# Common sense gun legislation? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 2, 2015, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-sense-gun-legislation/733300 "2015-10-02T20:48:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 589
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2015, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-sense-gun-legislation/733300/589 "2015-11-26T07:02:52Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Specifically, Kellermann et al., 1993 did control for history of prior arrests, illicit drug use and history of someone being injured in a fight in the home. Cummings et al., 1997 used data from legal handgun purchases in Washington state. Grassel et al., 2003 used data from licensed dealer sales of handguns in California. Thus, felons ARE factored out of some studies - either due to the fact that the guns in the data set were legal purchases, or after controlling for history of arrests. These studies find estimates of increased risk associated with a gun in the home that are consistent with one another and with other studies. Here’s the problem with Kellermann and Grassel’s studies (ignoring the one you mention from Cummings for the moment since I’d have to refresh my memory on that one): The figures for increased risk of bad outcomes are laughable when the study methodology is examined, like having a control group dissimilar to the test group, not controlling for guns brought into the home from another source, and finding that many other factors presented greater risk factors than firearm existence. The one I find most absurd is that in each of these studies there is no effort or distinction made between the gun kept by the homeowner and one that is brought in from outside the home. It’s like saying, you kept gun A, therefore you are 2.7 times more likely to be killed by gun B. I made these points in a [similar thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18578947&postcount=396) here: > [@](#): > > Compared to the control group in this study, the victim group had significantly higher rates of renting (70% vs. 47%), living alone (27% vs. 12%), consuming alcohol and various issues at home and work as a result, household illicit drug use (31% vs. 6%), household fighting, and members of the household being arrested (52% vs. 23%). In other words, the victim group had a riskier lifestyle. You think think this is a good approximation of relative risk? This is what I mean when the control group was dissimilar to the test group. Regardless of the methodology used to select the control group, these were some of the results. These results make the conclusions of the study less reliable. > … > It’s the notion that a person killed in the home with their own gun vs. being killed by someone who is not a member of the household with a different gun, and that these two events are treated the same for the purposes of this study. The increased risk identified in the study is implied to be caused by the presence of the gun. But what happens when the gun is possessed as a result of a pre-existing risk identified by the resident? It’s as if the study is saying that the gun in the home is a magnet for violence. > … > For example, the study found that a living alone presented a higher risk than gun possession. Does living alone cause homicide and suicide? And yet the victim group in the study had a significantly higher number of people who lived alone vs. the control group. Kellermann pushed junk for so long him and his ilk actually got their advocacy restricted. And that leads to this: > [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Part of the problem is that researchers have to work with convenience samples or secondary data, since you guys are preventng the funding needed to carry out the more specific research you then turn around and say is needed. It’s a pretty sweet rhetorical dodge you and the NRA have set up. You’ve made this assertion before, that the NRA is somehow preventing research but it’s obviously false. You made this assertion more specifically here: > [@Studying Firearm Related Violence](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studying-firearm-related-violence/689994/2): > > I think that Slate should have been more surprised by the efforts that have been undertaken to limit the research needed to answer these questions. The report states: > > > [@](#): > > > > In addition to the restrictions on certain kids of data collection, congressional action in 1996 effectively halted all firearm-related injury research at the CDC […] In 2011, Congress enacted similar restrictions affecting the entire U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The net result was an overall reduction in firearm violence research (Kellerman and Rivara, 2013). As a result, the past 20 years have witnessed diminished progress in understanding the causes and effects of firearm violence. > > My sense is that most people don’t realize that researchers have been proactively and explicitly prevented from studying this topic. But in using the ellipsis in this fashion, you omitted a key part of the quote: The unabridged quote reads: > [@](#): > > In addition to the restrictions on certain kinds of data collection, congressional action in 1996 effectively halted all firearm-related injury research at the CDC \*\*by prohibiting the use of federal funding “to advocate or promote gun control.”\*\*18 In 2011, Congress enacted similar restrictions affecting the entire U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.19 The net result was an overall reduction in firearm violence research (Kellermann and Rivara, 2013). As a result, the past 20 years have witnessed diminished progress in understanding the causes and effects of firearm violence. So your complaint is unfounded for at least two reasons: [ol] [li]Research wasn’t restricted, advocacy or promotion of gun control was restricted. The CDC is free to do any research it wants.[/li][li]Private sector funding of any flawed research is still on the table. With Bloomberg pledging $50M in 2014, and setting up his own college to do put out any research he wants, it’s laughable to say that there has been any meaningful limitation on research.[/li][/ol] * * * Regarding the crappy Kellermann studies, I stated this previously: > [@Guns: Newsweek proposes a compromise](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/205): > > Ultimately I don’t think anyone disputed that firearms present a risk - of course they do. As I said before, a more meaningful question is whether those risks are outweighed by the benefits. This study also makes no attempt to address that question. There have been many discussions about DGU studies, but you, **Hentor** , have dismissed all of them because you do not accept any study that relies on self reporting: > [@Studying Firearm Related Violence](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studying-firearm-related-violence/689994/61): > > I’d be fine with any method that did not rely on the self-report of a group of people who is by their very nature more scared and prone to overestimate risks than normal people. To which I challenged you and you declined to respond: > [@Studying Firearm Related Violence](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studying-firearm-related-violence/689994/48): > > If an unarmed person starts trying to kick in my door, and through the window they see me display a firearm so they run off, no shots fired, no police report - do you consider that a DGU? If yes, how would that be captured by any study you’d accept? If no, why not? So to you, the question of the magnitude of DGU will forever be unanswered, and you can continue to parade Kellermann as the model of scientific accuracy. The rest of us know better. And by the rest of us, I mean the people who are winning in the legislature and in the courts. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-sense-gun-legislation/733300)._