Serial Truth-Murderers
Some researchers can't even lie imaginatively or competently. Thank God for small favors!
The current bogus "study" by the same authors appears to be a cookie-cutter replay, with just a slight change in subject matter, substituting "people" for "children". The same team of authors published "Firearm Availability and Unintentional Firearm Deaths,Suicide, and Homicide among 5–14 Year Olds" that appeared in the Feb., 2002 issue of "The Journal of Trauma", Vol. 52, number 2, pp. 267-276. I am assuming that they used the same methods in both studies since the general concept is the same, although I admit that I did not feel like spending any money to buy the complete current "study". If the methodology is substantially different, I may retract my analysis. However, the states with lowest firearms ownership and most of the high ownership states are the same in both studies.
The important point to notice is the way that they determine the level of firearms ownership in each state. They use various forms of "proxies", or supposed factors that tell how many firearms there are. Since it is not a direct measurement, it is usually going to be inexact. How inexact?
Well, you probably are going to fall off your chair laughing when you find out that the Feb. "study" found that some of the states with the lowest firearms ownership were: #6 South Dakota, #7 Minnesota, #9 Iowa, and #10 New Hampshire. This just illustrates how little the researchers understand about the real world. South Dakota? I am sure that SoDak will confirm that almost everyone in South Dakota has one or more firearms, and many people carry them in their vehicles, even if they don't have CCW's. Incidentally, South Dakota always has one of the 3 lowest murder rates in America, and in 2001, it was the lowest, with a rate of 0.9 per 100,000 residents, compared to the National Average of 5.6 or the "lowest gun ownership" Hawaii with 2.6 or tiny, liberal Rhode Island with 3.7. It is also interesting to note that South Dakota's murder rate (with all those guns!) is far lower than Britain's or France's, and it is the same as "gun free since 1588" Japan's rate.
As others have noted on this thread, there are many other factors that correlate well with the murder rates. One of the most consistent is the observation that the murder rates generally decline as you move Northward. In fact, our Northern states have murder rates not much different than Canada's, which has far more restrictive firearms laws.
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Randall N. Herrst, J.D.
President
The Center For The Study Of Crime
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There are 18 people working in my department. 17 are gun-owners, and the 18th is currently negotiating price with me on an H&R .22 revolver I'm getting rid of. When I drive home in a few minutes, I will need to scoop a half a box of .30-30 shells I accidentally tipped over onto my seat while retrieving my cell phone from the Jeep. Almost everyone I know, including my mom, has a CCW. My boss is getting his wife a new Browning for Christmas. Yeah, I'd say there are more than a few guns in SoDak-land.