts and studies that prove the more guns in the hands of citizens, the lower the rate of certain types of crimes. Liberals can not be reasoned with and will twist anything to fit their emotions.
My home too is filled with hidden and loaded weapons, I’m never more than a step or two from one-big house too! With German Shepherds on the perimeter.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:52 pmESTThose last four paragraphs are pure gold. That’s why I read your blog.
You would probably feel safe in my house. No kiddies and a gun in every room.
Notice how they say that John Lott’s position (More Guns Less Crime) has been discredited, but they don’t cite a source or do any discrediting themselves.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:55 pmESTIt no longer says shooting in the headline. It does still say blood bath.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:06 pmESTThe NEJM contained the one word I knew would render it invalid.
Wintermute.
I think he was the one who popularized the “research = Google search” routine.
Or was that Bellesiles? I get my anti-gunners mixed up sometimes.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:06 pmESTPersonally, I keep my .45 loaded and safed in a secure undisclosed location at all times, where I can reach it in about two seconds from bed.
Whether my wife likes it or not.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:26 pmESTIn Drudge’s defense (something I am loathe to do, trust me)…the University of Iowa sent everyone an 8 a.m. wakeup call about an “active shooter” being at large in town, so the assumption has been all morning that Sueppel shot his family.
And the Press Citizen and other news outlets have been continuously updating their stories. So when Drudge wrote the headline, it is possible that we were all still assuming it was a shooting.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:28 pmESTFox News reports that initial police reports states
Seems like initial report of the deaths went out as a shooting report, thus Drudge headline, which needs to be updated.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,340920,00.html
March 24th, 2008 at 3:31 pmEST1. I love it when you mention that entry. I got the most hits ever when you posted it originally. And got a new friend. Awesome and thanks
2. Ah HuffPo. I’m sure they will all be the first in line hiding behind this gun-toting Conservative if and when they are threatened. Did you notice all the pro-gun comments though? I was shocked.
3. I have a 9 year old kid in my house. Therefore, I keep the guns locked up. Everyone needs to decide what is best in their home. I’ve also taken my son to the range and have been teaching him gun safety. Weighing in at less than 60 pounds, my revolver is still too much for him. He’s getting to be pretty good with a .22 though.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:42 pmESTDrudge outed Prince Harry in Afganistan. That was the last time I read or will read the Drudge Report.
As for firearms, I’d rather pay for a lawyer to defend me for violating a law than pay for a funeral for a family member.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:48 pmESTZackly!
March 24th, 2008 at 3:52 pmESTWhen seconds make the difference between life and death, the police are only minutes away.
Having been raised with guns and currently enjoying sound mind and body (read: no childhood accidents, who would have guessed?) I echo your puzzlement at the recent onslaught of anti-gun bullshit. I’ll never figure out why people are surprised I own/shoot guns, and how this as become “unusual” and (more often) “redneck.” I drive a BMW, spend my 8-5 up to the elbows in SQL, and cover my ‘extensive’ tattoos with a pants suit, so it really rankles me when the media tries to pigeonhole “gun owners.”
March 24th, 2008 at 3:56 pmESTLet’s see … a loaded gun(s) and children who are educated and informed about how to use them if needed (and not to touch them if not needed) or the chance of becoming victims of death at the hands of loser criminals. Hmmm…option one please.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:58 pmESTSo either:
A) It finally took however many years these gun-restriction policies have been in place to finally gain the desired impact of reducing crime.
Or
B) There’s no correlation between the policies and the crime rate.
I think I’ll go with B in this instance.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:56 pmESTNot original with me, I read it somewhere last week, but this pretty much sums it up:
March 24th, 2008 at 4:57 pmESTI carry a gun because a cop is too heavy.
Anecdotal evidence can be cherry-picked as well as misleading statistics (which, as Twain said, if you torture them enough they’ll tell you anything), so here are two I pick from last week:
California: call to 911 from a screaming woman, police are minutes away, phone call ends with sound of victim shot to death.
Fort Worth, TX: Armed intruder breaks into a home and a gun battle ensues. Intruder flees, perhaps with buckshot in hindquarters.
I choose the Texas solution.
The stats and the arguments are irrelevant.
The authoritarians wouldn’t accept the stats even if they supported gun ownership; e.g., showed how many crimes are prevented and how few accidents there are.
We have a right to keep and bear arms, codified by amendment two.
Period.
[I used boldface for emphasis.]
Besides, more folks are killed by cars in one day in this nation than are killed by firearms (in one year) owned by persons who got them legally.
In sum, it ain’t nobody’s bidness but the private citizen’s.
The same authoritarians who are against gun ownership are for aborting babies at 6 months—’cause it’s a woman’s right, they say, guaranteed by amendment one.
It makes a person wonder whose side they are on. For the woman (subject)/against the baby (object).
But when it comes to guns, all of a sudden they care about the gun owner killing himself?
Suuuuurrrre. [I dragged that out for emphasis.]
These huffers—and other like-minded skin bags—should be added to the list of persons who are going to get a sound and substantial nut flattening.
Though I believe ms. hufferton needs a punch in the mouth, too.
And w teh f is with that hair!?
She looks like the ass end of a peacock.
Those beady eyes.
That pouty little pie hole in the middle.
Feh!
March 24th, 2008 at 5:30 pmESTRachel,
First chance you get, take those trigger locks down to a local lake, tie a string to them, throw them in the lake and then cut the string. They are useless, in my humble opinion.
For those few occasions that you might need to “child proof” your guns, I highly recommend you get a small quick access gun safe. I would post a link but there are many different kinds and sizes to suit your situation.
I have a different style on every floor of the house. One is a wall safe, one is a table top for the night stand. They are all push button and can be opened in a couple of seconds. If the guns are not on my person, they are in a lock box. (like Al Gore’s)
Another reason to have one is if someone gets into your house when you are not there, he won’t have access to your guns to greet you when you return.
Just a thought.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:37 pmESTBerge
Every single day parents teach their children not to run into traffic, not to drink bleach, not to talk to strangers, not to stick their fingers in electrical outlets, not to swear…but somehow parents are unable or unwilling to teach their children about gun safety? Somehow my personal liberty and safety is imperiled because some idiot doesn’t want to teach his kid some simple rules?
And yes, the rules are very simple. So simple even a child can understand them:
If you see an item that looks like a gun, do not touch it, leave the room, tell an adult.
THAT’S IT.
Heck, they could even teach this in schools - if they weren’t so busy putting condoms on bananas in kindergarten.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:46 pmESTA few matters of gold:
And…
Also, John Lott points us to a great link (this one) that has many, many stories about defensive gun use. You can search by state and start going through them (damn, makes me proud to be a Texan). Any one of these stories is a reminder to me to get my .45 when I get my wallet before I walk out the house.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:04 pmESTMore reasons to stay away from California: when you buy a gun here (any gun), you also have to buy a trigger lock to go with it unless you can prove you have a gun safe. Also, there’s a limit on how often you can buy a gun (I think it’s one per month). I mean, what if I had kids and wanted to get them each a revolver for Christmas?
March 24th, 2008 at 6:19 pmESTWhen I saw that this morning, I emailed AND used the hot tips submission method to suggest that he change the headline.
Fox fudges it by saying that police did not state how the deed was done, but that “some media” reported that a gun was used.
Probably Drudge’s dumb-assed headline.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:31 pmESTRachel, how about two clues instead of one?
The Kates & Mauser study was released last year. They studied years worth of multinational data, trying to find a correlation between gun ownership and murder and suicide rates. To the annoyance of the pro- and anti- crowds, they found that guns are not a factor:
Put simply, people who want to kill either themselves or someone else will find a way, whether guns are around or not.
Fellow blogger Kevin over at Smallest Minority did a serious analysis of recent government data and found that the largest chunk of the gun violence in the USA dovetails with K&M’s conclusion. An awfully big piece of the shootings happen in poor urban areas, and a big part of those are committed By and Against people who already have criminal records.
Bottom line: HuffPo is full of bullcorn. The most violent places in the USA are the inner cities that have the most gun control.
Nobody can say what would happen if these areas didn’t have gun control. My guess is that shootings would skyrocket, at least for a while, but after that, who knows?
March 24th, 2008 at 6:31 pmESTThese kind of writers always seem to assume that every single house in America contains children. Mine doesn’t so there’s no reason in heaven or hell for me not to keep handguns stashed all over the place, loaded and ready for action.
My house has four kids, three under the age of twelve. We don’t use trigger locks — we use education. We show our kids our firearms, and let them hold them, ask questions, etc., when we buy them. After that point, we tell them they can see the guns any time they want, so long as they ask and have an adult help them. They also know that even touching a gun without mom or dad there to oversee things is the surest way to bring the Wrath Of G-d ™ down on their heads.
So far, we haven’t had any trouble. The kids have little curiousity about guns because we have removed the mystique. Maybe this wouldn’t work with everyone; then again, perhaps not everyone has kids as well disciplined as ours.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:19 pmESTOn Lexington Common a handfull of free men confronted a line of British regulars. An English officer stepped forward and ordered the rabble to disperse. Someone on the rebel side answered by pulling the trigger. A redcoat volley followed and drove the outnumbered Americans from the field. Word spread quickly. Thousands of ornery farmers, backwoodsmen with bad attitudes, and militant militia swarmed the field. The British were driven in a forced retreat back to Boston.
Liberty is not given; it is earned. A free man must stand always defiant in defense of his prerogatives. Lethal force stands as the final arbiter between liberty and tyranny. A disarmed populace cannot claim citizenship. They are mere pawns subject to the whim of government. Tyranny arises everywhere, everytime, in all situations where a populace does not remain defiant. Weapons supply the means. Government is put on notice. America sent King George a message without ambiguity. And it remains so to this day.
God Save the Republic!
March 24th, 2008 at 7:23 pmESTWhat’s the old saying?
March 24th, 2008 at 7:44 pmESTBetter to be judged by twelve than carried by six.
I’m always amazed that liberals will whine and moan one minute that the government is taking away our freedoms, then turn around and freely give away the one thing that would allow them to defend those freedoms.
Do you mind if I take a minute to do a personal fisking of the NEJM article?
(I’ll assume you don’t mind at all because we both know I’m awesome and allowing me to fisk this article will exponentially increase the awesomeness of both myself and your blog. What? No, I don’t think I have an ego problem.)
This fisking brought to you by a generous donation of facts and logic, care of modern-day philosopher Michael Z. Williamson.
Amazing Beliefs:
That the New England Journal of Medicine is filled with expert advice about guns, just as Guns and Ammo has some excellent treatises on heart surgery.
(The good doctor should appreciate these Amazing Beliefs because they apply directly to his chosen profession.)
Amazing Beliefs:
That making it harder to get firearms legally will reduce their illegal use, just like making it harder to get a prescription will cut down on the illicit drug trade.
That the only way to end gun violence is to ban guns, just like the only way to end medical malpractice is to ban doctors.
What an incredibly bullshit story that is.
Amazing Beliefs:
That 1 firearm owner in 10,000 will commit an act of violence in his or her lifetime, and this is far more frightening than the 25% of drivers who will cause a serious or fatal accident.
That accidents with a product justify banning the product, even though MADD has never called for a ban on alcohol, people actively push to legalize drugs, and no one wants to ban swimming pools, so basically it’s only practical items like guns we should ban and not the luxury items that are essential to human survival.
That it’s tragic when a child dies in a firearms accident, and we must pass restrictive laws to prevent it, but children poisoned by household chemicals are simply unavoidable accidents.
That one accidental death is too many, but thousands of people dying because the means of self-defense were not available is unavoidable and not worthy of worry.
How many?
Riddle me this, Batman. Why, exactly, do these “health care professionals” believe they are so uniquely qualified to evaluate gun laws, gun violence, or gun issues in general?
Amazing Beliefs:
That a trauma surgeon’s experience in treating gunshot wounds makes him an expert on gun control legislation, just like an automobile body repair technician’s experience repairing cars makes him an expert on traffic laws.
Amazing Beliefs:
That making it harder and harder for even cops to have guns on school property will somehow make it harder for lunatics to kill the utterly helpless students.
That the risk of arrest for carrying a weapon on school grounds will stop a person bent on suicide from starting a shootout.
That the ready availability of guns today, with only a few government forms, waiting periods, checks, infringements, ID, and fingerprinting, is responsible for all the school shootings, compared to the lack of school shootings in the 1950’s and 1960’s, which was caused by the awkward availability of guns at any hardware store, gas station, and by mail order.
Really? The shooting at Virginia Tech wasn’t. That guy was mentally unstable and should, legally, have been prevented from buying guns.
The Columbine Massacre? Nope, the guns weren’t bought legally (or even recently, if I recall correctly).
Whereas in 2003, 42,884 people died in car accidents.
Guess we’d better ban cars then, hadn’t we?
So in other words, more people killed themselves with guns than killed someone else?
As opposed to where? Where else would the pronouncement happen besides the scene of the incident or the hospital?
Prevent shootings from occurring by doing what?
No, wait, let me guess. By taking guns away from law-abiding citizens, right?
Amazing Beliefs:
That a criminal is somehow more of a threat to a cop than to a regular person, so police need guns and regular citizens don’t.
That if honest people give up their weapons, the criminals and dictators will give up theirs, as Chicago street gangs and Hitler have demonstrated.
Amazing Beliefs:
That societies with less guns have less killings by guns, just like societies with less cars have less vehicular homicide. This is deemed to be relevant.
Amazing Beliefs:
That guns cause the high suicide rate in the US, even though Japan’s rate is almost three times higher.
That suicides involving firearms are “gun deaths” but suicides involving knives are not “stabbing deaths.”
Amazing Beliefs:
That a house with a gun is more likely to have a murder, just like a house with insulin is more likely to have a diabetic.
That never bringing a gun into your home will reduce your risk of being killed with a gun, just like never taking showers will reduce your risk of slipping on a piece of soap and cracking your head open on the bathroom tile. (I made that one up myself. : ) )
Amazing Beliefs:
That a suicide who used a gun would still be alive if he or she had used a knife or hanged himself or herself.
That someone else’s suicide is a problem for the rest of us that would be prevented if we gave up our guns.
And we can solve this domestic violence problem by making sure none of those women have access to guns.
“Misguidedly enacted”? That “misguidance” you speak of happens to be a little something called the will of the people.
Irrelevant. Call me when they make it legal to shoot innocent people willy-nilly.
I love those “duty to retreat” laws for one reason: They are absolutely perfect for illustrating the fact that liberals are more interested in disarming law-abiding Americans than in disarming criminals.
Amazing Beliefs:
That there is no right of self defense, and the police are not legally obligated to respond to my cries for help when disarmed, but you can sue them if they take too long to get to a traffic accident.
That if a violent criminal enters your house, you should do nothing and wait for the police arrive, just as you’d do nothing for an injury or fire and wait for the fire truck or the ambulance.
Note how he uses the word “shooters” as if the law would grant total immunity to criminals who use a gun in the commission of a crime.
And this I don’t believe for a second.
Really?
By whom?
That must be why “gun free” Washington DC has such high rates of gun violence and why Switzerland (where gun ownership per capita is one of the highest in the world, if not the highest, and where firearms training is mandatory for all citizens) has such incredibly low rates of gun violence by comparison.
(Also, I’d bet my bottom dollar that the NEJM’s definition of “gun violence” includes cases of defensive gun use and cases where criminals were gunned down by police.)
Amazing Beliefs:
That incidents where people shoot criminals in self defense are very rare, and shouldn’t be used as excuses to own guns, just as incidents where presidential press secretaries are shot are very rare, and shouldn’t be used as excuses to ban guns.
That the “Reasonable” uses for guns are hunting and target shooting, but not self-defense. In other words, it’s acceptable to use them as toys but not as lifesaving devices.
That guns are an ineffective means of self defense for rational adults, but in the hands of an ignorant criminal become a threat to the fabric of society.
That police arriving at 80mph are a better way to stop criminals than bullets arriving at 800mph.
That with only 1 chance in 5 of facing violent crime, and 1 chance in 10 of a gun being used defensively, the risk is minimal and gunowners are paranoid freaks, but it is insane not to get immunized against hepatitis, which strikes 1:50,000 people.
Amazing Beliefs:
That “assault weapons” are “very powerful” but big game hunters oddly prefer .30-06s and .375 H&Hs.
That assault rifles are far too powerful to hunt deer and elk, and too dangerous for private citizens to own, but are too impotent for modern warfare, too weak to reliably kill soldiers, and have no place in the concept of a citizen reserve.
That private citizens can’t have handguns, because they serve no militia purpose, even though the military has hundreds of thousands of them, and private citizens can’t have assault rifles, because they are military weapons.
That “assault weapons” have no purpose other than to kill large numbers of people, which is why the police need them.
That “assault weapons” are only designed for killing offensively, and the police need them but you do not.
That the Brady Act and the “Assault Weapons” Ban which both went into effect in 1994 are responsible for the decrease in violent crime rates since 1991, and since 2004 when the AWB expired.
Amazing Beliefs:
That any cheap weapon is a “Saturday night special,” and any expensive weapon is an “assault weapon.”
That we should ban “Saturday Night Specials” and other inexpensive guns because it’s not fair that poor people have access to guns too.
That we should get rid of “junk guns” so that criminals are forced to use reliable high-quality guns.
Because God forbid we let people sell guns at a gun show.
Amazing Beliefs:
That guns cause crime, which is why there has never been a mass slaying at a gun show.
That the “gun show loophole” allows you to go to a gun show and find a federally licensed dealer surrounded by cops and federal agents and 10,000 buyers, who will wink and violate existing federal law by not requiring ID, a form 4473 and a call to NICS before selling you a gun, and neither of you will be arrested for the attempt.
That even though less than 1 percent of the guns used in commission of a crime were purchased at gun shows, the “gun show loophole” is the problem we need to address first. (I made this one myself too. : ) )
That it’s safer with less guns, which is why lunatics shoot up schools instead of gun shows or police stations.
Note the careful juggling of statistics here.
Fewer homicides in NYC and Chicago compared to what?
Other states? Or the previous murder rates in NYC and Chicago? (I’m betting on the latter over the former.)
Amazing Beliefs: (God, there’s one of these for just about everything a liberal says, isn’t there?)
That banning guns works, which is why New York, DC, and Chicago cops need guns against armed criminals.
That with nationwide gun control, the entire nation can be as safe as NYC, LA and Chicago.
That if Chicago were to legalize firearms, it would have shootouts in the streets, which never happens now.
“Encourage the use of guns”?
Amazing Beliefs:
That repealing laws that discriminate against gun-owners “endorses” guns, just like repealing laws that discriminate against gays “endorses” homosexuality.
Yes, that map sure is interesting.
Oh wait. This is a map of “firearm related mortality”, not “firearm related crime”.
Amazing Beliefs:
That the number of accidental and suicidal deaths by drugs should not be included in statistics, but the number of accidental and suicidal deaths by guns should be.
That even despite that, when the risk of guns is lower than the risk of medical drugs, it’s a “national tragedy.”
I suppose it depends on your definition of the word “work”.
Amazing Beliefs:
That Washington DC’s low murder rate of 80.6 per 100,000 is due to strict gun control, but Arlington, Virginia’s high murder rate of 1.6 per 100,000 is attributable to the lack of gun control.
Amazing Beliefs:
That the “right of the people peaceably to assemble,” the “right of the people to be secure in their homes,” “the enumeration herein of certain rights shall not be construed to disparage others retained by the people,” “The powers not delegated herein are reserved to the states respectively, and to the people,” refer to individuals, but “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” refers to the states.
Amazing Beliefs:
That many “supporters of Second Amendment rights” endorse “reasonable gun control,” just like many “supporters of First Amendment rights” endorse “reasonable media control.”
Amazing Beliefs:
That the ACLU is good because it uncompromisingly defends certain parts of the Constitution, but the NRA is bad because it defends other parts of the Constitution.
Observe the liberal mind at work, where laws that prevent government busy-bodies from charging private citizens who shoot a criminal in self-defense are now “justifying homicide”.
We’re entitled to use guns against each other?
Funny, I can’t seem to find that particular Constitutional Amendment.
Amazing Beliefs:
That gun owners are a threat by existing that must be destroyed by any means possible and their rights are unimportant, but the thugs who attack us on the street whom the gun owners wish to be armed against are simply a problem we have to put up with.
That alcohol is acceptable in private, as long as the user doesn’t use it while driving, but mere possession of a gun is a threat to others.
That guns are the gravest threat to society because 83,000,000 gun owners didn’t commit a crime yesterday.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:50 pmESTWow, mightysamuri. Excellent. You’re the man!
March 24th, 2008 at 8:49 pmESTWell done, mightysamurai. I quit reading the report (of the nejm) when they compared the Wash.,DC pre-ban murder rate with the post-ban suicide rate. I sort of figured that if they were either that sloppy or had such disdain for the intelligence of their readers, they didn’t need me to be one. They truly are nutless wonders.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:24 pmESTI guess I would unload my guns if my cats and dogs developed opposable thumbs, but until then, I will keep them loaded and ready to go. As a neighbor said, if you hear me racking the 12 gauge, it’s because I already shot you once - that sucker is ready to go, now! I like that way of thinking.
Where I live there is no use in pretending that the police would respond in time if at all. Once they learn that the call is from a typical white person they might just forget to show up.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:26 pmESTIf they aren’t loaded,my framing hammer or falling ax would be far better for home defense.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:46 pmESTRule #1 It’s Loaded act accordingly.
Dear Rachel: (that was for mhuete)
All growing up my father had several shot guns/rifles in his bedroom, in a nice stand, never locked.
Kids are curious creatures and he was smart enough to know this. So instead of forbidding us from touching them and keeping them locked up, he taught us, from a VERY early age, how to shoot them. He would take us out to the middle of the forest somewhere, set up aluminum cans and we would shoot at them. He taught us about gun safety and when we got home, he taught us how to take them apart and clean them. I remember being 6 years old when I was firing at cans.
Not once did I think to go in and play around with those guns because I respected that they weren’t toys and what they could do.
Imagine…spending time with your child and educating them. Who would have thunk such a thing could actually work!
Guns don’t kill people, ignorance does.
March 24th, 2008 at 10:08 pmESTMrs. Applewright: “Class, what is a non-sequitur? Did anyone find an example of a non-sequitur?”
Jimmy raises hand.
Mrs. Applewright: “Jimmy?”
Jimmy: “This is from the Internet:”
Mrs. Applewright: “Very good, Jimmy!”
March 24th, 2008 at 10:51 pmESTUnloaded?
Wife has Colt Defender (45 ACP) loaded in her room.
Daughter 1 at college….soon to have mom’s old Walther 9MM in room.
Daughter 2 has Walther 9MM in room.
Daughters 3&4 (12 and 13 yrs) have Walther P22 in room.
People who live with guns know they don’t pull their own triggers.
March 24th, 2008 at 11:19 pmESTI defy anyone to read this and tell me that Meredith Emerson wouldn’t have been better off if she had a gun to defend herself. I strongly believe that the outcome would have been different. Her gun, had she been carrying one, would not have caused a crime. It would have prevented one.
This is from the Appalachian Trail website about security on the trail:
Carrying firearms is strongly discouraged. They are illegal on National Park Service lands (40 percent of the Trail) and in most other areas without a permit. The threat of them being turned against you or an accidental shooting may outweigh the benefit. An increased presence of firearms could also change the culture of the Trail. State laws vary on the carrying of nonlethal weapons, such as pepper spray; the possession and use of a defensive weapon is a big responsibility with potential consequences. A whistle may scare off a potential threat from humans or animals and will serve to alert others in the area to your location.
That’s their answer, a goddamned whistle.
March 25th, 2008 at 7:19 amESTI’ve never had the opportunity or will to open up Huffpo and read through it. Before today, HuffPo was like an urban myth to me. I’ve read the clips pasted from it on various blogs and thought ‘there’s just no way someone actually thinks like that.’
And then I opened up your link and fell straight down the rabbit-hole.
All I can manage at this point is a ‘wow.’
March 25th, 2008 at 7:37 amESTMightysamurai-that was awesome!
And Sluggo
Exactly.
I other news, my gun fearing mother actually asked to come to the range with me sometime. I think a pig just flew by.
March 25th, 2008 at 7:48 amESTmightysamurai said everything I might have written. Except maybe to point out to those “health care professionals” that more people die from doctor’s mistakes each year than from gunfire.
I have over fifty firearms in my house. By their reasoning, I, and everyone in my neighborhood, should be dead by now.
March 25th, 2008 at 8:07 amESTWhat mightysamurai said, and what fargus said, though I don’t clock in over ten or so.
And bob? Rule #1! “All guns are loaded all the time, and shall be so handled. Period. Even if it’s open on the bench in front of you.”
March 25th, 2008 at 8:32 amESTMhuete: Not that easy, sorry.
A risk that increases by 400% is not a risk that increases to 400%.
If there’s a 1% statistical incidence of suicide, and it increases to 4%, that’s a “400% increase” (just as a doubling is a “100% increase”).
The NEJM is great at lying with statistics, but that particular case isn’t one of them.
(Now, ignoring suicide subsitition data, which suggest that availability of guns doesn’t increase the overall suicide rate, but just gets people to not use ropes or knives - that’s bad science and akin to simply lying.
That and, as you pointed out, conflating suicide and murder as “violence”, especially doubly super-specially while ignoring substitution and the rough flatness of suicide rate compared to weapon availability within the same demographic.)
March 25th, 2008 at 12:44 pmESTWouldn’t gun owners have to kill themselves 4 times in order for there to be a 400% risk of suicide?
And respectfully, I still think this is lying with statistics. If you have a choice between saying that with a gun in your home the chance of suicide increases from 1% to 4%, or saying the chance increases “by 400%”, the correct thing to do would be to say both. Simply saying the chance increases “by 400%” greatly overstates the statistical increase and gives the impression that you are almost guaranteed to kill yourself if you own a gun.
March 25th, 2008 at 1:44 pmESTRustmeister called it. You see the name “Garen Wintemute,” you can stop reading.
March 25th, 2008 at 1:46 pmESTMaybe it’s because I’m from Texas, but this struck a chord, mightysamurai.
Because it supports something I’ve said for quite some time. Anyone remember Charles Whitman? The guy who climbed the observatory tower in Austin and shot a whole bunch of people dead with a high powered deer rifle?
Within minutes, he was getting return fire from citizens. Most of the people he shot were killed in the first couple minutes. After that, students, citizens, and police began returning fire, and hardly anyone was killed. Then, a policeman, and an ARMED CITIZEN climbed the stairs up the tower, and the citizen aided the policeman in taking Whitman down. The Tower Shootings should have been a shining moment in history, an indication of how much our freedom to defend ourselves actually defends us. Without the return fire of several WW2 and Korean vets (students and citizens alike) from the ground, he could have lined up all kinds of clear shots from his perspective.
Instead, that incident became an excuse for the gun laws that followed. The first real significant gun laws that had been past since the gang wars of the ’20’s.
The legacy of the Tower shootings should have been a reinforcement of our rights, instead of an excuse to “do something,” which always leads to a curbing of them.
Anyway, like I said, being from Texas, school shootings always seem to take me back to Austin for some reason.
March 25th, 2008 at 1:51 pmESTSigivald: Assuming Mhuete’s correct is correct
emphasis added
His analysis fits. I agree with you, and what your saying is obviously the intention of the paper, but what they wrote (again, assuming the quote is correct) is that guns increase the risk to a level. This can be interpreted, gramatically, as saying the risk is raised to 400%, instead of by 400%. I think the study people were likely using “by 40 to 170″” and “by 90 to 460%” as ranges by which the crime increased. It can be read however as saying that the levels rose by 90% to 460%, meaning the previous levels were 370%, still above the theoretical 100% maximum if everyone did it.
At first I thought it was just a typo when I read it thinking they meant by 460% to 90%, then I realized they were positing a range.
March 25th, 2008 at 2:09 pmESTI may have stated this here before, and sorry for the second post, but anyway…
As I’ve said many times here, I grew up on a farm, and shot my first gun at 6. I started out on a .22, but when I was 10, I was hunting dove with a 20 gauge shotgun. There were rules, and I learned early on that you don’t point a gun at a human, period. Later, when I turned 18, my dad told me that I was old enough to know the corollary: You don’t point a gun at a human…unless you intend to kill him.
I grew up with guns, was educated in their use, I never hurt anyone with one, but I would definitely defend myself with one. There is a veritable arsenal out there on the farm, everything ranging from .22s to .45 autos, to AK-47’s and a Mauser 1895 in .30-06 with a Leopold scope. I killed my first deer when I was 12 (with said Mauser).
The point being that I, and my brothers and sister have never killed anyone with a gun. We were taught to use them safely and so we did. How come when people die of sex(AIDS), we teach them safe sex, instead of abstinance, but when people die of guns, we ban guns instead of teaching safe gun use?
March 25th, 2008 at 2:11 pmESTMighty, I loved your analysis, but I disagree with you about “lying with statistics.” Saying something went up by 400% is identical to saying it quadrupled. If it is true, it is true. Sure, I’d like it if they noted that 4*Tiny ~ Tiny, but I don’t believe doing so is necessarily deceptive (or lying). We talk a lot about having respect for the intelligence of the readership. I think assuming that they will look into the previous numbers, or the new totals, is fair game if we’re asking that they not assume we’re all idiots.
March 25th, 2008 at 2:15 pmESTWell sure it’s technically correct, but you must admit it sounds very misleading. It strongly implies that having a gun in your home almost guarantees your death.
March 25th, 2008 at 2:20 pmESTAnd to weigh in on ownership. I live in the DPRC (Democratic People’s Republic of California), in the middle of the desert, in a small town (
March 25th, 2008 at 2:29 pmESTI just don’t see it as misleading. I have found, in the past, when similar instances of differing interpretation have propped up, that it is helpful to self identify as an engineer. I work in numbers constantly, and can never get them out of my head, even when trying to sleep. I see the world slightly differently than many people because of this. I’m not saying you’re wrong, hell, their intention may well have been to deceive, to convince their readers that things are more dangerous than they actually are, I’m just saying I can’t admit it sounds misleading, because it is absolutely true (in the general, I’m not talking about the original article at this point, just the general form of argument), and in many instance more useful.
Using pure numbers sometimes takes things out of context. Returning to a completely made up example, lets say your earlier 1% to 4% (representing a 400% increase) is relevant to cases out of 100,000. If some one said flat out said there 3000 more deaths this year than last, would be tragic, of course, but saying it represents a 400% increase gives you some context. This is especially true in per/capita estimates. Using per-capita rather than factual instance (1% to 4% instead of saying 3000) already causes correlation to an idea beyond the mere fact (in this case over all population). If this is acceptable, why would it be unacceptable (inherently deceitful) to correlate current percentages to previous percentages? Once you are removed from actual instances, you’re packaging the data for digestion no matter what you do, I just see two different forms of packaging, each useful, and unspecific (potentially misleading) in their own right.
March 25th, 2008 at 2:46 pmESTOK, something weird happened to my post at 2:29 pm, some 90% of it was cut-off. I’m not rewriting it, this is just to note that it looks weird, I see that, and it was a technical problem. Sorry if it causes confusion.
March 25th, 2008 at 2:49 pmESTNaturally. That’s why I think that it behooves anyone who uses statistics to present their data in both hard numbers AND in percentages, so there is no possibility that the information can be misinterpreted (and of course, to ensure general honesty).
March 25th, 2008 at 3:03 pmESTI agree, that is the best approach. When I’m presenting numbers from statistical processes I like to be as thorough as possible in their description. In this case I’d present “the number 3000, representing a 400% increase in instances from the previous year, rising from 1% to 4% of the total.” That is the approach that I would take personally, but I don’t believe using just a part of that is admittedly deceitful. Choosing the right packaging of the data can help advocate a position, which I don’t believe the press, or researchers, should EVER be doing, but even then, I don’t see it as deceitful.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:13 pmESTNice job, mightysamurai.
One more bit of fact re: Gun ownership and gun violence rise and fall together.
Criminologists use murders as a proxy for overall violent crime. They get reported and they get a lot of attention. One can go to the FBI site, or the Bureau of Justice Statistics, or CDC’s WISQARS and get the data on yearly murders, back through the beginning of the 20th century. As a rate per 100,000, murders go up, they go down; there is a short peak in 1960, a drop to 1964, a steep climb to 1974, a drop to 1977, the highest historical peak in 1980, a drop to 1984, a peak in 1991, and a continuous decline since then.
In the US, most murders are committed with firearms, and that also has been the case for many years.
The BATF estimates that there were about 50 million guns owned by the US population. Every year since then the number of guns has increased, by millions - in no year did the number of guns decrease, nor did the number of guns per capita decrease. The trend is monotonically increasing.
It can’t be the case that Gun ownership and gun violence rise and fall together.
Violence (and gun violence) rises and falls.
Gun ownership only rises.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:25 pmESTKnew I should have edited that. BATF reported 50 million as of 1945. Someplace between 250 and 300 million guns in ‘civilian hands’ in 2007.
It is true that ownership is not evenly distributed; current number is about 1 per person, and surely not everyone in the US owns one gun.
March 25th, 2008 at 6:05 pmESTAn examination of just one of the “gun control” studies in the medical literature:
In October 1993 the New England Journal of Medicine published a research paper called, “Gun Ownership As a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home” by Arthur Kellermann and associates. This study’s main finding was that people who lived in homes where guns were kept had a homicide rate (i.e. as victims) that was 2.7 times higher than people who did not keep guns in their homes. The publication of this study got a lot of press attention; most of the headlines read something like, “Gun Owners Nearly Three Times More Likely To Be Slain, Medical Researchers Say.”
In the February 1994 issue of the NEJM, the editors published several pages of letters complaining about the methodology, accuracy and conclusions of the study. The letters were from physicians, health researchers, sociologists, economists and even statisticians. There were four main lines of criticism:
1)Most of the victims had criminal records, while most of the control subjects did not. Of the 420 homicide victims, fifty-three percent had been arrested at least once, and many had been arrested numerous times. That was twenty times more than the control subjects. In addition, the victims were ten times more likely to use illicit drugs, five times more likely to have a history of severe alcohol abuse and twice as likely to have a history of domestic violence, compared to the control subjects. The reason that an arrest record is so important is that there is an extremely strong statistical correlation between arrest and homicide. Nationwide, about 70% of homicide victims have arrest records. So one would expect to find an unusually high homicide rate among this group, irrespective of whether they own guns. Doing a study like this, using a group such as this, is like sending a team of researchers into an American prison to interview the inmates and ask them how many years of school they finished, and then announcing that the average American has only a ninth-grade education. Or doing a study to find out how diabetics differ from non-diabetics, finding out that they are more likely to possess insulin, and concluding that insulin possession is a risk factor for diabetes.
2)Most of the victims weren’t actually shot at all. They were all homicide victims, but only about 45% were shot. The other 55% died by a variety of means, including stabbings, stranglings, beatings and even a few poisonings. Nevertheless, the researchers counted all of the homicides as “gun-related death” because the victim lived in a home where a gun was kept. So, for example, even if the victim was stabbed to death, and of course the researchers knew he was stabbed to death – it was their data, after all – they still considered it a “gun-related death”. Now, obviously you can’t stab someone with a gun, or strangle someone with a gun, but that’s not what the researchers were getting at. The researchers were looking at gun ownership as a statistical “risk factor” for homicide by any means. The problem is that the researchers didn’t apply the concept of risk factor analysis uniformly. For example, it’s almost a certainty that every single one of the victims lived in a home where a knife was kept, yet Kellermann didn’t associate any of the deaths with knives. He didn’t even blame the stabbing deaths on knives; he claimed those were gun-related, too. This is strong evidence of a priori reasoning: he had decided on the outcome before he began to collect the data.
3) If 45% of the 420 deaths were shootings, then there were about 190 fatal shootings involving gun owners; but even here Kellermann fell short of the mark. The researchers failed to document even a single shooting death involving the gun owned by the victim. According to national crime statistics, in nearly all fatal shootings in which there has been an adjudication, it is the perpetrator, not the victim, who brings the fatal weapon to the crime scene. Now, statistics being what they are, probably some of the victims in this study were shot with their own guns; it is even possible that all of them were. The problem is that it is much more likely that none of them were. The data in this study do not provide an answer. The researchers probably could not find a source for this data, but there is also a more sinister explanation. Perhaps they had the data but discarded it when it contradicted their expectations.
4) The researchers implied that they had established a cause-and-effect relationship when they had done nothing of the kind. The researchers’ hypothesis was that owning a gun caused elevated homicide risk. But they ignored the far more likely hypothesis that people who already have an elevated homicide risk might choose to keep a gun in the house. It was not the gun that caused their elevated homicide risk; it was the subjects’ histories of crime, drug abuse, alcohol abuse and violence that led to their demise, and most of them would still have been murdered even if there were no guns at all.
Other critics have pointed out that fifteen of the victims were slain under “legally excusable” circumstances; four by the police and eleven by civilians acting in self-defense. These killings should have dropped from the study: one could hardly call these people “victims”. They were perpetrators and they were killed while attempting to commit violent crimes.
It has always seemed to me that blaming guns for stabbing deaths, no matter how persuasively it is argued, is teetering on the edge of self-parody. I can imagine a TV comedy show like Saturday Night Live, or maybe the old Monty Python show, doing a comedy sketch based on this concept: a burglar breaks into a home in the middle of the night; he stabs the homeowner to death; the next morning when the police arrive, the chief detective takes one look at the body of the victim with this big knife sticking out of his chest, and the detective says, “AHA! Just as I thought! Another gun-related death!”
Most of these points, and more, have been exhaustively covered by Prof. Gary Kleck in various books and articles and I apologize if I have inadvertently plagiarized his work here. Google him for his writings. Other excellent resources on the web are “Taking Aim at Gun Control” by Daniel D. Polsby and Dennis Brennan; “The False Promise of Gun Control” by Polsby; “When Liberals Lie About Guns” by Cathy Young; “Ten Essential Observations on Guns in America” by James D. Wright; and “Public Health Pot Shots” by Kates, Schaffer and Waters.
March 25th, 2008 at 8:57 pmESTLiving in Virginia..I carry concealed at all times including when I visit other states. We have at least one gun (loaded & locked)in each room of the house. When adults come over they are told that any gun they see is loaded and to not touch it. When children come over…they are limited to one room only and the guns are removed from that room. It has worked for us for over 25 years.
March 25th, 2008 at 9:41 pmESTMightysamurai,
Whoa dude, that has to be one of the lengthiest comments I have ever seen, but all very good stuff!
I hate it when my girlfriend bans me from the internet on my days off (she says I either don’t give her enough attention or I read something that gets me too agitiated), it makes me come in way late on posts like this one.
I’m glad Turk brought up the VERY flawed New England Journal of Medicine 1993 research paper by Kellerman. This is the type of stuff that the gun banners rely on a fact. It was immediately discredited when it was learned that many of the study’s subjects who kept guns in their homes were IN FACT criminals who legally couldn’t have guns in the first place. They were often homocide victims because many, if not most were CRIMINALS!
They died by various means mainly because in the throes of a violent encounter with other criminals they did not have their illegal gun readily at hand to turn the homocide around onto the other party!
Of course the study also failed to differentiate between those who were shot by a gun brought by their assailant to the scene, or their own gun, and also whether the victim was even killed at home or out and about, and engaged in criminal enterprise!
Oh, and by the way, I don’t believe that any of John Lott’s research has EVER been LEGITIMATELY discredited. In fact after trying to do so, a couple of left wing anti-gun (yet honest about their results) professors had to admit, much to their horror, that Lott’s research methodologies were correct and his conclusions were right on.
As a police officer, I can also tell you that Oklahoma’s concealed carry laws have not contributed one whit to the gun crime statisitics of this state, and I can relate anecdotally numerous times when the possession of a gun by the good guys has lead to a positive outcome of a very bad situation.
March 26th, 2008 at 11:18 pmEST