Studying Firearm Related Violence

You know, I’ve spent a lot of time responding to your various issues, concerns and objectives. I critiqued a response from Lott for you without any reply or response on your part. I explained some issues regarding the modeling of count data. I explained in detail matters related to grant funding. You have nothing to say, except to make the most trivially stupid comments in response (e.g., “community?”; “probably illegal?”)

Your response here is obviously willful ignorance. There’s little point in giving you the time to respond. I will explain the very simple logic here, and I predict you will give no indication of getting it.

When you don’t ask anything about the details of an incident of DGU, you cannot have any sense about what it is that people are calling defensive gun use.

When you do get contextual information, you can evaluate the incident further. If you do not have expertise in criminal law, you can consult with a criminal court judge. Recognizing the potential for an individual judge to see things differently, you can even arrange for a panel of judges and can rely on their consensus. That’s what Hemenway did.

So, getting the evaluation of judges reveals that half of the DGUs obtained in that survey describe probably illegal behavior.

Trying to impugn the results by suggesting that the judges were anonymous or that it was funded by the Joyce Foundation are just a desperate efforts at knee-jerk negation without any basis in fact. The only outcome of publishing the names of the judges would be to have them get harassed by a bunch of gun nut douchebags.

Now I have to explain the definition of the word “objective” to you?

Gun nuts have shot people turning around in their driveway, knocking on the door looking for directions or trick or treating. They overestimate threats dramatically. I’m very sure they would suggest that those people were “trying to kick in my door”.

I’m also certain that they interpret benign sounds as intruders. I’m certain that this results in many circumstances of hearing an intruder, getting their gun, and not finding any intruder subsequently. Thus, a successful defensive gun use.

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.