Gun Rights Group Skeptical of New Harvard Study

A new study from the Harvard School of Public Health found that children between the ages of 5 and 14 are dying at dramatically higher rates in states that have more guns. Pro-gun groups, however, expressed skepticism about the Harvard findings.

The study, which appears in the current issue of "The Journal of Trauma," said children living in the five states with highest levels of gun ownership were 16 times more likely to die from unintentional firearm injury, seven times more likely to die from firearm suicide, and three times more likely to be murdered with guns than children in five states with the lowest levels of gun ownership.

Additionally, the study found that children in the top five gun-ownership states were twice as likely to die from homicide and suicide overall as children in the five lowest gun ownership states. The five states with the highest levels of gun ownership were: Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and West Virginia. The five states with the lowest levels of gun ownership were: Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Delaware.

The Violence Policy Center believes the study sends a simple message: "It's The Guns, Stupid." "This illustrates the pivotal role played by firearms and disproves the false claim that if guns were not available, shooters would simply employ other means. Most importantly, this study proves what common sense would dictate: A greater availability of guns has dangerous and deadly consequences. Firearms in the home pose an enormous threat to the well-being of our nation's children," VPC executive director Josh Sugarmann said in a statement.

The National Rifle Association was skeptical of the Harvard study. "We don't have and haven't seen a copy of the study," said Kelly Whitley, an NRA spokeswoman. "But, as always, we are skeptical about any study funded by numerous advocates of gun control. Having not seen the data, we don't know whether Harvard's proxy measure of gun ownership is reliable for a study of this kind," she said. "But, one might be suspicious of a national study that ignored 40 of 50 states as the press release suggests," said Whitley.

"NRA tends to trust data on this issue from a more reliable source such as the National Center for Health Statistics. Their data shows that accidental firearm deaths, especially among children, have been declining since the 1930s and are currently at an all-time low while the U.S. population has doubled and the number of firearms owned has quadrupled," Whitley concluded.

The five states with the highest levels of gun ownership were: Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and West Virginia. The five states with the lowest levels of gun ownership were: Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Delaware.

If you counted illegal guns I'd bet that Mass, RI and NJ would outdo the "highest" states.

One factor would be hunting accidents outside the home - the five states listed with lowest gun ownership also have virtually no hunting. The southern states probably have gun seasons year-round for various game animals. But again, this would not pose a risk to young children at home.

Gun control advocates are famous for declaring children to be age 18 and younger, and always include all deaths from gangs fighting over turf. But since those deaths peak for youths 15-18, and probably are higher in the "low gun states" this data was probably deliberately taken out of this study to bias the results ("cook the books")

There may also be issues with how states rule on suicide. Perhaps southern states are more prone to call a gun death a suicide rather than accidental - perhaps those low-gun states call suicides accidental shootings to protect life insurance payouts. I would also guess the non-gun states might lead in deaths by overdose of drugs - which are often called accidental rather than suicide.

The NRA is correct -you need to see the data and the methodology of the study. Maybe Gun Rights group will insist on an inpartial observer - like that history professor who doctored the data on colonial gun ownership rates.

"But, one might be suspicious of a national study that ignored 40 of 50 states as the press release suggests," said Whitley.

This is an important point. When one looks at only the extremes of a distribution, one can often "find" a strong relationship... but if one looks at all the data, it becomes apparent that there is no relationship at all.

Besides, I can think of a number of potential differences between the low and high gun ownership states besides gun ownership. And several could be factors in responsible/irresponsible gun use/storage.

I'll try to get ahold of that study...

File this in the "no sh*t sherlock" category. States that have the highest number of cars also have the highest number of car accidents. Come to think of it, there is a higher rate of snowboarding accidents in Utah than there is in Florida.

As someone who works with statistics all day long, I cringe, laugh, and then cry when I read these bonehead studies...

Then the solution is to normalize the rates by taking a percentage of the number of legally owned guns against the number of "children" killed.

We can do that for them...can't we?

With my eyes closed to the data and methodology, I'm confident states with higher gun rates win again.

As someone who works with statistics all day long, I cringe, laugh, and then cry when I read these bonehead studies...

It's particularly disgusting, when this junk is published in a peer-reviewed 'scientific' journal. It's funny, these lefty scientists (and historians) and others are selling their credibility for pennies. Who trusts scientists these days after the junk they've put out on guns, global warming, new ice age, alar, etc., etc., etc.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.