Good Op/Ed
Oh, one more thing: Scalia’s ludicrous vision of a little old lady clutching a handgun in one hand while dialing 911 with the other (try it sometime) doesn’t fit the facts. According to the Justice Department, far more guns are lost each year to burglary or theft than are used to defend people or property. In Atlanta, a city where approximately a third of households contain guns, a study of 197 home-invasion crimes revealed only three instances (1.5 percent) in which the inhabitants resisted with a gun. Intruders got to the homeowner’s gun twice as often as the homeowner did.
Jadegold,
Do you think that so few people defend themselves with firearms because the laws prevent easy ownership. That the laws provide the criminals with rights to sue if they are injured? That is why many states are passing “castle doctrine” laws.
Do you think that maybe criminals target households less likely to be armed? Naa, that would demolish your argument.
Care to post a link to this study? I would be interested to see what criteria used. Did it include attempted home robberies where the intruder was scared off, etc.
Comment by Bob S. — June 29, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
“According to the Justice Department…”
Move along, I’ve seen all I need to know.
NEXT!
Comment by theirritablearchitect — June 30, 2008 @ 2:49 pm
Bob S: Sorry, but the fact is firearms are pitifully easy to get. All one needs is cash. It doesn’t matter if you’re a felon or mentally ill or a drug abuser–you can get a gun if you pay for it.
The reason so few people use guns to defend themselves is because life isn’t a TV show or a movie where the bad guy announces from the next zip code his intentions.
Comment by Administrator — June 30, 2008 @ 6:19 pm
Jadegold,
Firearms are easy to get for criminals and those willing to break the law; but the law abiding have greater hurdles to clear. Most people want to do the right thing and aren’t willing to break the law.
You also didn’t address the habits of the criminals. The criminals aren’t dumb, they target homes and people less likely to fight back.
You also didn’t address the study you cited, why not post a link to it so the information can be examined?
Also the link you did provide was to an opinion piece by Arthur Kellermann. Did you notice how his “famous” study showing a 43:1 ratio is down to 12:1?
That study and the follow ups were seriously flawed, his methodology precluded anything but the results he predetermined. Try using someone with a little more credibility.
Also, if guns are so easy to get; why not remove the legal restrictions. According to you anyone who wants one has one so what difference does it make?
Perhaps cities like Washington D.C, Chicago and the violence levels prove that gun bans don’t work.
Show some credible evidence and sources.
Comment by Bob S. — June 30, 2008 @ 8:39 pm
Sadly, Bob, you make the same mistake many gunloons do WRT Kellermann. For folks who claim to know everything about gun policies-you seem to get an awful lot wrong.
Kellermann is the author or co-author of a number of studies; many of which study different things. Thus, when studying different areas, it is highly likely different results are produced. In one such study, Kellermann found households with guns carried a three times (2.7) greater murder risk than homes without guns. Another study found that a gun in the home was 12 times more likely to be involved in the death or injury of a member of the household than the death or injury of an intruder.
The 43 to 1 study you cite is misstated. Here’s what Kellermann said: “For every case of self-protection homicide involving a firearm kept in the home, there were 1.3 accidental deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides, and 37 suicides involving firearms. Note that most of the self-protection homicides were not of intruders. “
Comment by Administrator — July 1, 2008 @ 5:06 pm
Jadegold,
Sorry but the study is flawed as I stated
“Now, how about the self-defense homicides, which Kellermann and Reay found to be so rare? Well, the reason that they found such a low total was that they excluded many cases of lawful self-defense. Kellermann and Reay did not count in the self-defense total of any of the cases where a person who had shot an attacker was acquitted on grounds of self-defense, or cases where a conviction was reversed on appeal on grounds related to self-defense. Yet 40% of women who appeal their murder convictions have the conviction reversed on appeal.”
and
Finally, Kellermann and Reay ignore the most important factor of all in assessing the risks of gun ownership: whose home the gun is in. You don’t need a medical researcher to tell you that guns can be misused when in the homes of persons with mental illness related to violence; or in the homes of persons prone to self-destructive, reckless behavior; or in the homes of persons with arrest records for violent felonies; or in the homes where the police have had to intervene to deal with domestic violence. These are the homes from which the vast majority of handgun fatalities come. -http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel013101.shtml
Comment by Bob S. — July 1, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
Kopel is simply lying. First, he misstates the thesis of the study claiming ”
erhaps the most enduring factoid of the gun prohibition movement is that a person with a gun in the home is 43 times as likely to shoot someone in the family as to shoot a criminal.”
As I noted earlier, the Kellerman thesis is different.
Kopel also lies when he states “Kellermann and Reay did not count in the self-defense total of any of the cases where a person who had shot an attacker was acquitted on grounds of self-defense, or cases where a conviction was reversed on appeal on grounds related to self-defense.”
The study was written in 1986–it’s data was from 1978-1983. In addition, it’s important to note what Kellermannn actually said rather than Kopel’s dishonest misinterpretation: ” “For every case of self-protection homicide involving a firearm kept in the home, there were 1.3 accidental deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides, and 37 suicides involving firearms. Note that most of the self-protection homicides were not of intruders. ”
Comment by Administrator — July 1, 2008 @ 7:27 pm
Jadegold,
Instead of simply repeating yourself; why not post some evidence? Provide a link that Kopel lied.
How about posting a link to the study you cited in your previous post?
Or perhaps you can’t show the evidence?
Comment by Bob S. — July 1, 2008 @ 8:20 pm
Kopel lied by misstating Kellermann’s thesis. Further, Kopel lied by suggesting Kellermann’s data was wrong.
Comment by Administrator — July 3, 2008 @ 4:41 pm
Further, Kopel lies when he states “Yet 40% of women who appeal their murder convictions have the conviction reversed on appeal.”
This snippet is taken from a Time Magazine article on domestic violence (’til Death Do Us Part (not Fighting Back as claimed by Kopel) Time, Jan 18, 1993) which reads: “One study found that 40% of women who appeal their murder convictions get the sentence thrown out, compared with an 8.5% reversal rate for homicides as a whole.”
Kopel lies by claiming Kellermann ignored the possibility a homicide conviction was reversed and the fact the above quote does not delineate the manner of death-e.g, was it by gunshot, knife, bat, etc? Further, Kopel lies when he claims the convictions are thrown out. The sentences are; this means a defendent may still be guilty of a lesser charge–e.g, instead of first degree murder, it’s reduced to manslaughter.
Even if we accept Kopel’s lies as facts and assume everything he says is true–the results would still work out to mean owning a gun would present the liklihood that for every self-defense homicide, there would be around 25 instances of deaths that were accidents, murders, and suicides.
One can easily look up the number of justifiable homicides each year via the FBI UCRs–they usually number fewer than 260 annually.
More importantly, Kellermann’s data was reviewed by other studies (See Cummings) and found to yield similar results.
Comment by Administrator — July 4, 2008 @ 9:26 am
Jadegold,
I absolutely agree that for every self-defense homicide, there are more suicides, accidents and murders, but Kellermann did not look at any use of firearms that didn’t result in a death.
That’s like comparing the effectiveness of air bags by only looking at car crashes where someone died. That is what Kopel and everyone else is saying and you know this.
That is what makes Kellermann’s study flawed. He started out with an agenda to prove firearms dangerous, then set up his study to validate his theory; that makes it junk science.
Comment by Bob S. — July 4, 2008 @ 1:52 pm
And why should he? As I’ve noted previously, DGUs are subjective–someone may think he was defending against a crime but in reality was using the weapon to harrass or intimidate.
The problem with your theory is that if guns have such a protective ability–the death figures would show that. They’d show that households without guns would have greater numbers of homicides.
You pretend Kellermann has an agenda but Kopel doesn’t?
Comment by Administrator — July 5, 2008 @ 3:49 pm
Actually, Bob, I got it wrong WRT “but Kellermann did not look at any use of firearms that didn’t result in a death.”
The 1993 study does look at self-protection that does not result in death.
Have you read the study? Or are you relying on what others have told you?
Comment by Administrator — July 5, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
Jadegold,
Once again, you’ve gotten it wrong.
Methods-After each homicide, we obtained data from the police or medical examiner and interviewed a proxy for the victim.
All homicides involving residents of King County or Shelby County that occurred between August 23, 1987, and August 23, 1992, and all homicides involving residents of Cuyahoga County that occurred between January 1, 1990, and August 23, 1992, were reviewed to identify those that took place in the home of the victim. Any death ruled a homicide was included, regardless of the method used.
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/329/15/1084
Comment by Bob S. — July 6, 2008 @ 11:43 am
As usual, I am correct.
You need to read deeper into your cite.
“Attempted resistance was reported in 184 cases (43.8 percent). In 21 of these (5.0 percent) the victim unsuccessfully attempted to use a gun in self-defense. In 56.2 percent of the cases no specific signs of resistance were noted. Fifteen victims (3.6 percent) were killed under legally excusable circumstances. Four were shot by police acting in the line of duty. The rest were killed by another member of the household or a private citizen acting in self-defense. ”
and
“. We found no evidence of a protective benefit from gun ownership in any subgroup, including one restricted to cases of homicide that followed forced entry into the home and another restricted to cases in which resistance was attempted. Not surprisingly, the link between gun ownership and homicide was due entirely to a strong association between gun ownership and homicide by firearms. Homicide by other means was not significantly linked to the presence or absence of a gun in the home. ”
and
“We restricted our study to homicides that occurred in the home of the victim, because these events can be most plausibly linked to specific individual and household characteristics. If, for example, the ready availability of a gun increases the risk of homicide, this effect should be most noticeable in the immediate environment where the gun is kept. Although our case definition excluded the rare instances in which a nonresident intruder was killed by a homeowner, our methodology was capable of demonstrating significant protective effects of gun ownership as readily as any evidence of increased risk. ”
Comment by Administrator — July 6, 2008 @ 4:19 pm
Jadegold,
Your very own quote proves what I’ve been saying all along. Kellermann restricted his study to only where a homicide; justified or not occurred. No incident where a firearm was just displayed was used, no incidents were a firearm wounded someone was used. This is supported by the very quote you use.
We restricted our study to homicides that occurred in the home of the victim,
Comment by Bob S. — July 6, 2008 @ 6:20 pm
You’re reading only what you wish to see, Bob.
I posted a quote from the study that showed they looked at various self-defense attempts. I also posted a quote that followed that showed no “protective benefit” from gun ownership.
The question I must raise is –do you know what a case control study is? Because if you did, you’d understand why the ‘point’ you’re trying to make is rather foolish.
Comment by Administrator — July 6, 2008 @ 6:50 pm
BTW, Kellerman’s study even addresses the efficacy of home security systems (alarms and locks).
Comment by Administrator — July 6, 2008 @ 6:51 pm