David Hemenway
David Hemenway: 'Our key goal is to try to build a society where it is safe for teenagers, so nobody wants to carry a gun.' (Staff photos by Jon Chase) http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/10.31/09-guns.html
Posted on 02/03/2006 6:05:12 AM PST by white trash redneck
GUN lobbyists like to repeat the quote often attributed to American writer Robert Heinlein, that "an armed society is a polite society". But this is certainly not true for motorists.
A survey of 2400 drivers carried out by David Hemenway and his colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health shows that motorists who carry guns in their cars are far more likely to indulge in road rage - driving aggressively or making obscene gestures - than motorists without guns. Some 23 per cent of gun-toting drivers admitted making rude signs, compared with 16 per cent of those who did not carry guns (Accident Analysis and Prevention, DOI:10.1016/j.aap.2005.12.014).
Yet in some states it is easier than ever to own a gun and carry it a car. In the past two decades 23 states have eased restrictions on carrying guns, says researcher Mary Vriniotis. Police no longer have the right to ban someone they consider unsuitable from owning a gun. People now only have to pass background checks, such as the absence of criminal convictions.
"Our findings indicate that the people driving around with guns in their cars are not among the most responsible and best-behaved people on the road," says Vriniotis. "In the interests of injury and violence prevention, it probably makes more sense to tighten rather than relax restrictions on gun carrying in motor vehicles."
If you were to cut me off and not see the fickle finger of fate giving you that "you're number one" salute, then it might be time to worry...
Of course they are. And they are also including everybody in states that allow vehicle carry with no license. This has practically nothing to do with concealed weapons permit holders, who as a class are among the most law-abiding citizens in the country. I suspect their results would have been quite far in the opposite direction if they had surveyed only CCW permittees.
-ccm
John Lott has a discussion of this at:
http://johnrlott.tripod.com/2006/02/research-on-guns-and-road-rage.html
A random survey of drivers would prove my father's comment on the subject more than 60 years ago while riding with him to LGA...
"Son, you may wonder why cab drivers in NYC are so aggressive and the simple answer is the Sullivan law..." (said law the very same that prevented me from legally owning a BB gun).
Rude tough guys already carry big sticks...and they are the ones who now have to consider their safety.
I say allow stickers on your vehicle which state,
I particularly like the part of Lott's article where he mentions that one result of the study could be used to justify preventing liberals from driving (using the same logic that the study used with gun owners)...
"If the story were true we would have many incidents of Concealed Carry Holders involved in incidents. This has not happened. What does happen is violent crime goes down when a state passes a concealed carry law.
The author has printed a bogus survey!"
My thoughts exactly! As a retired scientist, I'd love to examine their paper to see how they did this research.
Having Lived in Massachusetts for 20 years( thankfully not there now), I saw many rude gestures from drivers and I am almost sure they were not carrying guns in their cars. First of all, to carry a gun in your car in Massachusetts, you have to have a permit, and to get a permit, you have to have never committed a felon or even a misdemeanor. You have to take a class in gun safety, be fingerprinted by your local police and intense security check into your background by law enforcement.
By the way, I had a license to carry a concealed weapon in Massachusetts, and never ever even carried a gun in my car or on my person in the state. Did I make rude gestures while driving??? Maybe, but not because I had a gun in my possession. HA!
David Hemenway
David Hemenway: 'Our key goal is to try to build a society where it is safe for teenagers, so nobody wants to carry a gun.' (Staff photos by Jon Chase) http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/10.31/09-guns.html
Lot's of bias potential. What if men are more likely to carry a gun than women and men are also more likely to rage? Could turn out that male gun owners are less likely than men in general to rage.
David Hemenway on the left. Come to think of it, I think I once saw this guy on the Massachusetts Turnpike, he made a rude gesture to me, as he cut me off to use the toll to get off on the Cambridge exit. HA!
Driving aggressively = NOT driving like a girl.
I was driving aggressively and making obscene gestures long before I started carrying firearms.
Speaking for myself, when I carry, I tend to be more alert and controled in my actions and thoughts. Also more confident and secure, so I'm more likely to blow off (so to speak) any unsocial behavior I encounter.
Here's a quote from one their other investigations:
"Recent gun owners were 8 times more likely to have threatened their partners with a gun than non-gun owners."
"Batterers' Use of Guns to Threaten Intimate Partners" Journal of the American Medical Women's Association, 2005; 60:62-68. Abstract | PDF
Well...duh! Guess if I didn't own a gun (knife, axe, hammer, and so on) I couldn't threaten anyone with it.
The paper is based on a survey of 2,400 drivers that the authors did. The survey asked respondents if they had made an obscene gesture to an opposing driver or whether they had aggressively followed another car. After that a series of descriptive questions were asked: gender, age, income, political views, urban/rural, and whether they have had a gun in their car at least one time over the last year. The authors make a simple comparison between those who have had a gun at least once in their car and those who didn't and say that the respective numbers are 23% and 16%. The authors imply that having a gun makes it more likely that one will engage in road rage.
There are multiple concerns with this analyis. There is not attempt to differentiate whether the person who had the gun in the car had it legally or not. No attempt to determine whether they had a gun when the rage occurred. While one regression with a few very basic variables was apparently run (but not shown), no explanation was offered for why such a limited set of control variables were used (e.g., why not trouble with law enforcement, education, income, smoker, race). Trouble with law enforcement (past arrests) would have been obvious (though it would have been even better if they had asked whether the person had convictions for felonies (I wonder why they didn't include that question)).
More propaganda from the press.
ABSOLUTELY! Crips, Bloods, all gangbangers, carjackers endorse this statement.
Let's see... I imagine the percentage of gun toters vice non-toters would be proportional to the type A personalities vice non type A personalites.
In other words they got the conclusion they were looking for and their test is bovine scatology (unless they wish to prevent type A personalities from getting driver licences).
First, less than 1% of all drivers have guns in the vehicle; second, the survey study is notoriously similar to the push/pull polling technique in that the questions are designed to elicit responses where none may otherwise be forthcoming.
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