Researchers are wrong about private guns, police deaths

Fox News ^ | August 17, 2015 | John R Lott Jr

[richardb72]

Between 1996 and 2013, 991 police officers have been killed in the line of duty. These public servants put their lives on the line to protect Americans. Their deaths should concern everyone, including public health researchers. But researchers’ dislike of guns may be clouding their judgment, and a new study, which claims that more police were feloniously killed in states with more guns, mistakenly concludes that private gun ownership causes police deaths.

The study, which was announced last week and is forthcoming in the American Journal of Public Health, received extensive national and international news coverage. But if the researchers hadn’t left out controls used by everyone else for this type of empirical work, they would have gotten the opposite results from what they claimed.

Previous research has done just that. And it has found that concealed handgun permits lead to fewer police deaths. The authors offered no explanation for the new study’s unorthodox approach.

There is a big benefit to using so-called panel data, where you follow changes in crime rates across many different states over a number of years. Doing that allows you to have many different experiments and makes it possible to more accurately explain for differences in crime rates across states or over time.

A couple of simple examples show why other studies on crime take into account these factors.

Take a common comparison of different countries. . . . .

[jsanders2001]

Now separate the data by the race of the perpe and their age. See an emerging pattern? I thought so.

[Lurker]

“The authors offered no explanation for the new study’s unorthodox approach.”

It’s simple. They’re liars with an agenda.

L

[The_Reader_David]

These public servants put their lives on the line to protect Americans.

Not according to the SCOTUS. According to the SCOTUS police have no duty to protect anyone, their only function is to enforce the law. When the laws are just, perhaps indirectly they are risking their lives to protect us. When the laws are unjust they are risking their lives as the front-line enforcers of tyranny.

[Rodentking]

Well said.

[Chode]

100%... they enforce the laws they want to and we'll obey the ones WE want to

[TXnMA]

"It’s simple. They’re liars with an agenda."

BRAVO!

Dead center in the X-ring...

[RetiredTexasVet]

I’m sure that they took special pains to separate the numbers between those who owned weapons legally and those that possessed weapons illegally that were used in killing the police.

[IncPen]

It’s simple. They’re liars with an agenda.

As with Global Warming, the 'science' is Political, not Empirical.

[Neidermeyer]

1996 and 2013, 991 police officers have been killed in the line of duty
********************
By their numbers that’s about 60 a year ... and at least half to two thirds die in car accidents... that leaves a very small number to be concerned about ...

[Secret Agent Man]

Bttt

[Mad Dawgg]

Its the same principle that Stalin pointed out.

"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."

Same applies to statistics and so-called "studies"...

It is not the data that matters it is who puts the data into the study that matters.

[familyop]

"The study, which was announced last week and is forthcoming in the American Journal of Public Health, received extensive national and international news coverage."

And that's the kind of information that police lobbies and other government employee lobbies will accept and push for in legislation. Notice also, that the political candidates most popular with the government-employed hordes are New York candidates in favor of gun control including confiscation and imprisonment for anyone in possession semiautomatic firearms.

[GailA]

“When the law no longer protects you from the corrupt,but protects the corrupt from you -you know your nation is doomed.”-Ayn Rand

Parole & Probation
https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/ppvsp91.txt

Recidivism
http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=17

Black on black Murder
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2013.xls#disablemobile

Weapons and Homicide: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004888.html

Murder Victims, by Weapons Used
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004888.html

FBI: More Club and Hammer Homicides Than Rifle

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/14107-fbi-more-club-and-hammer-homicides-than-rifle

More guns less crime
http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/07/28/assault-weapons-facts-vs-fiction/

Doctors kill 2,450% more Americans than all gun-related deaths combined
http://www.infowars.com/doctors-kill-2450-more-americans-than-all-gun-related-deaths-combined/