[ServesURight]

Where's the FReeper who usually posts that "Man on the lifeboat" BS graphic??

[ServesURight]

BUMP

[Joe Brower]

[Hodar]

"It is possible, for example, that locally elevated homicide rates may have led to increased local gun acquisition," they write.

Our boy, Sherlock, is on the case.

[Phantom Lord]

Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Jersey.

Rhode Island?!?!? RI has less people than a medium size city! Not exactly a state large enough for such studies to arive at an accurate conclusion.

And how many people live in Hawaii?

[Blood of Tyrants]

And people who live in states with a higher number of automobiles have more drunk drivers. So what?

[One More Time]

A correlation but not a causation.

[dirtboy]

Miller and his team investigated the association between homicide and rates of household firearm ownership using 1988-1997 data collected from the nine US census regions and the 50 states.

I checked the US census website. I saw NO references to data about firearms ownership.

[dirtboy]

Further, people who lived in one of the six "high gun states" were nearly three times as likely to die from any homicide and more than four times as likely to die from gun-related homicide than those who lived in "low gun states," the report indicates. Their risk of dying in a non-gun-related homicide was also nearly double that of those who lived in states with the lowest rates of gun ownership.

So, in other words, there is definitely SOME OTHER FACTOR at play here. Plus, you gotta love the wording. If the baseline in the low-gun states is 1, the non-firearms murder rate could be 2.2 (nearly double) and the firearms murder rate could be 2.7 (nearly triple) - when I see general words in a study like this, it usually means some fudging is going on.

[gnarledmaw]

I think they might be on to something. I know Id rather walk around alleys in Newark at midnight than in Cheyenne. < /sarcasm >

[avg_freeper]

Burglaries in the United States are more common in states where more households have dead bolt locks, according to researchers.

Floods in the United States are more common in states where more households have flood insurance, according to researchers.

Earthquakes in the United States are more common in states where more households have reinforced structures, according to researchers.

ergo,...

dead bolts cause burglaries
flood insurance causes floods
reinforced structures cause earthquakes

Look at me! I'm a researcher! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[Trailerpark Badass]

Their risk of dying in a non-gun-related homicide was also nearly double that of those who lived in states with the lowest rates of gun ownership.

So, I guess what they're inferring is that the mere presence of guns in greater numbers cause people in those states to commit more non-gun murders?

WOW!

And what exactly is a non-gun- or gun-related homicide anyway? Pistol-whipping?

[luvtheconstitution]

How do they know how many households contain guns?

[TC Rider]

This article is a rewrite of a press release which was a rewrite of a press release from VPC (Bradys).

Amazing that there is still homocides in island states with strict gun control. How could that be?

We're told that Maryland and Jersey still have gun crimes because of buyers going to other states for guns. Whassup with Hawaii?

[dirtboy]

and starkly at odds with the unsubstantiated, yet often adduced, notion that guns are a public good," he added.

Unsubstantiated? John Lott's studies are FAR more rigorous than this nonsense. Why are they only analyzing rates of firearm ownership? Why not also factor in elements such as income level, educational level, racial makup and whether or not drugs were involved? I would imagine the differences would flatten out rather quickly if that were done. But figuring out the truth was not the objective of this study, from the loaded language the researchers are using here.

[VRWCmember]

Talk about using BS statistics to mislead. Consider this statement: In fact, the six states with the highest rates of gun ownership--Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Wyoming, West Virginia and Arkansas--had more than 21,000 homicides, nearly three times as many as the four states with the lowest rates of gun ownership--Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Jersey.

Here's what it means: Over 10 years, the total number of murders in SIX "high gun ownership" states (21,000) was nearly three times the number of murders in four "low gun ownership" states. No per capita calculations, or other adjustments to make a valid comparison. Typical anti-gun BS.

[B Knotts]

Umm...if they're serious about this, and not just trying to fabricate headlines, how about the county-level numbers?

OOPS!

Guess that would completely invalidate their theory, eh?

[PatrioticAmerican]

More liberal "science". They couldn't possibly know who owns guns and, therefore, which states have more gun owners.

Liberals do not know science. They only know liberal arts. To them, science is a basic math class.

[hgro]

In those southern states, lets have a breakdown by racial groupings please.

[camle]

gee, lemme see... each morning, the rooster flies to the top of the barn and crows. then the sun comes up. Now that must be irrefutable proof that the rooster crowing causes the sun to come up. yessireebob!

[FreedomCalls]

The headline was incorrectly written:

"In States With More Murders, People Have Needed to Arm Themselves With More Guns for Self-Defense Purposes"