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MOJO_GUN
March 9-10, 2013
Mother Jones-- which has become increasingly interested
in info-graphics of late-- has a snazzy looking page of
full of "gun myth" debunking:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/pro-gun-myths-fact-check
I want to look at just one:
"Myth #2: Guns don't kill people-- people kill people."
"Fact-check: People with more guns tend to kill more
people—with guns. The states with the highest gun
ownership rates have a gun murder rate 114% higher
than those with the lowest gun ownership rates. Also,
gun death rates tend to be higher in states with
higher rates of gun ownership."
They document this correlation well, with a
graph titled "ownership vs gun death", with
sources cited:
Pediatrics:
http://www.pediatricsdigest.mobi/content/116/3/e370.full
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?ind=113&cat=2
This is an interesting correlation, but a
pro-gun person would object that causation It also appears to
is not established. contradict an older
analysis I've seen:
The notion that having guns
around makes it more likely CRAZYIDEAS
they'll be used wrong than
right certainly seems
plausible to me, but it's at The reason I find it plausible is
least possible that the that I think that opportunities to
correlation runs the other use a gun for self-defense purposes
way: if you lived in a place are rare compared to opportunities
where there was a lot of gun to use them inappropriately by
violence, you might feel the accident, or though confusion, or
need to own a gun for in crimes of passion, or with
self-defense. criminal intent.
"Data-driven" arguments To use a gun in self-defense
are often like this: the requires a confluence of two
application of the data rare things: gun ownership and
depends a lot on the a violent attack.
pre-existing picture you
have in your head of That said: this is just a
what's going on. theoretical case without
much data to support it.
(The pro-gun faction often
point at some survey where
many people reported using a
gun in self-defense, but
there's a counter-claim
that the examples of
"self-defense" look bogus
on closer examination.)
Consider this possibility:
What if this apparent correlation
is an artifact of the social status
of guns? If the intelligent and
well-educated turn up their nose
at the gun hobby for social reasons,
then as a by-product the "gun nuts"
will be the yahoos out in the sticks,
the people least likely to learn
to use guns responsibly.
If you turned around this trend,
if you could create a gun fad in An alternate scenario:
the more populous, more "civilized" what if there was a
states, you might find this government edict
correlation would fall apart. requiring that all
households be armed?
It's a common
pro-gun argument
to point at
Switzerland,
where all households
are required to
stock fully
automatic weapons.
The MoJo article
uses US states to
get it's correlation.
Can you incorporate
the experience of
other countries?
There's an additional remark tacked on
to this "Myth #2" that I find very
interesting:
"Gun death rates are generally lower in states
with restrictions such as assault-weapons bans
or safe-storage requirements."
The first part of their "Myth #2"
is supported by data, this trailing
remark is actually unreferenced.
Placed where it is, you get the feeling that
it's supported by the given references, but
it actually isn't-- if there are studies out
there to support this claim, they haven't
pointed us at them.
The way they phrase it made me wonder if the
existing data left them with no way to tease DATA_GUN
apart the effects of assault-weapons band and
safe-storage requirements.
My guess: storage
requirements sound
effective, but
assault weapons bans
are meaningless...
Or *probably* meaningless:
ASSAULT_ON_WEAPONS
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