[Atlas Sneezed]

"General Social Survey (GSS).18 The GSS, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (Chicago, Ill) in most years from 1972 to 1993 and biennially since 1994, is the gold standard for national surveys of gun ownership. In its current form, the GSS is conducted by personal interview with a national area probability sample of 3000 noninstitutionalized adults."

Here is a typical session for a subject with any common sense:

Q. "Do you own guns?"

A. "**** you!"

[pilgrim]

http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/92/12/1988  Abstract of article

 

RESEARCH AND PRACTICE

Rates of Household Firearm Ownership and Homicide Across US Regions and States, 1988–1997

Matthew Miller, MD, MPH, ScD, Deborah Azrael, MS, PhD and David Hemenway, PhD

Matthew Miller, Deborah Azrael, and David Hemenway are all from the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Mass.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Matthew Miller, MD, MPH, ScD, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115 (e-mail: mmiller@hsph.harvard.edu).

Objectives. In this study we explored the association between rates of household firearm ownership and homicide across the United States, by age groups.

Methods. We used cross-sectional time-series data (1988–1997) to estimate the association between rates of household firearm ownership and homicide.

Results. In region- and state-level analyses, a robust association between rates of household firearm ownership and homicide was found. Regionally, the association exists for victims aged 5 to 14 years and those 35 years and older. At the state level, the association exists for every age group over age 5, even after controlling for poverty, urbanization, unemployment, alcohol consumption, and nonlethal violent crime. ^{(Bold and underlined for emphasis...mine)}

 

Conclusions. Although our study cannot determine causation, we found that in areas where household firearm ownership rates were higher, a disproportionately large number of people died from homicide.

What does the "even after controlling for poverty, urbanization, unemployment, alcohol consumption, and nonlethal violent crime."  mean?