Originally posted by lazybones
Well, we wouldn't expect a perfect correlation here. Gun ownership in the US is mostly driven by a small minority of hoarders who buy and own several firearms. And of course, it only takes 1 firearm to commit a homicide, so any additional guns a person owns on top of the first isn't going to bump up the homicide rate as much, but it will bump up the gun ownership stat consistently. Graphs like this also gloss over the miscellany of other factors that influence the figures. Harvard academics who accounted for other such factors seemed to find clear and consistent links between gun prevalence and both gun and overall homicide, in a series of literature reviews and studies they conducted across states and high income nations:https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/
Oh, of course, there are myriad other factors that homicide rates, it is quite funny that over 83% of the studies which account for 5 or more confounding factors find that gun ownership either has no effect on crime or decreases it. You posted six studies each of them possessing a flaw.
The first one is a literature review conducted in 2004. The initial problem with using this meta-analysis is the age. Countless data is posted every year on this subject. The second more glaring flaw is the lack of accountment for good and bad data. Many of the studies do not account for crucial variables such as the casual order issue, the number of variables, and sample size. There has been only one meta-analysis which has combed through the data under this rubric. To quote the review,
Prior reviews of the literature have arrived at radically different conclusions about the effect of gun levels on crime rates: (1) more guns cause more crime (Hepburn & Hemenway, 2004), (2) more guns do not cause more violence, and may even reduce it (Kates & Mauser, 2007), or (3) we do not know one way or the other (National Research Council, 2004). None of these reviews identified the methodologically strongest studies and compared their findings with those of weaker studies
When accounting for all variables mentioned Kleck found,
Purpose: This paper reviews 41 English-language studies that tested the hypothesis that higher gun prevalence levels cause higher crime rates, especially higher homicide rates. Methods: Each study was assessed as to whether it solved or reduced each of three critical methodological problems: (1) whether a validated measure of gun prevalence was used, (2) whether the authors controlled for more than a handful of possible confounding variables, and (3) whether the researchers used suitable causal order procedures to deal with the possibility of crime rates affecting gun rates, instead of the reverse. Results: It was found that most studies did not solve any of these problems, and that research that did a better job of addressing these problems was less likely to support the more-guns-cause-more crime hypothesis. Indeed, none of the studies that solved all three problems supported the hypothesis. Conclusions: Technically weak research mostly supports the hypothesis, while strong research does not. It must be tentatively concluded that higher gun ownership rates do not cause higher crime rates, including homicide rates.
The second study mentioned does not corroborate newer and better research, but still possesses its own flaws. Additionally, it includes zero confounding variables and does not account for the causal order issue.
The third study was not even causative and naturally did not account for the casual order issue nor does it corroborate newer and causative research. The major flaw is the way they take advantage of surveys. To quote The Journal of Criminal Justice,
. This is misleading because it takes advantage of the genuinely strong correlation of PSG and survey measures across areas (Kleck, 2004) while concealing the nonexistent correlation of PSG and survey measures across time. Kovandzic et al. (2013) directly demonstrated that all of the correlation between PSG and survey measures of gun prevalence, when cross-area and cross-temporal data are mixed together, is in fact due to cross-area correlation. Thus, the supposed validity tests of Duggan and the rest actually indicated nothing about the ability of PSG to track changes over time in gun prevalence.
The fourth study mentioned found "no association between gun prevalence and non-firearm homicide." Unfortunately, it did not account for the casual order issue and had a tiny frame of reference 2001-2003. And, of course, there is no relationship between overall homicide rate and gun control laws.
The fifth study is an absolute joke. While national studies point to the idea that gun ownership increases suicides, international studies paint a far different picture. http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf https://www.nap.edu/read/10881/chapter/1
The WHO found that gun suicides are the 5th most likely cause of suicides. Despite the US's high gun ownership, it is not even close to leading the world in suicides.
But the national evidence is not as definitive as Harvard purports.
The National Academies of the Sciences analyzed national gun studies regarding suicides and gun ownership and found that when you account for casual order and covariates, the relationship between the two variables becomes less clear. https://www.nap.edu/read/10881/chapter/9#160(page 155) According to the criminologist Gary Kleck, there at least 13 peer-reviewed published studies which find no correlation between suicides and gun ownership. He details these studies in his book: Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control These results are more congruent with survey data, as the CATO Institute finds that if you remove gun people will simply use another method to kill themselves. Due to the conflicting national results, we should rely on the international studies. A National Academy of Sciences reports finding that relationship between gun ownership and suicide "is not found in comparisons across countries."
The sixth study posted is likely correct, but has little value. Given the fact that concealed carry reduces police homicides, one would have to calculate which has a more significant effect.
Originally posted by lazybones
I think we've discussed this before, but the table you post here is very misleading. The only reason why Norway and other such countries rank above the US on that table is because they've had a very small handful of anomalous mass shootings, which bump the per-capita rate up significantly due to those countries small populations. Those countries do not suffer from a consistent trend of mass shootings, but mostly one-off or infrequent atrocities.[/B]
Hence why I posted a chart which looks at mass shooting frequency.
Anyway, here's a counter-chart which adjusts by median from Snopes 😱
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/united-states-lower-death-shootings/
oh no. 😂
Originally posted by FreshestSlice
"This is what's different, Fresh."Damn, I think I just did the impossible, guys.
And for the record, the places with the most intervention have the most mass shootings. Almost like you don't know what you're talking about, Sel.
Got statistics to back that up, aside from DS0's ridiculously biased source?
Comparing the United States to countries in Europe is utterly ridiculous, especially in such a small time frame. The entire purpose of doing that is to allow statistical outliers to show up, while allowing the vast size of the US to essentially reduce the outliers you'd expect from giving small countries a small time window.
If you compare US states to European countries, for example, which compensates for this size difference somewhat, Connecticut blows every country on DS0's list out of the ****ing water, as does Washington D.C. (though not technically a state). South Carolina would edge out Albania but fall behind Macedonia, as would Oregan, Colorado and Washington. Nevada slips in just below Albania, followed by Slovakia, then Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Suddenly the US seems to start winning again, shocker. This is without even going into how their methodology for choosing what counts as a Mass Shooting is slightly US biased.
Again though, I'm open to whatever evidence you want to present, as long as it's not biased statistical methodology peddled by a gun rights advocating economist 😬
Originally posted by Beniboybling
Anyway, here's a counter-chart which adjusts by median from Snopes 😱https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/united-states-lower-death-shootings/
oh no. 😂
1. LMAO, the chart is not even looking at the same metric as the one I posted. I posted a chart which looked at the mass-shooting frequency, not morality.
2. The data table is incredibly misleading. The issue with looking at median mortality is the size disparity. While Snopes does adjust per capita, there could be a year where Norway, for example, has no mass-shootings. This would severely affect the numbers. If we are going to compare across a yearly time-frame, we should look compare European Countries to States. Or compare the European Union to the United States. The countries which had a mass-shooting had a population of an average population of 23.5 million where has the total US population is 325.7 million. To compare the two Unions side-by-side, only 11 out of the 15 countries in Europe experienced just one year with a mass-shooting between 2009-2015. The same trend holds true for the American States whereby 14 of the 18 states which had a mass-shooting only did so during one year between 2009-2015. So, let's compare medians by States and by Unions. While it is true, that the norm mass-shooting rate for each European country is zero, the same thing is true for every State sans one, California. Looking at average deaths among states and European countries, we find that six of the ten worst are European countries.
Additionally, if we compare the United States's mean to all of Europe, for four of the seven years, the total number of deaths from mass public shootings is higher in these European countries than in the US. The Crime Prevention Center makes a very sound point about Snopes Norway comparison,
Norway has a population of about 5 million people. Seven states in the US have populations between 4.4 million (Kentucky) and 5.7 million (Wisconsin). The other states are Louisiana (4.7 million), Alabama (4.9 million), South Carolina (4.9 million), Colorado (5.5 million), and Minnesota (5.5 million). Three of those states had no mass public shootings. The other four each had one mass public shooting, just like Norway. The big difference is that those seven states had a total of 33 deaths from mass public shootings, while Norway had 69. Even if you look at the mass public shootings in all the ten states between 4 and 7 million, the total number of deaths from mass public shootings is 48, with a total population of 78.5 million. Their total population is 15.5 times greater than Norway’s. Does Snopes.com really want to argue that Norway should only be compared to the US as a whole?
Overall, I think the mean has more value than the median due to the size disparity, and it gives a more accurate depiction of mass-shootings over a more protracted time-horizon(not that this even matters as I posted a chart which looked at mass-shooting frequency). Beni, the definition of insanity, is, "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Every single time you respond to me, you repeatedly get swatted like a bug. Whether it be healthcare, Ben Shapiro, or Gun Control, you never respond. I can only conclude that you are either insane or enjoy being wrong.
Originally posted by Selenial
Got statistics to back that up, aside from DS0's ridiculously biased source?Comparing the United States to countries in Europe is utterly ridiculous, especially in such a small time frame. The entire purpose of doing that is to allow statistical outliers to show up, while allowing the vast size of the US to essentially reduce the outliers you'd expect from giving small countries a small time window.
If you compare US states to European countries, for example, which compensates for this size difference somewhat, Connecticut blows every country on DS0's list out of the ****ing water, as does Washington D.C. (though not technically a state). South Carolina would edge out Albania but fall behind Macedonia, as would Oregan, Colorado and Washington. Nevada slips in just below Albania, followed by Slovakia, then Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Suddenly the US seems to start winning again, shocker. This is without even going into how their methodology for choosing what counts as a Mass Shooting is slightly US biased.
Again though, I'm open to whatever evidence you want to present, as long as it's not biased statistical methodology peddled by a gun rights advocating economist 😬
I was comparing frequency, not mortality, but regardless you are wrong. OUT OF THE FUCING WATER HAHAHAHA! Sel, what are you talking about. Connecticut has fewer murders and casualties then Norway.
Also, if you look at the chart above the US does not start to win. Europe wins in both casualties and murders. God, you must think the FBI is really biased. Lott is using the FBI definition of public area + definition of mass-shooting. As far as other evidence goes, there is plenty. I am now going to cite a graph which has a lot of contention and hopefully justify its usage.
So, there are two studies which have different results then this graph. So, why is this analysis more accurate than the other two. The first, contrary analysis was conducted by Everytown for Gun Safety. The first fault is that it includes mass shootings in private homes. The problem with including private homes is that the reasoning behind public and private mass shooting is notably different.(Drug crimes, robbery, kidnapping, murder). So, the research which is inside of this graph looks as at mass public shootings. Here is the FBI's definition of a mass public shooting:
The FBI definition of mass public shootings excludes “shootings that resulted from gang or drug violence” or that were part of some other crime. The FBI also defines “public” places as “includ[ing] commercial areas (divided into malls, businesses open to pedestrian traffic, and businesses closed to pedestrian traffic), educational environments (divided into schools [pre-kindergarten through 12th grade] and IHEs), open spaces, government properties (divided into military and other government properties), houses of worship, and healthcare facilities.
They also mislabel over 18 mass shootings. Those mislabels can be found here: https://crimeresearch.org/2014/09/m...mass-shootings/
The second contrary study is from Louis Klarevas. The issue with Klarevas's study is that he does not use the FBI definition of mass shootings. To quote Klarevas,
In all fairness to Lott, when he conducted his study, he employed a definition of mass shootings that was different from the ones used by Duwe’s team and myself. . . . he disqualified all shooting incidents that were part of a broader crime: ‘gang activity; drug dealing; a holdup or robbery; drive-by shootings that explicitly or implicitly involved gang activity; organized crime, or professional hits; and serial killings, or killings that took place over the span of more than one day.
Here is the FBI's definition of a mass shooting.
The FBI definition of mass public shootings excludes “shootings that resulted from gang or drug violence” or that were part of some other crime.33 The FBI also defines “public” places as “includ[ing] commercial areas (divided into malls, businesses open to pedestrian traffic, and businesses closed to pedestrian traffic), educational environments (divided into schools [pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade] and IHEs), open spaces, government properties (divided into military and other government properties), houses of worship, and healthcare facilities.
Lott uses the proper definition. For this reason, I contend that Lott's graph is the most accurate. Not that this is an absurd notion, 83 percent of economists surveyed by Gary Mauser, a professor who specializes in polling at Canada’s Simon Fraser University said that gun-free zones attract criminals. And these are not random economists either, they have published in criminology for the past 15 years.
Damn I thought rape culture was a feminist conspiracy theory, but I was wrong, DS0 is clearly perpetuating it right now by raping so brutally as a public spectacle.
I don't support planned parenthood because I'm pro-life, but I think someone could make good use of their services after this debate tbh: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/morning-after-pill-emergency-contraception
Originally posted by DarthSkywalker0Yes, and the problem with a per-capita ranking in this instance is that it vastly overstates the problem of mass shootings in small countries like Norway and Belgium, and portrays their anomalous one-off/infrequent mass shootings as part of actual trends of shootings in those countries. If I recall, the Breivik shooting in Norway was the only such incident since World War II. How could one then seriously rank Norway above US in terms of mass shooting frequency? It is of course because the creators of the table have decided to use those per-capita figures as a proxy for frequency, even when that's clearly not appropriate and only serves to mislead. The way they are presenting those figures is not honest, even if those figures are technically correct.
Yes, my chart looks at mass-shooting frequency per capita
If you look at the numbers without such manipulative spinning of the data, it is clear that the US leads in number of mass shooting incidents:
Now I realise that studies like this always tend to miss some shootings and miscount others, but the amount of missing and miscounting would have to be huge to change what we see here. European mass shootings can be deadlier in some instances, but in terms of numbers the US experiences more mass shootings than many other major countries combined. They are both more frequent and more numerous, hence why the question of gun laws is such a persistent and recurring political issue in the United States, but not so in Europe.
I'll respond to your bigger post later, when I have some more time.