Posted on 09/12/2013 7:46:51 PM PDT by Pharmboy
(Boston) -- A new study from the American Journal of Public Heath shows that U.S. states with higher estimated rates of gun ownership experience a higher number of firearms-related homicides.
The study, led by a Boston University School of Public Health researcher, examines the National Rifle Association's (NRA) claim that increased gun ownership does not lead to increased gun violence. It is the largest study conducted to date into the correlation between gun ownership and firearms violence, and the first to comprehensively examine the issue since the tragic shooting last December of 20 children and 7 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
The study, covering 30 years (1981-2010) in all 50 states, found a "robust correlation" between estimated levels of gun ownership and actual gun homicides at the state level, even when controlling for factors typically associated with homicides. For each 1 percentage point increase in the prevalence of gun ownership, the state firearm homicide rate increases by 0.9 percent, the authors found.
"Understanding the relationship between the prevalence of gun ownership and therefore the availability of guns, and firearm-related mortality is critical to guiding decisions regarding recently proposed measures to address firearm violence," the authors said.
Researchers led by Dr. Michael Siegel, professor of community health sciences at the BU School of Public Health, examined data for the years 1981-2010 on state firearm homicide rates from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Web-Based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQUARS) database.
State levels of gun ownership were estimated using a well-established proxy variable: the percentage of a state's suicides that are committed with a firearm (FS/S). Because there is no state-level survey that measures household gun ownership, researchers have widely relied upon the FS/S proxy in injury prevention research, and this proxy has been extensively validated in past studies. The proxy correlates highly with survey measures of household firearm ownership, the authors said.
Regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between state levels of gun ownership and firearm homicide rates, while controlling for a range of potential state-level confounding variables, including: age, gender, race/ethnicity, urbanization, poverty, unemployment, income, education, divorce rate, alcohol use, violent crime rate, nonviolent crime rate, number of hunting licenses, age-adjusted non-firearm homicide rate, incarceration rate, and suicide rate.
The regression model predicted that each 1 percentage point increase in gun ownership increases a state's firearm homicide rate by 0.9 percent, translating into a 12.9 percent increase in the gun homicide rate for each one standard deviation increase in gun ownership. All other factors being equal, for example, the model predicts that if the gun ownership estimate for Mississippi were 58 percent (the average for all states), instead of 77 percent (the highest of all states), its firearm homicide rate would be 17 percent lower.
The results of the research are consistent with previous studies that have demonstrated a correlation between higher levels of gun ownership and higher levels of firearm homicide.
Siegel noted that the study did not determine causation, allowing that it is theoretically possible that people are more likely to purchase guns if they live in states with higher levels of firearm homicide. But he said the issue warrants further study.
"In the wake of the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, last year, many states are considering legislation to control firearm-related deaths. This research is the strongest to date to document that states with higher levels of gun ownership have disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides. It suggests that measures which succeed in decreasing the overall prevalence of guns will lower firearm homicide rates," he said.
The new study is the first cross-sectional analysis to examine data more recent than 1999 and is the most comprehensive to date, both in the number of years studied and the breadth of variables that were controlled for in the analysis.
The study found that over the three decades, the mean estimated percentage of gun ownership ranged from a low of 25.8 percent in Hawaii to a high of 76.8 percent in Mississippi, with an average over all states of 57.7 percent.
The mean age-adjusted firearm homicide rate ranged from a low of 0.9 per 100,000 population in New Hampshire to a high of 10.8 per 100,000 in Louisiana over the three decades, with an average for all states of 4 per 100,000. For all states, the average firearm homicide rate decreased from 5.2 per 100,000 in 1981 to 3.5 per 100,000 in 2010.
### Co-authors on the study include Craig Ross of Virtual Media Resources and Charles King III of Pleiades Consulting Group.
The study, which includes state-level data, will be available after 4 p.m. Thursday online under 'First Look' at http://www.ajph.org.
More people feel the need to be armed in places where there is more crime, and more criminals, like the South.
So Maryland should have a lower gun homicide rate than Wyoming.
(Wyoming has fewer homicides than Baltimore, populations being close to equal).
But I don't think they are aware of what they really saying.
“while controlling for a range of potential state-level confounding variables, including: age, gender, race/ethnicity, urbanization, poverty, unemployment, income, education, divorce rate, alcohol use, violent crime rate, nonviolent crime rate, number of hunting licenses, age-adjusted non-firearm homicide rate, incarceration rate, and suicide rate.”
No fudge factors here.
“of what they are really saying.”
Apparently, this study does not take into account how many homicides were committed with unlicensed gun owners vs licensed gun owners. Also, this study apparently doesn’t include how many lives were saved when a “legal” gun owner was able to prevent a homicide.
Anyone can make a “statistical” study proving any point. It all depends on how the study was conducted.
There are many “0bama” counties in the South, mostly along the fall line.
The ‘rats (Teton County went for Bammy) in WY are farther apart.
expect more of this hocus pocus from CDC studies the ‘bots will be bringing out soon.
Yes...I believe that is what they did: they lumped illegal weapons in with legal. Phony b*stards.
Hmmm lets see...
Chicago and Houston. Similar sized cities...
Chicago 512 murders in 2012...
Houston 216 murders in 2012...
hmmm gee just can’t wrap my head around this... these numbers should mean something... awww but I guess I haven’t “controlled” for age, race, income, education blah blah blah in other words no fudge factors!
Statistics don’t lie... Statisticians lie!!!
They’re probably including suicides within the homicide rates. Owning a gun might make it a little easier to commit suicide, but there are other ways to kill yourself. There have also been a couple of instances in the last few years where people went to a gun range, rented a gun and purposely shot themselves with it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_methods#Firearms
New research shows link between Affirmative Action and Stupidity. Case in point, Barack Hussein Obamaumau.
All this study says is that all things being equal, the more guns there are, the higher the number of people who get killed by a gun.
No shit Sherlock! If nobody owned a gun, of course the number of homicides by a gun would be 0 (I doubt there were too many gun homicides during the Stone Age!).
Of course, this study does absolutely nothing to get to the effectiveness of gun control as countries who have banned guns saw crime rates sky rocket as a) only criminals owned guns, and b) even with no guns criminals could still commit crime, knowing that the intended victim doesn’t have a gun.
Homicide is not necessarily murder.
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Well, shouldn't this be about suicide then?
No matter. The constitution protects the right of The People to keep and bear arms. There is nothing they can do about it.
Nothing.
A new study from the American Journal of Public Heath...
The start of the opening sentence gave it away: unprincipled anti-scientific Marxist propaganda.
After we restore our lost constitutional republic, squandering our hard-earned tax dollars on such moral and intellectual abominations will be prohibited by law.
Boston University, proxy variable, guesses, maybes, estimates.
Never let real data get in the way of quackery. In fact, there are more “quacks” in this whole affair than seen in “Duck Dynasty”.
““while controlling for a range of potential state-level confounding variables, including: age, gender, race/ethnicity, urbanization, poverty, unemployment, income, education, divorce rate, alcohol use, violent crime rate, nonviolent crime rate, number of hunting licenses, age-adjusted non-firearm homicide rate, incarceration rate, and suicide rate.”
No fudge factors here.”
Not in the least.
But - Finagles Invariable Constant was used, and used, and used, . . . . . .
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