I think its called pettifoggery.
So then why do you continue to tolerate the use of the study to imply that owning a gun is the reason why you are more likely to be murdered? Rather than acknowledge that the reason these people were more likely to be murdered is probably also the reason why someone in their household owned kept a gun in the home. That both the gun ownership and the murder stem from the same underlying reasons.
Of course you are not obligated to jump on the mistakes made by your own side but then you can’t really claim that you are just following the facts “as a scientist”
I don’t care what you claim to be. Your claim imparts no additional strength nor does it demand deference to your statements; actually, such claims diminish the strength and repel respect. The claims of “I’m a scientist” (or other bald claims of superior intellect) should be a target of ridicule and derision as it is only presented as a crutch for one’s disabilities in persuading others with superior argumentation.
One’s skill in making supported points and destroying the positions of your opponents is the definer of one’s persona in discussion forums. Claims such as yours might get you admiration in a teen chat room but here it really does nothing but cause others to feel embarrassment for you.
It seems that I’m the only one who actually read the study and I’m the only one who quoted from the study . . . The anti-gunners here touting the study have been inventing claims that are not reasonable conclusions and a few have made claims in direct contradiction of the study which specifically warns against drawing such conclusions.
The study offers nothing new; those who abuse drugs and/or alcohol, those who live in crime-ridden neighborhoods, especially minorities and especially those involved in criminal activity are those with greater risk of death from gunshot.
File that under NO SHIT!
My “quibble” was with the poster who claimed that “Gun owners have roughly twice the risk of dying from gunshot as the rest of us.”
That is a statement not supported by the study linked to.
That is all.
Sez the guy who went on about my “confusion” for multiple posts . . . Fatuous is all you do. Ridiculing one liners and chest-beating as a proxy for real debate points does not impress. Have you ever written anything of substance?
Topic for your next post: An explanation of the legal authority for instituting the gun control proposals I desire.
Keep in mind that in the United States, any discussion of “what should we do” is utterly useless if the question, “what are we allowed to do” is not answered first (and then of course, abided by).
Abatis, I simply siad that I am a scientist and therefore am able to read scientific articles without needing to run to others for help. The rest of your defensive reaction is coming from somewhere else.
The study demonstrated clearly that gun owners - people who kept a gun at their residence - were twice as likely to be killed as people who did not. It is that simple.
And as a scientist, you understand that correlation does not equal causality, and that post hoc, ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy.
Regards,
Shodan
Yes. That’s why we use science to systematically control for potential explanatory variables and test theoretical models of potential causal mechanisms.
If we stopped thinking at “correlation does not equal causation” then we wouldn’t have science.
When we stop thinking at “correlation does equal causation” we have gun control threads.
Regards,
Shodan
And yet with all your intelligence you can’t formulate a point without introducing facts not in evidence, assigning to me generalized conditions that have nothing to do with the discussion at hand. Where have I run to others for help? Where has the scientific evidence gone against me?
I don’t try to hide my contempt and disgust that you think that claiming superior intelligence and discernment is a substitute for actually displaying superior intelligence and discernment.
Except that it doesn’t.
You want to make it say what it doesn’t. Please quote the study that “gun ownership”, as opposed to simply the “presence of a firearm in the home” is what elevates the risk. As I read it, (and by all means, quote the part of the study that you believe proves you correct) drawing the conclusion that “gun ownership” can be assigned the 2 to 1 is an indefensible misrepresentation.
If the 2 to 1 risk was assignable to simply all those who own guns why is it that people who live alone and have a gun in the home have zero risk elevation?
[INDENT]**“Among those living alone at the time of death, there was no association between the presence of a firearm in the home and method of homicide.”
**[/INDENT]
Uh huh. I said I’m a scientist so I can read scientific articles, and the above is what you heard.
They further went on to ask about the storage practices - whether the guns were kept locked or unlocked.
So, your argument is that when people said they kept, or did not keep, guns in the home, and discussed how those guns were stored, it is not legitimate to call this “ownership.” How are you defining ownership so that someone keeping and storing something in their home does not own it? Are you arguing that all of these people were just holding these guns for their friends? That’s your argument? That’s the indefensible characterization of ownership?
As I said before, fatuous.
Because most homicides involve family members or people who the decedent knows. That’s why the risk of being killed goes up when a gun is in the home. That’s why other studies show that the prevalence of firearms in a state is associated with increases in homicides by people who the dead person knows and is not associated with homicides by strangers. That’s why the risk of a woman being killed in a home with a gun in it is greater than that of a man. That’s why most self-defensive gun uses result from escalating arguments.
Thanks for calling attention to a key mechanism linking gun ownership to deaths in the household!
If by “people the decedent knows” you mean other criminals and gang members, sure. You make it sound like “people the decedent knows” is "people the decdednt invited over for dinner.
So then why do people who live alone have a higher risk of being murdered than people who do not live alone? Along with people who rent and people who do drugs.
No. Most commonly family members. I know it’s a scientific article, but you can really just read it to find out what it says. You needn’t make up false claims. For example:
What do you mean? Living alone compared to not living alone is associated with an increased risk, yes. The presence of a gun in the home is associated with an increased risk over and above the effect of living alone. The presence of a gun in the home is particularly associated with an increased risk for people living with others.
What are you struggling to grasp here, exactly?
Bald claims again. Again, I don’t care what you claim to be; I read what you write and how you support those statements / positions, that’s what tells me what you are.
Bald claims such as yours are made to either fluff one’s ego or dissuade oppositional argument; you want your claim of superior intellect and understanding to stand as a proxy for demonstrating superior intellect and understanding . . . You have failed.
LOL. Who is being asked? Are the study authors using a medium to contact the deceased?
No, the study authors are using proxy interviews, which they admit:
[INDENT]"proxy respondents and nonusers of firearms are not always knowledgeable about the number or types of guns in the household or the storage practice . . . "[/INDENT]
And again, I would point to the limitations that the study authors themselves recognize excludes exactly the conclusions you are making (emphasis added):
[INDENT]"A number of limitations should be considered when interpreting the findings from this study. First, our study was based on data from death certificates and proxy interviews.
The accuracy and completeness of information from these types of data sources can vary. With death certificates, for instance, there is the possibility of misclassification regarding the cause or manner of death. In the case of proxy interviews, knowing the outcome might have introduced bias in assessing behavioral or psychological characteristics of the decedent prior to death. The nature, degree, or direction of recall bias among proxies reporting on violent deaths versus nonviolent deaths is not known, however.
Second, the gun in the home may not have been the gun used in the death. This possibility seems less likely with suicide, but, with homicide, **it is certainly plausible that someone brought a gun into the home.
**
Third, it is possible that the association between a gun in the home and risk of a violent death may be related to other factors that we were unable to control for in our analysis. For instance, with homicide, the association may be related to certain neighborhood characteristics or the decedent’s previous involvement in other violent or illegal behaviors.
Persons living in high-crime neighborhoods or involved in illegal behaviors may acquire a gun for protection. The risk comes not necessarily from the presence of the gun in the house but from these types of environmental factors and exposures"[/INDENT]
So, the singular source for the knowledge of whether a gun was in the home could be compromised, the gun used to murder the person could have been brought into the home by the murderer, the study authors did not control for any risk imparted by “neighborhood characteristics or the decedent’s previous involvement in other violent or illegal behaviors” and it is those factors, not necessarily the “simple” presence of a gun in the home, which elevates risk.
And you, in all your professional expertise, just continue to double down on your misreading / mischaracterization / misrepresentation of this study.
In a discussion of what this study says or doesn’t say? Yes, absolutely!
From your reading of the study, WHO are the people who said, “they kept, or did not keep, guns in the home, and discussed how those guns were stored”? Again, were the study authors in contact with “the other side”?
Now you are just twisting yourself into a pretzel . . . If you think it was the proxy respondents, who the study authors relied on to determine if a gun was in the home, were the actual “gun owners”, how does that help your argument?
This discussion is about this study and the conclusions you have dishonestly made from it, not what you feel other studies say. Try to get this one right before you start misrepresenting others . . . And to think that you actually claim that you are, “able to read scientific articles without needing to run to others for help”.
Let’s revisit your claim, arrived at your meticulous reading and deep understanding of the study:
[INDENT]“The study demonstrated clearly that gun owners - people who kept a gun at their residence - were twice as likely to be killed as people who did not. It is that simple.”[/INDENT]
But the study actually says that, “the gun in the home may not have been the gun used in the death” and that, “it is certainly plausible that someone brought a
gun into the home” and that, “[a]mong those living alone at the time of death, there was no association between the presence of a firearm in the home and method of homicide” and that, “the association between a gun in the home and risk of a violent death may be related to other factors that we were unable to control for in our analysis” thus, “[t]he risk comes not necessarily from the presence of the gun in the house but from these types of environmental factors and exposures”.
So, how is it fatuous for me to reject your position and say that the 2 to 1 risk is not assignable to “simply” all gun owners because
- the study makes no attempt to derive or assign actual “ownership” of the gun and warns against making that assumption
- gun “owners” who live alone, have zero risk elevation
- the association between a gun in the home and risk of a violent death may be related to other factors (“certain neighborhood characteristics or the decedent’s previous involvement in other violent or illegal behaviors”) that the study authors were unable (or unwilling) to control for and that it is those factors, NOT SIMPLY THE PRESENCE OF A GUN that enhance the risk of death.
Again, you, in all your professional expertise, just continue to double down on your misreading / mischaracterization / misrepresentation of this study.
Let me count the ways the left exhibits intellectual dishonesty just to serve a political agenda . . .
[Quote=From the Methods section of the study; very very easy to find]
Over 90 percent of the proxy respondents were relatives, mostly immediate family members (spouse, parent, child, or sibling).
[/quote]
Abatis is waging a very odd attack on the study. Somehow, asking relatives about the household circumstances of someone who died is invalid; he keeps bringing up communication with the dead.
He seems confused about the statement that the risk of homicide is double that for gun owners than for those who do not own guns.
He also does not understand aspects of the findings that undermine his interpretation, such as the possibility that relatives of homicide victims might exaggerate environmental factors, and the lack of elevated risk specific to firearms among those living alone.
I have tried to engage him on this issue, with nothing but increasing walls of text that show lower levels of comprehension of the issues. I learned a long time ago to cut my losses regarding my time with particular people on this matter.
Nonetheless, he has a point: failing to account for whether the decedent’s possession of a gun was material to the circumstances of their death is a major failing.
You said family members and people the decedent knows as if "“people the decedent knows” are people that they invite over for dinner. Now you are double counting family members. Who are these non-family members that the decedent knows that are killing them?
What I am struggling to grasp is why people think that this correlation between gun ownership and being murdered is tantamount to causality when this is clearly not true.
I bring up living alone and renting and their high correlation to being murdered to point out that while the presence of guns in the home might be the cause of some deaths that might not have occurred absent the guns in the home, many if not most of those deaths would have occurred regardless of whether those guns were in the home.
How many of those gun deaths were committed by wifebeaters, men with restraining orders or other prohibited persons? How much of the correlation between gun ownership and being murdered is really a correlation between gang membership and being murdered or being a battered wife and being murdered?
Gun owners are not fungible. the gangbanger is likely to be a gun owner but their risk profile is not fungible with the fat, middle aged, suburban, white male gun owner that you keep harping on about. And these statistics are being used to make boring suburban dudes think that the people in their homes suffer a significantly increased risk of being murdered because they have a gun and go to the gun range on the weekends. And thats simply bullshit.
It makes the study seem like propaganda rather than science.
I have made no statements attacking the study.
I am attacking the conclusions you have made from the study.
I have been citing the study to demonstrate that it does not say what you want it to say.
I’m not confused at all by the statement. I have been asking you why you keep repeating it and why you claim this study makes that statement and draws that conclusion. This study avoids making any such claim, choosing to discuss the “presence of a gun” any gun, not necessarily “owned” by the deceased at the time of death and perhaps not even the gun that caused the death.
How does that "undermine my interpretation? The study lists questionable proxy recall as a reason why proxy interviews are less than reliable. Besides, the study made no attempt to control for those environmental factors, exaggerated or not.
Seriously? The existence of a “lack of elevated risk” for any segment of gun owners goes against you as you have applied this 2 to 1 risk elevation to ***all ***gun owners without caveat or condition.
That any statistically significant segment of “gun owners” experience no risk elevation demonstrates that you are the one fabricating a conclusion. It is why the study authors made the prudent decision to avoid the “gun owner” moniker and refused to assign the elevated risk simply to “gun ownership”.
And you continue to invent and assign a conclusion to this study which the study itself avoids and warns against making.
You mean opponents who flay away the few shreds of flesh remaining on your self-aggrandizing posts?
Well, I guess this is Buh-bye . . .
With the exception of Lumpy, who tilts at windmills at times, you will note that gun rights activists here largely ignore Hentor. He has no serious, or even honest, points to bring to the discussion. You can continue smacking him around, but to what end? He’ll be the same lying sack of shit he’s always been, and you will have wasted lifespan you’ll never get back that you could have used more enjoyably.
I love that a group of people fundamentally ignorant about statistics and science can parade that ignorance around and then high five one another for it. It’s not surprising, of course, but it is amusing.
They’ll always see what they need to see, because stats and science will always pale in contrast to bone-rattling fear.
Warning. You should know better.