A study came out not too long ago that declared households with guns in them are more likely to be involved in a firearms related accident than those without. A study which, by the way, was ripped to pieces here not too long afterwards. Despite the issues with the study Anti-Gun folks still hold it up as the “smoking gun” that guns are evil without realizing that the exact same logic can be used to make the argument for banning cars (because car owners are more likely to die from car accidents) and toothbrushes (because toothbrush owners are more likely to die from toothbrush related accidents). This study popped up most recently on a blog linked by the Violence Policy Center which had this as their mission statement:
This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters’ mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.
Yes, misinformation about guns is terrible. And I hate to break it to you but you’re the problem, not the solution.
Sorry for the mini-rant, but people using bad math to support their beliefs gets on my nerves sometimes.
“Statitics never lie, but liars always use statistics”.
I got a pogo stick for my daughter 2 years ago, and my kids must have injured themselves half a dozen times since then; (thank goodness for helmets and joint pads).
Pogo sticks themselves aren’t inherintly dangerous, but here I am, ready to attest that jumping up and down on a compressed spring, on a single rubber foot…can hurt ya. A much more likely scenario I have had to deal with, since bringing a Pogo into my house.
Perhaps it would help if I didn’t get my 270lb, 6′ 4″ frame on a toy rated for 124lbs.
Using the same logic….
Households with pets are 88% more likely to have an animal related injury. So we’re going to euthanize your pets. All of them. Including your fish. Have a nice day.
I was thinking along the same lines. It’s just a ridiculous statement to make.
Nah, I’ve got one better. Households with humans are 100% more likely to a household member die than those that are uninhabited. We need to simply ban people – you know, for the children.
Statistics are all but meaningless, anyway.
If statistics as a science held any relevance to reality, it should hold true that if you were to set your head on fire while standing in a bucket of ice water, then on average you would feel just fine.
Guns in homes: a triumph of responsibility over ignorance.
The book
Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists
is a must read.
Here is the review: http://www.ams.org/notices/200302/rev-steen.pdf
Wait just a minute…they’ve been telling us that they are the abode of “common sense” and that we need to listen to their so-called “reasonable” right-infringing proposals. Nah, I think I will just stick with my real-world experiences, human nature insights, and my Constitutionally-recognized freedoms, thank you.
They are quite at liberty to not own guns. They might have a bad outcome with a felon, but that is their choice. Meanwhile, I choose to have a firearm to protect my family and I. They have no authority (or even respectable scientific data) to demand that I be disarmed. You know JAMA is not some apolitical publication. I still remember an absolute howler from the British Medical Journal (BMJ) that the upcoming Iraq war would immediately cause some astronomical number of direct deaths (I forgot the ridiculous number; but it doesn’t matter, it was silly). So, always inspect your sources for bias before accepting them.
Statistics and correlation are NOT science. That study proved nothing.
Not all encounters of people defending themselves with guns go reported to the Police. I had such an enounter with my 870 and the bad guys split the scene. I was not going to tell the Police I had my shotgun and that possibly is why they left for easier victims. I could see the whole thing coming back on myself in that the crooks could say they were sweet and innocent ( with a mile long criminal record ) and I was threatening them with a fire arm.
They can print all this misinformation they want. Still does not show that states with castle doctrine and CCW are lower for crimes that say Californiastan. Plus because the CCW laws are expanding, crime as a whole has been decreasing across the US. “An armed society is a polite society”.
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