Shall we change the subject, then, to recreational drug use and legalization of marijuana?
What are folks thinking on DGU with regard to animals?
We have Black Bears where I live, and twice I have used a firearm to scare them off by shooting into a tree near where they sat. In both cases, banging pots and pans, yelling, clapping hands or whatever did not scare them.
It’s a bit of a conundrum. Black Bears really aren’t’ that dangerous. Probably less so than the moose that graze in the yard. But bears have ripped my shed door off twice.
Is scaring off a bear with a firearm a DGU? I don’t think I would report it as one if asked. But on the other hand…
Perhaps someone can correct me but the survey results seem to suggest the actual increase in the possibility of murder based on having a gun in the house is 1.6, not 2.7, as is widely stated. It looks like the number 2.7 is for any gun kept loaded (and unlocked?).
And, it’s less for rifles and shotguns (.8 and .7, which in fact is similar to having bars on the windows, an alarm, etc.). Which seems to suggest (“An odds ratio of 1.0 represents no extra risk.”) that you’re less likely to have a murder in the house if you have an assault rifle or shotgun…is that correct? The murder rate is higher if you have a dog than a rifle or shotgun according to this data.
Or am I reading this data incorrectly?
That’s how I read it. Having a rifle or shotgun in the home was protective. I wonder if it’s because their easier to shoot or have more stopping power than a handgun?
It’s easier for a hangun to be misused and shoot yourself. It’s kinda hard to accidentely shoot yourself with a rifle or shotgun.
That’s true, so the study is counting accidental deaths?
I understand that is the conclusion they came to. I did not see how they collected data that doesn’t exist. In most places, there are no records of what homes have guns in them until something bad happens. So the results are going to be slanted. Very slanted.
There is no record anywhere that says I have guns in my home, but I do.
The links you posted didn’t seem to go into the methodology, but it was late when I read over them, perhaps I missed it. Can you quote where they do?
It might be more productive.
You’re talking about the crude odds ratio? The table that tells a more complete story, and that reflects the focus of the study, is “Murder risk, adjusted ratio.”
Anyway, the answer to why rifles and shotguns show a lower univariate (uncontrolled) risk is probably that they are less likely to be kept loaded and unlocked. (Accidents were not in the scope of the study.) The risk boils down to getting shot by somebody close with an unlocked, loaded handgun. Which is, of course, exactly the sort of weapon often kept for protection.
I drink. I take risks like everybody does. But we’re not talking about the risks associated with drinking.
We already went over this, but I’ll try saying it in other words: Kellerman’s study was of people killed in or around private homes, not just homes with guns. The finding was that having a gun in the home increased risk-- a risk that overcame any benefit that stemmed from using a gun as a deterrent without firing it.
It might help if everybody asked the question, if firearms are useful for home protection and self defense, why did the NRA lobby against the question being studied? The reason is similar to why tobacco companies attempted to hide the risk of lung cancer associated with their products: a vested interest.
It’s telling that this whole issue is emotionally based, since more people die due to the abuse of alcohol than due to the abuse of guns. 8 times as many. Yet nobody is frantically trying to solve that problem.
And again, their methodology for determining this was what?
From what you just said, If a gun is used in defense, without being fired, it isn’t counted in their numbers because nobody was killed.
So they are only including the cases where guns were not used in defense without being fired (resulting in nobody being killed) You don’t understand why this skews the results? It renders the entire study pretty much meaningless.
That begs the question – you haven’t established that they did lobby against the question being studied. Maybe they did, but I don’t care why the NRA does anything. I think their leadership is mostly nuts.
What, you never heard of MADD? In my lifetime drunk driving has received an increasing amount of attention, has been more and more harshly punished, and measures such as random stops have been introduced.
I don’t think I can explain it any more simply, sorry. Maybe somebody else will have a go.
Correct.
“If firearms deter, scare away or wound intruders, then the murder victimization rate of gun owners should be lower than non-gun owners.”
Already cited in this thread.
There are any number of links to the story about the NRA’s efforts to stifle research, apparently on the presumption that they would not like the results. You have the Google, yes?
But flip the perspective. Why wouldn’t there be such studies, from a public health perspective? Any reason we don’t want to know this stuff? Why would anyone be against such a thing? I don’t follow this issue all that closely, but I don’t recall hearing any such results. Am I mistaken, do they lie thick upon the ground?
Yes, and yet it is still a much bigger problem. One that just isn’t popular to talk about at the moment
I’m not asking you to explain it simply. i’m asking for details, actual facts rather than “they say it, so it must be so”
Yes, they said that. They didn’t back it up as to how they arrived at that conclusion.
I didn’t make the statement. Not my job to google it.
Because how would you study it? No agency I’m aware of compiles stats on why a crime didn’t happen. How many times is unreported? There isn’t a check box on a police report for “homeowner scared them away with a gun”. You could go through millions of police reports, I hope most of them wound up in the report somewhere.
Police departments keep tabs on number of homicides, rapes, shootings…but they don’t on someone scaring off an intruder.
Now, if I was taking part in this discussion in a certain way, this might be my cue to ask for a cite, not read it, repeatedly ask for the cite to be explained to me, and keep that up until the person I was talking to gave up. Anyway, ever wonder why guns are being discussed at the moment? If you’d like to discuss drugs and alcohol, try the New Thread button, located at the upper left of the forum view.
Then go look at the details. They’re written down for you. You can say that it’s not your job to use Google. It is, actually, if you’re going to take more of a part than providing anecdotes and demanding to be fed with a spoon.
You claiming to not understand or not being able to understand the method does not invalidate the method.
I’ve read your cite, I understood your cite. Your cite is not as conclusive as you believe it to be.
I made no such claim. I understand the article you linked to. I read it, it does not provide detailed information as to how they arrived at the conclusions that they did. The conclusions they arrived at are not logical given the information they said they have. I asked you if you have further information, and you just keep repeating the article as if it proved something. it doesn’t.
If they are only including incidents in which someone was actually killed, then they are eliminating most of the cases that gun would be successfully used in self defense.
They cannot therefore conclude that “If firearms deter, scare away or wound intruders, then the murder victimization rate of gun owners should be lower than non-gun owners.”
That does not logically follow. There are way to many variables.
I grew up in a home with all the guns loaded all the time. Seven children. Dad always said, “An unloaded gun is useless.” No accidents. We all knew where the weapons were.
I am 69.
Many friends & neighbors did the same.
My home has always been this way.
I can absolutely prove that NOT having a weapon did not keep my daughter from being murdered by a combination of strangulation & drowning when she was 18 years & 6 weeks old in her first apartment.
I can absolutely prove that not having a weapon did not prevent one of my sisters from being raped twice. Same guy. After first arrest, he said at the hearing he would attack her again if he could.
They ( DA ) & ( police would not provide even extra drive by checks. ) let him out on bail. We protected her in our homes for three weeks. First hours she was back in her own house he attacked her again. Great job once again system.
When I was 16 and still living at home, during dinner one evening a crazy guy kicked in the front door and charged the kitchen. My Dad intercepted him as he crossed the living room and the fight did not stop until I I had one of the shotguns from the gun closet stuck in his ear.
I am very glad they were already loaded and not locked away.
In 1959, While on a date, we were the victims of an attempted robbery, car jack or attempted rape on my date. Never wait to find out for sure, used a firearm to dissuade them. We were sorta in a bad part of town.
We lived on the S/E side of Tulsa OK at the time, ( Not a hot bed of gang or the normal bad stuff even today with more than a million population ) the good part of a pretty good town without much real violence … ( race riots of 1921 not withstanding… I’m not that old )
Those were the ‘bad’ ones. Several more DGU’s over the years.
Now that is just me.
I will work much harder to keep my right to lethal defense than you will to take it away from me.
I have for years tried to be understand of those who say my opinion on gun control does not count because I am a victim and victims should have no say on the subject because we can’t be objective.
I am no longer understanding. I have found that most of the anti- gun or more gun control advocates, when talked to person to person and gotten to display their real reasons , it is fear. Not of normal citizens with weapons but their own inability or unwillingness to protect their own.
I know of no survey so don’t bother saying, “Not me.” or ‘cite’ I did say it was my observation & experience.
Now I know I will be cast as an exception or outlier but… Since these threads are mostly flagged under “No cost is to great to save even one life.” ( wanna get into cars or aviation again? ) I want to know why your children are more important then mine?
I have had a CCW permit for many years, plus all the above and not one thing that has been trotted out as common place and statics say, applies to me and my extended family. There are over 100 blood & marriage relatives that we know personally and keep track of living all over the world that have not one of the concerns that are being bandies about. None of then were surveyed either.
If I told you what my Mothers Mother could do at a full gallop sitting sidesaddle on a horse with a six gun you would have to call me a lair.
Life is not sacred, never was, never will be.
I see written , “But we have to try.”
Like we are not trying? What you want to try already has been, and it made no difference.
Isn’t that pretty much the same as saying that outside of anectdotal hearsay, you haven’t got much?
And theres a GD thread on that whole “research” thingy. Links and stuff. Joe Bob **'luc **says “Check it out!”
So you’re saying that if firearms scare away or deter intruders that gun owners would be murdered more often than non-gun owners. Which side are you arguing?
Well, if we’re sharing anecdotes about guns in homes, they’re not hard to find.
Martha Gonzalez, shot and killed by her husband while packing to leave him.
Bobbi Thompson, shot and killed by her husband near their home.
Lisa Greer was shot and killed by her husband in their home.
Mayra Martines was found shot dead in her home in what police believe was a murder-suicide.
Again, just trying for some sense of clarity here, not necessarily arguing with the results. If the numbers are 2.7 and not 1.6 or .8 or .9, then fine, but it’s still unclear to me how they arrived at the 2.7 adjusted ratio. I don’t see any justification for it, and even the spread that seems to be used in the original article (1.6 - 4.4) has no justification and does not seem representative of the data. Basically, one article is an interpretative summary of another interpretative summary, and there are no clear explanations of how the specific data points were arrived at. But, I’m not a statistician, so perhaps someone with more of a background can explain the approach here.
In any event, it’s all very frustrating. Kleck and Gertz (who claim to have begun the analysis with no preconceived notions about guns and are yet villified by gun control activist), are criticized by Hemenway. They respond justifying their study, and as far as I can tell no one has responded to their defense of Hemenway’s criticism. Still, one side takes Kelck and Gertz as gospel, the other, Hemenway without even acknowledging the critical discussion. How about some actual debate on these studies?
Forget what you think about DGUs and guns, which is the more convincing study (and feel free to throw Kellerman in here too) and why?