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

Vol 92, No. 12 | American Journal of Public Health 1988-1993 | December 2002 | Matthew Miller, MD

[dirtboy]

Results. In region- and state-level analyses, a robust association between rates of household firearm ownership and homicide was found.

This is an absolute bald-faced lie. Of the six high-gun ownership states cited, four had very high homicide rates and two very LOW homicide rates. That disproves their entire thesis on the spot - some other factor is at play here (and a very un-PC) factor at that.

[dirtboy]

Using the "rate per 100,000" standard method would allow you to examine each state's homicide rate separately, with no need to aggregate. If you did this, you would find that "high gun ownership" Wyoming and West Virginia have pretty low homicide rates. That might cause people to ask why the authors' paradigm doesn't seem to work with all the states--and they don't want people to ask that sort of question. For example, it is somewhat embarassing for Harvard to explain why the U.S. homicide rate (5.6 per 100,000) is 255% of the homicide rate (2.2 per 100,000) in heavily armed West Virginia. Harvard finds it much more convenient if they can just hide the West Virginia stats within a larger grouping where it doesn't need to be explained. Heck, it won't even be noticed by the average incompetent media hack or politician or voter.

Well said, and worth repeating. As the old saying goes, statistics is like a bikini, it's what is covered up that is important.

[dirtboy]

Note. For ease of comparison, similar populations were obtained by comparing the 4 states with the lowest gun ownership rates ("low gun states") and the 6 states with the highest gun ownership rates ("high gun states").

This needs to be re-written:

Note. For ease of comparison, So that we may bury a fact that decimates our hypothesis, similar populations were obtained by comparing the 4 states with the lowest gun ownership rates ("low gun states") and the 6 states with the highest gun ownership rates ("high gun states").

[marktwain]

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

It means that this is one of the studies done to give support for gun control. It was after studies such as this that Congress banned the CDC from funding propaganda studies.

Note that this was published as a *medical paper* not a criminology paper.