Guns make us safe? NRA Theory debunked in New Stanford Analysis(Barf alert)

News Views ^ | 1st July 2017 | Surley

[Ennis85]

While the National Rifle Association (NRA) has long insisted that allowing Americans to carry guns make communities safer, an analysis of nearly 40 years’ worth of data has found that is not necessarily true.

A Stanford Law School professor, John Donohue, and his team analyzed crime data from 1977 to 2014 and didn’t find evidence that areas where more Americans carry guns enjoy enhanced public safety or less crime. On the contrary, the researchers discovered that states that have enacted so-called right-to-carry (RTC) concealed handgun laws have experienced higher rates of violent crime than states that did not adopt those laws.

All U.S. states and Washington, D.C., allow concealed carry in some form, and nearly every state has some restrictions on where its residents can carry the weapons. Donohue analyzed the 33 states that enacted RTC laws during his data period.

The team estimates that the adoption of RTC laws substantially elevates violent crime rates (excluding murder rates), but seems to have no impact on property crime. States that adopted RTC laws have experienced an average 13 percent to 15 percent increase in violent crime in the 10 years after enacting those laws, the researchers wrote in a working paper published on June 21 by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“There is not even the slightest hint in the data that RTC laws reduce overall violent crime,” Donohue said.

The theory that more guns equal less crime is one of the most deeply seeded and prominent in the gun-rights movement. Perhaps the most well-known recent example of that idea came from Wayne LaPierre, executive director of the National Rifle Association, in the wake of the December 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

[Mr Rogers]

When dealing with liberals, the first rule to remember is: "They LIE".

However, as the article notes: "The team estimates that the adoption of RTC laws substantially elevates violent crime rates (excluding murder rates..."

"To find out, the team projected what would have happened in right-to-carry states had they not relaxed concealed-carry standards, accounting for differences in demographics, policing, and economic growth."

So if the team concluded that economic growth is what caused lower crime in a state with RTC, they would increase the crime rate based on that, and then compare it to actual crime rates. Or they could compare changes in police tactics, decide how much that contribute, and then take out THAT effect to see what was left.

IOW, total bullshit!

[GenXteacher]

The study is rubbish.

[Windflier]

The insane marxists in this country would throw every conservative man, woman and child into the gulags in a heartbeat if the populace were not heavily armed.

FACT! Inside every liberal snowflake, there's a murderous violent leftist, just dying to get out.

For that reason, we will never willingly disarm.

[Candor7]

Wyoming Crime Rates Among The Lowest In The Country

Wyoming has 60% gun ownership, and their crime rate is among the lowest in the US

https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/wyoming-crime-rates-among-the-lowest-in-the-country/

*******************************

Vermont: Safe, Happy and Armed to the Teeth:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/381136/vermont-safe-and-happy-and-armed-teeth-charles-c-w-cooke

[joma89]

If we have #FakeNews, why not coin the term #FakeResearch or has that already happened?

JoMa

[joma89]

Looks like the term #FakeResearch is already alive and well.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%23fakeresearch&t=h_&dbexp=a&ia=web

JoMa

[trebb]

Gosh - he had to skew data even worse than the Globull Warming "scientists did to get "there was more beatings in States that allowed folks to carry guns" and claim that belied what we all know to be true.

I bet 98% of those "extreme raises in violent crime" were due to Leftists rioting/the Black on White "knockout game" and other such leftist animals....those who love Holder and Obama for opening their eyes that they know they need to hurt/kill evil White folks and conservatives as their rightful form of free expression.

[AlphaOneAlpha]

Stanford analysis.....as soon as I read that, I read no further. Ya gotta be effin kidding

[DoodleBob]

Let's just state this up front: civil rights are immutable, and not subject to repeal after statistical study. So, having disposed of that monster...

John J. Donohue III also wrote the ghastly-titled "Further Evidence that Legalized Abortion Lowered Crime." So right off the bat, we know we're dealing with a dark soul

At a post -election symposium at Stanford, Mr Donahue said "...Justice Antonin Scalia came to embrace a fanatical view of the Second Amendment, and since Trump has indicated he will try to appoint someone like Scalia to the Court, it is a safe bet to say that Trump will be seeking a similarly extreme voice for the Court on gun issues....The primary concern is that a series of Scalia-like judicial appointments would enshrine a deviant and damaging view of the Second Amendment that would thwart all reasonable gun control measures." So we know Professor Snowflake is coming from a position of instability on two fronts.

I tried downloading the paper but you HAVE TO PAY FOR IT!! Not wanting to give my crdit card # to the NBER, I was able to get the vital flaw in the design from a summary:(Pardon the length, but this is key.)

Donohue and his team employed...the synthetic control approach, a research method now widely applied in economics and political science, (that) uses an algorithm that combines crime patterns from several non-RTC states – or during the time before states adopted RTC – to create an artificial or synthetic state.

Take Texas, which passed RTC laws in 1996. Donohue’s comparison for Texas came from combining data from California – a non-RTC state – and Nebraska and Wisconsin, which hadn’t pass RTC laws at that time. By weighting the violent crime data from these three states for the period from 1986 to 1996, he produced a synthetic crime rate similar to Texas’ crime rate in the 10 years prior to adopting RTC laws.

Donohue then projected the synthetic state’s crime rate for the next 10 years and compared it against Texas’ crime rate post-RTC passage. He performed the same analysis on the 33 states that enacted RTC laws over his data period...

In sum, the study is based on comaparisons of actual Right-to-Carry (RTC) states with several "fake parallel states". The potential to bias the design to get the desired response is YUGE!! In fact, with so many ACTUAL states whereby to make the comparison (where the results are obviously pro-RTC) the obvious -and rhetorical- question is "why build fake states when you have actual states?" Elementary, My Dear Watson...I don't like guns and I want to eradicate them.

I feel a Michael Bellesiles moment coming.

[okie 54]

If you are stranded on North Lincoln in OKC at night would you feel safer with loaded gun or without a loaded gun? It might be safer to err on the side of being safe by being armed

[freeandfreezing]

Thanks for digging out the details of Donohue's methodology. That type of statistical modeling is designed to "prove" whatever the user wants it to. The key word in "synthetic control approach" is synthetic, which translates, in ordinary English to "man made", or perhaps even "fake".

I've read some of these studies, and they share a common pattern of agenda driven analysis, and willfully ignoring results that don't fit the agenda.

Even something as innocuous looking as working with state level data masks the reality of the data. And trying to pick states, as Donohue does, which are proxies for other states, is foolish. Why would data from Wisconsin, California, and Nebraska necessarily represent the conditions in Texas? Given that in fact the three states are wildly different in terms of crime rates even internally, how would combining some data from each of them be a reliable representation of what might happen in Texas under a different regulatory environment.

Faith in the kind of scheme used by Donohue would, for example, lead one to believe that voter survey data from California, Wisconsin, and Nebraska could predict election results in Texas. And not just who won, but by what percentage. I'd like to see the accuracy of Donohue's model in making that prediction. I'll bet it won't beat a prediction based on the roll of dice.

[trebb]

Thanks for the post

[HonkyTonkMan]

Study is built on comparisons of synthetic data, not actual data. To summarize they are playing a "what if" game. Have not read the paper and will not waste my time, but I wonder how they eliminated bias in the analysis of results.

Stats are like magic - slight of hand - remember the 538 guy had models to predict Trump losing SEVEN times. He let bias skew his results.

[Mafe]

Here’s some more facts for you - http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp#crime

[backwoods-engineer]

Who believes any of this crap? Also, “shall not be infringed.”

[SteveH]

The Brennan Center Model is apparently from the Brennan Center for Justice.

Brennan Center for Justice - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brennan_Center_for_Justice

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School is a left-leaning law and public policy institute.

A little further web searching reveals accusations that the Brennan Center does bias-driven research:

http://www.nationalcenter.org/PR-Brennan_Center_072612.html

Washington, D.C. - A new report from the National Center for Public Policy Research finds the Brennan Center for Justice - one of the country’s loudest opponents of voter integrity measures - to have a history of bias-driven research.

The report also discloses that the Brennan Center has received millions in funding from George Soros.

So, it seems as if Stanford University and NBER are allowing themselves through Soros stooge John Donohue III to be tools of George Soros.

NBER apparently is doing little or no vetting of “working papers” that it posts on its website.

Most acclaimed scholars pay little attention to papers that are bias driven and not peer reviewed, much less “working papers” that are still in the process of being written and finalized.

Journalists, with no background in science, cannot distinguish between a “working paper” and a peer reviewed journal article.