Science and gun violence: why is the research so weak?

http://boingboing.net/2013/02/26/firearms-science-and-the-mis.html

by llambda • 13 years ago

16 58 13 years ago

Because partisans are not interested in solid science. They are interested in getting their way.

CamperBob27• 13 years ago

Exactly. No one on the pro-gun control side looks too closely at the statistics because they don't like what they see. Namely that the odds of someone who isn't suicidal and who isn't involved in criminal activity dying from a gunshot wound are about the same as the odds of being hit by a wayward meteor.

brazzy3• 13 years ago

Thanks for proving the GP's point so nicely.

necubi2• 13 years ago

Come on now. The odds of being hit by a meteor (actually meteorite) are effectively nil [0]. Are you claiming that the 88 people shot in mass shooting last year [1] were all suicidal or criminals?

And really, while mass shootings get all the news attention, they are only a tiny part of the problem. The real tragedy is the way easy access to handguns has transformed communities like the South Side of Chicago, where kids are gunned down every week. This American Life recently did a remarkable report [3] on the conditions in and around one Chicago high school where in the past year 29 current and former students were shot. That reporting could have just as easily been done in Oakland, or Detroit.

This is not about ideology. People are dying every day, innocent people going about their lives, and our current strategy of doing nothing, of burying our heads in the sand, is accomplishing...nothing.

[0] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/10/12/in...

[1] http://www.thenation.com/blog/171774/fifteen-us-mass-shootin...

[3] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/487/h...

nazgulnarsil5• 13 years ago

Exactly. No one on the anti-gun control side looks too closely at the statistics because they don't like what they see. Namely that the odds of someone who isn't suicidal and who isn't involved in criminal activity dying from a gunshot wound are about the same as the odds of being hit by a wayward meteor.

see how silly you're being?

free652• 13 years ago

Because the data doesn't really back up the either side in USA.

USA is really violent for a western civilization

The only correlation is identified that poorer regions have more violence, regardless of guns.

Guns doesn't really play a big role at all, according to the statistics.

Of course one thing the statistics cannot account for that guns are available in any state.

cobrausn• 13 years ago

Another thing we don’t have is reliable, long-term data on where the guns that are actually used in crimes come from. One of the ways we legislate gun use is through registration programs and systems that limit who can buy a gun legally. But if we don’t know whether guns used in crimes are purchased legally, illegally, or purchased legally and then sold or given illegally to a third party, we have no idea how to craft those laws or even if they make any difference at all.

I consider this a huge problem. How can you have a well-regulated militia if you don't know who is in it?

How do we know any of our gun laws have any effect at all?

sc68cal2• 13 years ago

Because Republicans and the Gun Lobby have systematically shut down any attempt to collect and study any data about guns.

Over the past two decades, the NRA has not only been able to stop gun control laws, but even debate on the subject. The Centers for Disease Control funds research into the causes of death in the United States, including firearms — or at least it used to. In 1996, after various studies funded by the agency found that guns can be dangerous, the gun lobby mobilized to punish the agency. First, Republicans tried to eliminate entirely the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the bureau responsible for the research. When that failed, Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, successfully pushed through an amendment that stripped $2.6 million from the CDC’s budget (the amount it had spent on gun research in the previous year) and outlawed research on gun control with a provision that reads: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/25/the_nras_war_on_gun_science/

MrMember• 13 years ago

The CDC isn't allowed to conduct research into gun violence because they didn't even try to hide the fact that they were horribly biased. Here's a quote from Mark Rosenberg, former director of the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control and the guy who led a personal crusade against guns under the guise of 'research':

"We need to revolutionize the way we look at guns, like what we did with cigarettes. Now it is dirty, deadly, and banned."

He had no interest in conducting unbiased research, he wanted to treat gun ownership like a disease, and did everything in his power to try and 'eradicate' it.

jandrewrogers2• 13 years ago

The militia is defined in US law by the Militia Act of 1792 and exists today with only minor modifications to the original (see: Title 10 Section 311 of the US Code).

Every able-bodied male at least 17 years of age and less than 45 years of age who is not a member of the regular military is a member of the militia per US law. There is no requirement that you own a weapon in the definition.

The government knows my age so, as a male US citizen between the ages of 17 and 45 years, I am presumptively a member of the militia.

gnosis• 13 years ago

Very nice. But, as is common with laws, the devil's in the details.

First, you say, "Every able-bodied male at least 17 years of age and less than 45 years of age who is not a member of the regular military is a member of the militia per US law."

Curiously, you left out one conspicuous qualifier: white.

Here's the relevant text of the law[1]:

  That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the
  respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of
  eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is
  herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled
  in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company,
  within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve
  months after the passing of this Act.

Many conservatives would no doubt be pleased that only white men could be armed by this law, and perhaps that's one of the reasons they're trying to bring the nation back to 1792.

Also, note that according to the above-quoted text of the law, you're not automatically part of the militia, but have to be explicitly enrolled in the militia by "the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company" and that only "within twelve months after the passing of this Act" -- meaning in 1793 at the latest.

That's because this is effectively a conscription act[2], enacted with the specific and limited purpose of defending the nation "whenever the United States shall be invaded, or be in imminent danger of invasion from any foreign nation or Indian tribe".[1][2] It's quite debatable whether such a situation has existed at any time since World War 2, and certainly not now. Furthermore, it's clearly not intended that these so-called "militias" use guns to defend themselves against each other, much less against the US government (as some vocal American gun advocates would have it).

Also, according to the Militia Act of 1792:

  this act shall continue and be in force, for and during the term of
  two years, and from thence to the end of the next session of Congress
  thereafter, and no longer.

So, from the text of the law, it can be argued that you wouldn't be considered a part of the militia until you're explictly enrolled, and that this enrollment wouldn't even last past the year 1794.

Here's another important part of the Act:

  That every citizen, so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months
  thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a
  sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a
  pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four
  cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each
  cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball; or with a
  good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch, and powder-horn, twenty balls suited
  to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder

So, the exlicit intent of the Act was that the "arms" militia members were entitled to were muskets and rifles of the kind made up to 1794. The act also mentions arming militia members with "a sword or hanger, and espontoon".

In summary, according to the text and intent of the law, to be in the militia you'd have to be a white man who has been explicitly enrolled in the militia by "the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company" by 1793 at the latest, your enrollment wouldn't last past 1794, and the intended arms for militiamen would be muskets and rifles, swords, hangers, and espontoons of the kind made up to 1794.

[1] http://www.constitution.org/mil/mil_act_1792.htm

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_Acts_of_1792

vanderZwan2• 13 years ago

If you were studying gun use, and you wanted to know how often guns were used in self-defense, how would you categorize Charles Wellford’s experience?

Preemptive gun use. Bam, done. Any other categorisations required?

brazzy3• 13 years ago

Preempting what, exactly? Seems to me like objectively, in the given situation the only effect of the gun being present vs. not being present was to increase the likelihood of a tragic accident.

vanderZwan2• 13 years ago

You are probably referring to the way the word is used in a computer programming context. I was talking about this:

"A preemptive war is a war that is commenced in an attempt to repel or defeat a perceived offensive or invasion, or to gain a strategic advantage in an impending (allegedly unavoidable) war before that threat materializes."

arjie• 13 years ago

This illustrates the problem rather well. The case where I ready my weapon in preparation for violence vs. when I use my weapon to stop an anticipated threat are both preemptive uses of the weapon.

The definition is unclear and one researcher may use one definition while another might use the other. Both cases are distinct, however. In one case, I am actually preemptively using the weapon and in the other, I am merely carrying it in anticipation of use.

Part of the article is a discussion of the fact that such definitions are muddied and lost as statistics are looked at.

jarrett3• 13 years ago

I would argue that you would need it to be finer-grained. As the story was told, Wellford's preemptive gun use was a response to a perceived threat that did not exist. You'd want to count those types of incidents separately from those in which the threat was real. And then you'd need a third category where the reality of the threat cannot be established after the fact.

You would also want to tag incidents based on 1) harm done to victim, and 2) harm done to criminal. These are two separate dimensions, and in reality there are incidents to fit into every region on that 2d plane.

dwc• 13 years ago

Perhaps a better title would have been "Science versus gun violence research: why would we expect meaningful answers?"

Given someone with critical thinking skills who is well versed in scientific methods, they would quickly move to asking why violence is a problem. Why are there so many violent crimes in the U.S. compared to Canada? With a huge number of guns in Canada, why aren't their gun violence stats similar to the U.S.? But very few people seem interested in that line of questioning. Instead, we get pro-gun vs. anti-gun arguments. And of course the media and the public feed into this as well. It's just so easy to think something as symbolic as guns must be the problem and/or solution. But this is a much deeper problem, and one that is in desperate need of more attention.

scarmig• 13 years ago

Even though the contemporary Michael Moore (rightly, IMO) gets a bad rep, Bowling for Columbine is fundamentally all about the US's culture of violence, specifically comparing how it approaches violence compared to Canada. Guns are surely an important symbol of that culture in the movie and society, but the documentary is a genuinely thoughtful take on the broader and more salient issue.

11235813212• 13 years ago

You would say that Moore has a bad reputation or has gotten a bad reputation. "Bad rep" is a derivation of "bad rap" or "bum rap" which both mean to be falsely charged with something - no one rightly gets one.

I do agree that those interested in gun rights and gun violence will find BfC is worth watching.

jarrett3• 13 years ago

True, and yet given that gun control is an important political battle of our time, data pertaining specifically to guns, not just violence in general, is important. (At least to the extent that data ever influences these kinds of public decisions.)

Granted there are knee-jerk partisans on both sides of the issue. But thinking people would benefit from solid data. There are intelligent people who believe that defensive gun use almost never occurs, and then there are intelligent people who believe it's far more common than criminal gun use. They cannot both be right, but I believe intelligent people could be persuaded to the truth, if science could establish what the truth was.

That being said, gun control cannot be decided by a science-based, cost-benefit analysis alone. That's because we have the 2nd Amendment. So it is not just a scientific question, but also one of constitutional law.

MichaelSalib• 13 years ago

gun control cannot be decided by a science-based, cost-benefit analysis alone. That's because we have the 2nd Amendment.

The 2nd amendment doesn't say anything about guns; it speaks of arms. And we seem to have a science-based cost-benefit based policy regarding all sorts of non-gun arms: you can't buy shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles or landmines or tanks. You can't even talk about practical astronomy with foreigners in some cases thanks to ITAR.

reader50002• 13 years ago

A concept that gun culture consistently fails to grasp is that a) technology is an enabler and b) humans, even the homicidal, are lazy. It's true guns don't kill people; but it's also true guns as an independent factor increase the probability of people killing people. The size of this effect is very much in need of empirical analysis. However the nra has behaved in bad faith on this issue.

Also Canada has less than half the per capita rate of firearm ownership compared to US.

nazgulnarsil5• 13 years ago

so you need empirical evidence but are comfortable asserting what the outcome will be.

csense• 13 years ago

> Creating a system that allows scientists to gather that data might be objectionable to some people who own guns.

Sampling is the answer.

If the federal government is keeping really close tabs on 100% of non-criminal gun-related happenings, that's Orwellian supersurveillance.

If a randomly selected 1% of gun sales or local police blotter entries or whatever are selected for a scientific study, that's a lot less invasive of gun owners' privacy while still giving scientists enough data to work with.

reader50002• 13 years ago

Not really. Gun ownership has externalities, just like car ownership. The government keeps "close tabs" on 100% of automobile related transactions, including licensing and insurance requirements. It's not Orwellian to force a consumer to fully realize the total cost to society of her consumption.

11235813212• 13 years ago

It's largely because the United States has as part of its constitution that citizens be armed. Even if guns are determined to be harmful, they're unlikely to go away. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of promising categories of research, including sociological and criminal areas, in which, if effective means of improvement are found, changes may actually be implemented. The more strident of a utilitarian (the school of thought that favors less violence versus following the Constitution) a researcher is, the more the researcher will pursue the avenue that will do the most good and avoid a principled death on the hill of gun ownership and proliferation.

nazgulnarsil5• 13 years ago

>For instance, because of those differences in the definition of “defensive gun use” some researchers will tell you that Americans use a gun to defend themselves something like 1.5 million times every year. Others say it happens maybe 200,000 times annually.

That kind of variability does not create an environment where it is easy to craft evidence-based policy

fuck you, yes it clearly does, it just isn't the answer you want. Author has clearly written the bottom line first in this article. 20k deaths occur annually from gun violence discounting suicides. The lowest estimate for defensive uses of guns (which came from a study which only counted actual police reports) was the aforementioned 200k. This is an order of magnitude difference. Criminals in our country are going to have guns for a long time and no law is going to change that.

ams6110• 13 years ago

Presumably the 200K "defensive uses of guns" includes uses that didn't result in a death.

adammil• 13 years ago

I am extremely pro-science. However, I am angry about attempts to scientifically study gun ownership because I know the only reason is to try and violate my rights by restricting or banning ownership. It's just as offensive to me as a scientific study to decide if we should restrict or ban free speech. Unless you honestly think they undertake these studies to expand our firearm rights or strictly for scientific curiosity?

gensym2• 13 years ago

I don't think "pro-science" means what you think it means.

nazgulnarsil5• 13 years ago

He's anti-scientism. Providing a scientific veneer of legitimacy to political claims. Are you claiming this doesn't happen all the time?

Science and gun violence: why is the research so weak?

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