# Studying Firearm Related Violence **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 4, 2014, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studying-firearm-related-violence/689994 "2014-06-04T04:48:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 48
**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:** [June 6, 2014, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studying-firearm-related-violence/689994/48 "2014-06-06T15:52:06Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I don’t know. Hence the “I’m all ears” bit. I’m not clear, do you not accept or discount all studies that use or rely on survey data where information is self reported? > [@RickJay](#): > > The express purpose of the existence of the CDC is that it"conducts critical science **and provides health information** that protects our nation against expensive and dangerous health threats, and responds when these arise." So what it is doing in publishing reports like this is, in fact, a fundamental part of its purpose. I don’t have any issue with the report that was published and linked to in the OP as a result of the Obama executive order. I did link to previous studies that were conducted through the CDC (funding at least) that were suspect. Do you think that violent crime and firearm violence should be treated like other diseases? That’s the approach they had taken in the past. I don’t think firearm and other violent crime are like diseases at all. This isn’t to say the CDC doesn’t have a place in examining data - I think they do. I’m not sure if you agree with that but if I think back at another example relating to health care. I used to think the government shouldn’t be involved in health care, and that traditional drivers of supply and demand would control the market. When I came to the realization that health care was not like other goods and that the market for it behaved very differently was when I re-evaluated my position. > [@steronz](#): > > Something else. I’m saying that we can’t know how many DGUs represent a life saved or serious injury prevented. If we’re trying to figure out how many lives are saved by seatbelts every year, we don’t simply count up the number of accidents in which the driver was belted and call it good, because we don’t know if the belt played a role in all of them; certainly there are unbelted people who survive, after all. Is it fair to say that conversely you believe that DGUs should not be treated as zero, and that they do in fact occur? In your hypothetical, if a mugger would only take a person’s wallet and not otherwise harm them, is it a DGU if a person shoots that mugger and the mugger dies? This is assuming perfect knowledge for the sake of sussing out definitions, in reality you’d never be able to know this. > [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > In fact, and I’m repeating myself on these boards, Hemenway used survey data on DGUs that included exposition from the respondents regarding the incident. He assembled a panel of judges (in the legal sense of judges) to evaluate the descriptions. Half of the DGUs in the sample were **deemed illegal** by the panel. [http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/6/4/263.full](http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/6/4/263.full) (my bold) Actually, they were deemed “probably illegal”. Courts, jury, you know. Let’s look at how that was done: > [@](#): > > Self defense gun use incidents were summarized and sent to five criminal court judges (from California, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts) who were assured anonymity). So, states that have some of the most restrictive gun laws, anonymous judges. > [@](#): > > This research was supported in part by the grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute of Justice, the Open Society Institute, and the Joyce Foundation. From the wiki: > [@](#): > > Since 2003, the Joyce Foundation has paid grants totaling over $12 million to gun control organizations.[1][13] The largest single grantee has been the Violence Policy Center, which received $4,154,970[13] between 1996 and 2006, and calls for an outright ban on handguns, semi-automatic and other firearms, and substantial restrictions on gun owners. This is how questions of bias come about. Surveys conducted by the Census Bureau , with the lowest estimates of more than 19 studies that estimated DGU, and all of it is suspect. But research by anti gun groups using anonymous folks is treated as totally valid. If the NRA conducted a study and came up with opposite results, would you be just as accepting? Not only that, this really does speak directly to the previous assertion that without CDC funding then gun research would cease. The budget eliminated from the CDC was less than $3M at the time. Here we have one group, Joyce, granting over $12M over a period of time. I accept that not all self reported incidents of DGU were legal, and people use firearms for nefarious purposes at times. But **ALL** studies point to large numbers ( \> 100K) of DGUs - from the NCVS to Kleck, to the report linked in the OP. > [@](#): > > Additionally, the context of some responses calls them into question on their face. For example: 50 self-defensive gun uses in 5 years! Does that person live in the OK Corral? That seems high. I would also think a single store owner wouldn’t be involved in four shootouts killing 5 different people over a period of four years. [Maybe it’s an outlier.](http://articles.latimes.com/1992-02-21/local/me-2663_1_watch-shop-owner) 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? --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/studying-firearm-related-violence/689994)._