# Gun toting soccer mom dead. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 8, 2009, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-toting-soccer-mom-dead/513115 "2009-10-08T22:12:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 263
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-toting-soccer-mom-dead/513115/263 "2009-10-12T18:02:52Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > What about your promise to return to the thread to address your unsubstantiated and untrue claims about the Kellermann article, or how you intend to handwave away the other articles that come to the same conclusion (that is to say that those with a firearm in the home are at greater risk to die due to violent crime or due to suicide than those without? > > I’ve been looking forward to your post, and I am disappointed that you intend to leave your promise unfulfilled. No, you haven’t been looking forward to my post, my good douchebag. You’ve been a part of threads many times in the past which debunked Kellerman, and you don’t care. You don’t even care that Kellerman retracted the study you like to take as truth because it was grossly inaccurate. His “evidence” fits what you want to believe. So I wasn’t that enthusiastic about following up my post. Poor form, I admit. But it was tangenital and I was too lazy to do the work so I just left the thread instead. That, and there’s a thread [concurrent with this one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11652089) that focuses more on the issue than this thread does. I should’ve pointed that out. From [that thread:](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11652089&highlight=kellerman#post11652089) > [@Should this man be charged with a crime?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-this-man-be-charged-with-a-crime/513342/39): > > But whining by gun-control websites, that will suit you, will it? Do your own bloody research. Kellerman actually withdrew his original study and resubmitted a modified study that revised his original estimate by an order of magnitude. As **Martin Hyde** has stated, none of the studies and metastudies cited by either side have really held up to statistical rigor and scrutiny. > > Are you congenitally incapable of reading comprehension? I didn’t say that “accidental shootings shouldn’t count.” However, Kellerman conflated legitimate and justifiable uses of a firearm against intrusion or violence with the use of a firearm against a household member or “associate” (which, under the definition applied, could be one gang-banger plugging another one over a drug deal) by an aggressor or in a negligent or accidental context. And Kellerman ignores unreported uses of a firearm to deter crime–reasonable, as the survey documentation for such used by Keck, et al is suspect at best–but tends to undervalue the benefit of owning a firearm as a defensive weapon. From past threads: [Here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6092854&postcount=23) > [@Anti-gun control folks, a question](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gun-control-folks-a-question/300967/23): > > Then we should also all be aware that this misperception comes from a hgorribly (that’s right, “_hgorribly_”) flawed study by Arthur Kellerman published in the New England Journal of medicine in 1996. And what Kellerman said wasn’t actually “family members & friends,” but “58% of murder victims are killed by either relatives or acquaintances.” Notably, lumped in with the “acquaintances” were rival gang members known to their slayers. and Kellerman’s statistics were generated from a mere 43 deaths in two cities infamous for gang activity during a peak period of same. His selection of these cities, loosely and unconventionally defined terminology and the period “studied,” are an excellent example of choosing data to fit a preconceived notion. The results of this “study” were preordained. [Here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=4790410&postcount=165) > [@John Harrison](#): > > That link got much of its information from the 1993 Arthur Kellerman NEJM study, which showed correlation but not causation. It also found a stronger correlation between living alone and/or renting a residence and being killed, than it did between owning a firearm and being killed. (not to mention that about half these deaths were not by a firearm) > > Therefore, for the greater good of society, no one should be allowed to rent a residence or live alone. [And here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6094571&postcount=148) > [@Weapons ban lapsing causes no panic, except in fearmongers.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weapons-ban-lapsing-causes-no-panic-except-in-fearmongers/300863/148): > > The “State Director” was quoting Dr. Arthur Kellerman, who collected statistics of one crime-ridden county in Washington state over a few months and then drew an erroneous (and completely discredited in the Academic community) conclusion of “43 times more likely.” Anti-gun types have used that number relentlessly and shamelessly to scare people just like you with. And [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6096310&postcount=58) > [@Anti-gun control folks, a question](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gun-control-folks-a-question/300967/58): > > The actual number includes ‘persons known to the shooter’ or ‘acquaintances’ which includes things like rival drug dealers and gang members. It also relies heavily on the _very_ flawed Kellerman study in which he looked at only one county in Washington state, a high crime area, and then claimed his number accurately reflected the entire country. [and here…](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7307505&postcount=3) > [@Home Invasion Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/home-invasion-questions/353044/3): > > Doubtful. Also doubtful is whether you’ll be able find a definitive answer. I can say that the two most common citations for a statement similar to this given by gun control groups are based on studies for which the methodology is questionable. > > In the first, it is claimed that a gun in the home is “43 times more likely to kill a family member than a crimimal.” This comes from a 1986 study by Arthur Kellerman published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The deaths in the study include suicides. In fact, the suicides comprise a whopping 86% of the total deaths (36 of 43) included here. There are many, many studies over many regions worldwide which show that suicide rates show no positive correlation with the availability of guns. > > In the other widely distributed claim, it is said that "58% of murder victims are killed by either relatives or acquaintances. This claim comes out of the same flawed Kellerman study. In this instance “relatives and acquaintances” can mean: participants in a drug deal; a prostitute & her/his customer; cab drivers & their fares. The claim also glosses over the fact that over 70% of the deceased among those murdered have prior convictions for criminal activity. And [so on…](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7622661&postcount=118) > [@More guns, more murders](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-guns-more-murders/365743/118): > > Fortunately, I don’t need Kleck, or Lott, or anyone else to discredit Kellerman’s work. That guy **always** includes criminals known to each other in his studies when calculating the number of people killed by their “friends or relatives.” He also includes deaths which happen _during the commission of other crimes_. He, himself, admits to using such constructs in order to artifically increase the numbers of deaths he can count. Kellerman is also known for using non-random samples. And some very limited data sets which, by many, aren’t believed to be large, or diverse, enough to extract valid statistics from. The guy’s a hack. I bring those up because they’ve done the leg work in the past of debunking it on these boards and I was lazy. But if you want further detailed methodological criticisms of Kellerman, start [here](http://rkba.org/research/suter/med-lit.html) and [here](http://gunowners.org/fs0401.htm). Both of those debunk Kellerman specifically, and other studies in which the gun issue has been dealt with with faulty methodology. The Kellerman “study” was essentially his effort to cherry pick data and suit his criteria to support the conclusion he was going for. He found a place with a small sample of deaths that heavily skewed towards crime and suicide, and then attempted to mislead people into thinking that these instances of crime and suicide were the result generally of the inherent danger of common gun owners keeping guns. The vast majority of deaths in this case are suicide, which automatically makes it bullshit. There’s little to no correlation between the availability of guns and suicide rate, so the guns didn’t cause the suicides. Certainly people don’t sell the “43 times more likely to kill a loved one or acquantaince” bullshit line as “if you commit suicide you’ll probably use a gun”. Others are crimes from an area cherry picked with many gang related deaths, but because these deaths were amongst gang rivals who knew each other, they were acquaintenaces and hence you can go ahead and group up the idea of one gang member shooting another in a driveby with some guy shooting his wife by accident. Same thing! The study is so flawed due to the way the data was categorized and analyzed, from the cherry picked nature of it, and the small sample size that it showed living alone or renting rather than owning your property is far more correlated with death than gun ownership. Why aren’t people saying “OMG, if you live in an apartment or you live alone you’re like 50x more likely to be killed!”? Well.. because there’s not a big “anti-living alone” lobby out there that picks its evidence based on what it wants to believe. But surely you can understand that if the results of a study say that living alone or renting has a greater than 43:1 increased likelihood of dying, there’s probably a methodological flaw in there somewhere, right? Read the two articles I linked above, they do more detailed debunking. I would say “I hope you find this information useful”, but we both know that you won’t. You aren’t interested in getting at the truth, and you will be repeating the same Kellerman bullshit the next thread we talk about the issue. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-toting-soccer-mom-dead/513115)._