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.
“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).”
No wonder they get the results they do. Such a “proxy” is worthless. They in fact say they use that proxy “Because there is no state-level survey that measures household gun ownership”, then they add “The proxy correlates highly with survey measures of household firearm ownership, the authors said”.
So there is no state-level surveys that measure household gun ownership, so they use a proxy instead that “correlates highly with survey measures of household firearm ownership””
What “survey measures of household firarm ownership” can they be referring to, after they admitted there are no such state-level surveys and the research is comparing states???
Sounds like a lot of garbage science to me.
Um, the Harvard Study that was just released showed kinda the exact opposite.......strange.
Nope. Just packers.
The state of Illinois would have a high rate of deaths from guns because of Chicago gone mad. The rest of the state is peaceful and armed. But because the two are thrown in together, the claim can be made.
Demographics for LA: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/22000.html
Demographics for NH: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/33000.html
“gun violence” or “gun homicides” is a propaganda statistic.
What matters is total unjustified homicides.
If “gun homicides” go up, but total unjustified homicides go down, it is a win.
If “gun homicides” go down, but total unjustified homicides go up, it is a loss.
They are attempting to define the biggest part of the debate out of the question.
Criticisms:
1) Correlation does not prove causality.
2) Most similar studies show the correlation to be inverse to the one reported here.
3) The study—as the authors admit—doesn’t control or account for the strong probability that higher levels of gun violence motivate higher levels of gun ownership.
4) The study does not account for the fact that most homicides are committed by a relatively small percentage of the population, and that such people’s access to firearms is not significantly impacted by laws regulating firearms ownership and use.
5) The study fails to account for the fact that a lower per capita rate of gun ownership may also correlate with a higher homicide rate by means other than firearms.
6) The study does not consider the benefits of a higher per-capita rate of firearms ownership, such as more crimes being prevented by way of self defense.
They start with a strawman argument: “the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) claim that increased gun ownership does not lead to increased gun violence.”
I do not think the NRA has ever made that argument. The real claim is that increased gun ownership does not lead to increase unjustified homicides.
The completely sidestep that claim by only looking at “gun violence”, however they define that.
And about 300 miles up the Mississippi from New Orleans...
“The start of the opening sentence gave it away: unprincipled anti-scientific Marxist propaganda.”
Public health today is Marxist nanny-statism on steroids.
Maybe it’s TVA water....
Lies, damn lies, and statistics!
CA....
Come on people; it’s Boston University, they have never done any studies that were favorable to any conservative or Constitutional principals.
1) correlation correlates to causality, causing a strong correlation of causality....
2) those other studies are deeply flawed, and outdated.
3) results of our correlation indicate that higher levels of gun violence may motivate higher levels of gun ownership, which would necessarily lead to higher levels of homicides...
4) most homicides are committed by a person well known by, or related to, the victim; and it is a well known fact that one is more likely to be killed by a gun one owns than by a stranger’s gun, so a higher availability of guns increases one’s odds of being killed by a gun; besides the ‘relatively small percentage of the population’ remark is racist inspired code ...
5) homicides not committed by means of firearms are a different issue; and besides everyone knows that being murdered by a gun is worse than being murdered by any other means, so this objection is nothing more than a strawman.
6) there is no way to know how many, if any, crimes are prevented by so-called self defense by gun owners; as the Zimmerman case proved, self defense is often a screen for cold blooded, racially motivated murder...
6) we are public health experts with no agenda beyond the public good and saving lives, and are obviously more intelligent than anyone else, or they would be public health experts as well, and we say it is so: 500,000 Democratic politicians can’t be wrong, since they support us!
THAT is the kind of crap arguments the Lefties will use to defend this “study”.
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
LMAO
Would that be the same Boston where everyone in the city was on lock down for 24 hours while they were looking for the bomber?
I think so.
And how many homicides were committed by the legal gun owner?
Does the study include “Justifiable Homicides”? More guns,less criminals alive.
Just like the link between Islam and terrorism!
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