2009 Study: Carrying a gun increases risk of getting killed!

[shibumiseeker]

I haven't looked at the critique yet, but the selection bias is using those who have been shot as your treatment group is profound.

Yet since most people don't have any clue as to how proper sampling or research is conducted, the "study" serves its purpose: to give justification. Since most people who fear guns can't point to any rational reason for their biases, this gives them something that can strengthen their resolve and immunize them against seeing other possibilities. To that end, it works very well. As a political tool it's tried and true and time-tested, playing on fear and ignorance.

 

[BlueEagle]

Yeah, this study is sort of like taking polls at an AA meeting on how many people have been harmed by alcohol...the people who have already BEEN shot are obviously not the "standard" against which we should all be judged, I think; especially in Philly.

 

[grimor]

New study shows that a majority of people shot have been affected by gun violence!!

 

[BlueEagle]

OH NO!



*runs off to throw all his guns in the lake*

 

[shibumiseeker]

New study shows that a majority of people shot have been affected by gun violence!!

On that same note: A recent study shows that marriage is the leading cause of divorce!


And here's a correlation that even Rambone would love: More often than not, when someone dies, there's a doctor present.

 

[dross]

I haven't looked at the critique yet, but the selection bias is using those who have been shot as your treatment group is profound.

Are you implying that people who have been shot might not match a randomly chose group of citizens in every particular? Shocking concept.

It really doesn't matter what any particular study says, anyway. The point is to generate a headline, which will then become "common knowledge" and then later when you explain to some idiot why their common knowledge isn't, they'll just stare at you uncomprehendingly, like cows at a passing train, to paraphrase Don Henley.

 

[Iroquois]

Years ago, when I was learning to weld ,an article appeared in to paper that claimed that composite materials would soon replace metal in building and manufacturing.
The school president asked my instructor if we should discontinue the welding program....my instructor pointed out that the person that wrote the article was probably just an english major and didn't have expertise on anything else....

 

[BlueEagle]

Clearly he was correct; I can't even remember the last time I saw a building using any metal. I could see polymers and whatnot taking over in the future; but not for a long time yet.


Maybe he meant to say cars? Those seem to be getting more and more plastic-y as time goes on.

 

[MuncieKat]

This message has been removed.

 

[Glocker39]

I personally don't believe any statistics, the reason being is that they can be easily wrong ,you get no "real world" numbers, because the people they survey , is just a small number normally.

 

[Iroquois]

It's a sad fact in this country that most of the mainstream media don't know
what end of the gun the bullet comes out of. Even sadder, the law makers know less,
because most of them feel no obligation to know the facts. All they care about is
public perception and getting elected...

 

[bassplayrguy]

This is total b.s.