[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.

[michaelt]

Take Louisiana out of those six high gun ownership states, and I wonder how these "results" change. Doesn't New Orleans have one of the highest murder rates in the country?

[Dan Day]

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.

I added up the populations, and it turns out that the "top six" and "bottom four" states as groups have about the same total populations, roughly 17 million each.

So the per capita comparisons would be about the same.

However, since the tables I was using to find state populations also had population breakdowns by race, I did a few more calculations. What's interesting is that the "top six" states have 3.9 million blacks, while the "bottom four" states have only 1.6 million.

This is not an insignificant observation since on average blacks commit homicides at a rate roughly ten times that of whites.

If the authors haven't already factored out the *known* demographic contributors to homicide rate, then they're dishonestly attributing all the higher rates to gun ownership alone.

Apparently the authors of this "study" are following their PC prejudices instead of the data. They conclude that it "must" be gun ownership which drives the homicide rate differential, since it "can't" be due to differing mixes of cultures/races.

And no, my pointing out the racial breakdown of the states is not a "racist" observation. Quite the contrary. It's the PC authors of the "it's the guns" conclusion who are in fact being racist, since they are implicitly claiming that since guns are the "cause" of the murder rates, then the higher black homicide rate must necessarily be because black people are more apt to go wild when guns are available than white people are (since, the authors assert, socioeconomic factors aren't really a key factor after all).

[JPJones]

Your totally right about that...this guy is basically saying that it's safer in Massachusetts than Wyoming...what an idiot.

[Skywalk]

My guess is Louisiana threw off the numbers for the other states(wymoming? Please.) It was, after all, ranked as the most dangerous state in the Union a couple of years back(various health factors, but predominantly crime-related)

[baseballfanjm]

Actually, the difference in population between those four states and six states is only about 280,000, with the six, "low gun ownership" states with more people. I'm not defending the article at all. It's just why they used a different number of states. As you said, the fact that they don't use demographics and per-captia evalutions renders it meaningless IMO. I hate gun grabbers as much as any Freeper.