Harvard Study: Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?

[ermoore]

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

I'll be honest, I'm too busy/tired to read this right now. Some bold DUer help me out. It being from Harvard would seem to lend it some credibility, but . . . something about a book and its cover . . .

[robinlynne]

1. duh. as they say.

[NYC_SKP]

2. Conclusion:

This Article has reviewed a significant amount of evidence from a wide variety of international sources. Each individual portion of evidence is subject to cavil—at the very least the general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific evidence cannot remotely approach the persuasiveness of conclusions in the physical sciences. Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra.

To bear that burden would at the very least require showing that a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that have imposed stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide). But those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared across the world.

Over a decade ago, Professor Brandon Centerwall of the Uni‐ versity of Washington undertook an extensive, statistically sophis‐ ticated study comparing areas in the United States and Canada to determine whether Canada’s more restrictive policies had better contained criminal violence. When he published his results it was with the admonition:

If you are surprised by our findings, so are we. We did not begin this research with any intent to “exonerate” hand‐ guns, but there it is—a negative finding, to be sure, but a negative finding is nevertheless a positive contribution. It directs us where not to aim public health resources.

[DonP]

3. Well, this certainly needs to be ignored and discredited ... and quickly too.

It appears that this study must be flawed because it doesn't show what certain factions want it to show.

So ... we can expect the authors, the study methodology, the phase of the moon and the Cocker Spaniel owned by the researcher in charge to be thoroughly discredited repeatedly in the next few days.

I'll start, FUCKING NRA SHILLS!

[beevul]

4. This would appear to be non-local news.

Just sayin.

[BigAlanMac]

5. It's also old news

This paper hit the web just over a year ago.

[Eleanors38]

6. With less coverage tonight than the Grand Garand Grab.

Last edited Thu Aug 29, 2013, 08:04 PM - Edit history (1)

[jimmy the one]

7. 3 blind gunnuts, 3 blind gunnuts, see how they run

JUNK SCIENCE -- 3 blind gunnuts, 3 blind gunnuts, see how they run: WOULD BANNING FIREARMS REDUCE MURDER AND SUICIDE? A REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL AND SOME DOMESTIC EVIDENCE DON B. KATES* AND GARY MAUSER** We gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions of ... David Kopel (Independence Inst);

blog: ... it's not a Harvard study, it's just available for download from Harvard's servers. It's a spin piece written by two right wing pro-gun activists, neither of which ever went to or worked for Harvard. Don Kates Gary Mauser The Independent Institute that Kates works for is especially interesting. You can also learn how global warming is a hoax and how terrible Obama care is and how welfare pays more than work. http://m.fark.com/comments/7908949?from_page=main

To take just one debunking: Most incompetent pro-gun "researchers" tend to try to use at least slightly subtle methods for distorting and misrepresenting data. [...] But Kates and Mauser raise the bar by simply using false data. It makes propagandizing so much easier! As has been pointed out on this board before, the authors quote the homicide rate of Luxembourg as 9.01/100K - this is completely out of the question, unless there were some kind of anomalous mass killing in that year. It is common knowledge that the only first-world nation with a homicide rate even close to that is the USA. What happened was there was a decimal point error: the Luxembourg homicide rate is actually 0.9/100K.. they refer directly to this supposedly sky-high homicide rate of Luxembourg , and highlight the number in Table 2.. This leaves us with the standard two possibilities for pro-gunner propaganda: 1) (Dishonesty) [...] 2) (Incompetence) .. based on the quality of the rest of this paper, along with other things I've seen by Kates and Mauser, in this case it is possible that these guys are actually clueless enough to slide by with the incompetence defense. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/20/1112227/-Politicizing-the-tragedy

Gary Mauser is Professor at the Faculty of Business Adm .. at Simon Fraser Uni British Columbia.. President of Barnet Rifle Club .. also a Senior Fellow with the conservative Canadian think tank, Fraser Institute. His particular research interest is in critiquing gun control policies as being ineffective at reducing crime. His work has been criticised for inaccurately citing statistics.
..Mauser on the UN small arms treaty: There is a danger the UN will lose further trust and credibility around the globe, and ultimately take part in the prolongation of poverty, misery and the lack of prospect of entire peoples, by mistakenly directing its attention towards private gun ownership

[gejohnston]

8. just saying

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy
Other than a decimal point, you posted nothing that is relevant to the discussion.

[NYC_SKP]

9. But it's well sourced irrelevance.

fark and dailykos, yanno.