No More Police Protection.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

37-39. Overestimates of self-defense gun use
We use epidemiological theory to explain why the "false positive" problem for rare events can lead to large overestimates of the incidence of rare diseases or rare phenomena such as self-defense gun use.We then try to validate the claims of many millions of annual self-defense uses against available evidence.
Major findings: The claim of many millions of annual self-defense gun uses by American citizens appears to be invalid.

Where in the world did you get that? You believe this? The claims by Gun Grabbers are equally invalid.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Where in the world did you get that? You believe this? The claims by Gun Grabbers are equally invalid.

earlier in this thread.
I just did not copy over the list of publications.

Yes, I am inclined to believe data published in peer-reviewed journals that publish their methods and data for others to evaluate.

I'm have not yet seen a basis for claiming these data from Harvard School of Public Health are invalid or biased.

[jinx]

Yes, I am inclined to believe data

But it's not data, it's theory. Says so right in your quote:

We use epidemiological theory

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by jinx

But it's not data, it's theory. Says so right in your quote:

Is the word "theory" sufficient reason to dismiss conclusions ?

Well, "epidemiological theory" is what turned up the two egg-farms
that distributed salmonella-tainted eggs throughout the US that recently caused ~2K infections.
That is, they did not go out and test every egg and/or hen in the US to determine what was happening.

In any case, the conclusions drawn in the Harvard links are drawn
from "data" collected and/or analyzed in published sources... and
again, those publications or sources are in the same link.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I have met many people who have related first person experiences of personal defense/prevention, but none that ever related being questioned about it unless somebody got shot.

Academics, and their reviewing peers, live in a parallel universe, somewhat insulated from mine. This is why Henry Louis Gates Jr, had no clue to what Sgt. James Crowley was doing or why.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

In any case, the conclusions drawn in the Harvard links are drawn
from "data" collected and/or analyzed in published sources... and
again, those publications or sources are in the same link.

Have you read any of these? Some just aren't available online, although they are relentlessly cited. Of those that are, the data isn't always straight forward. Lots of proxies are used, and lots of citing of their* own work to support those proxies. Not saying I'm dismissing it outright, just that's its a tangled web.

*
Miller
Hemenway (his book)
Azrael

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.

This is a chicken/egg type situation where they've chosen which came first but don't know why/can't support it. One could also conclude that in areas of disproportionately high homicide rates, household firearm ownership is increased.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

More Guns, Less Crime is out in a new edition, with additional material. The first edition started out with a database of all 3015 counties in the United States over a period of fifteen years. Pretty substantial sample. Now the research has added more years, and I believe on all 3000+ counties too.

No one has ever mounted a successful academic refutation of John Lott's research, either. Makes worthwhile reading. Lott's findings induced him to buy a Ruger revolver and practice with it.

Hey, when you're pro-gun, you are genuinely both anti-crime and anti-genocide. That, ladies and gentlemen, is virtue. And you needn't submit to the State -- for the State does not have all the guns. When it does, that, in brief, is an essential condition for a genocide to happen.

[toranokaze]

fraud, burglary and theft, meh the police don't do anything about those crimes anyway. Hell most of the time they just try and throw you in jail once they get there.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

More Guns, Less Crime is out in a new edition, with additional material. The first edition started out with a database of all 3015 counties in the United States over a period of fifteen years. Pretty substantial sample. Now the research has added more years, and I believe on all 3000+ counties too.

No one has ever mounted a successful academic refutation of John Lott's research, either. Makes worthwhile reading. Lott's findings induced him to buy a Ruger revolver and practice with it.

This says it all.


There is an agenda associated with all medical journals when it comes to firearms issues. It is another approach by those who wish to restrict the Second Amendment. Make it a public health issue. Much of their data conclusions are incorrect.

If you are interested in the contrary views of supporters of Gun Rights you can read a well footnoted summary here and see where many of the flaws in health journal come from.

http://gunowners.org/fs0401.htm

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

More Guns, Less Crime is out in a new edition, with additional material. The first edition started out with a database of all 3015 counties in the United States over a period of fifteen years. Pretty substantial sample. Now the research has added more years, and I believe on all 3000+ counties too.

No one has ever mounted a successful academic refutation of John Lott's research, either. Makes worthwhile reading. Lott's findings induced him to buy a Ruger revolver and practice with it....

More on John Lott.....makes worthwhile reading:

In 1998, John Lott published a book entitled More Guns, Less Crime. In that book he presented statistical evidence that concealed-carry laws were associated with lower crime rates.

In 2002, Ian Ayres and John Donohue analysed a more extensive data set and found that, if anything, concealed carry laws lead to more crime. Lott responded with a new analysis that he claimed confirmed the "more guns, less crime" hypothesis. Ayres and Donohue's response was devastating—Lott's data contained numerous coding errors that, when corrected, eliminated the results and, this was the second time these sort of errors had been found in Lott's data.

http://islandia.law.yale.edu/ayers/A...ue_comment.pdf

And another study: http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/guns/lott/lott.pdf

No academic refutation of John Lott's research? I count at least two.

[Shawnee123]

It kind of sounds like Ayres and Donohue mounted a successful academic refutation of John Lott's research, hmmmmm?

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

It kind of sounds like Ayres and Donohue mounted a successful academic refutation of John Lott's research, hmmmmm?

Doesn't matter....

[TheMercenary]

Many of the arguments in this document were honed in discussions on the talk.politics.guns newsgroup and Eugene Volokh’s firearmrsreg mail- ing list and I am grateful to all the participants in those discussions.

You consider that to be a "study"?

[TheMercenary]

I thought the Stanford Law paper was much better written, but I am not sure of some of the findings other than refuting some of Lott's contentions, there were not any findings that individuals who hold CCW permits were responsible for any of the crime. There was no evidence that demographic changes were accounted for in population size. Findings often noted that there was a neutral or no effect using their models vs claims by Lott that crime went down. I don't see how that matters much, other than as fodder to discredit Lott.

But what ever. If you need the police I hope they get there in time, but don't hold your breath.