Guns at home more likely to be used stupidly than in self-defense (Harvard Study)

[jpak]

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lots-of-risk-ambiguity.ars

This morning, a press release dropped that seemed designed to create controversy, given its title: "Guns in the home provide greater health risk than benefit." The fact that it came from a relatively obscure journal—the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine is not indexed by the PubMed system, and has no impact factor—suggests it might be an attempt at getting some publicity. Studies on this topic are also extremely challenging, as it's difficult to control for cultural and economic differences between nations and US states.

The author of the review, David Hemenway, however, specializes in this area, and works at the Harvard School of Public Health. Hemenway has been termed an "anti-gun researcher" by the NRA, and writes with a clear perspective. Nevertheless, within the limited scope of the review, his conclusions make sense: people do stupid things when angry or depressed, and the presence of a gun helps make that stupidity fatal. In contrast, successful use of a gun in self-defense is far more rare, and challenging to get right, so the public health perspective will always be skewed.

Hemenway takes a very narrow focus on public health issues related to the presence of guns in the home. "The article does not examine some of the possible benefits (e.g., the fun of target practice) or costs (e.g., loss of hearing) of gun use." It also generally avoids dealing with the consequences of what happens once the gun leaves the home. Instead, it focuses on death, injury and intimidation, and balances that against the protective value provided by guns.

When it comes to violence, nearly every figure suggests that increased presence of guns correlates with higher levels of injury and death. Homicide rates among the US population between 15 and 24 years of age are 14 times higher than those in most other industrialized nations. Children from 5 to 14 years old are 11 times more likely to be killed in an accidental shooting. Within the US, areas with high gun ownership have higher rates of these problems. And, for every accidental death, Hemenway cites research that indicates 10 more incidents are sufficient to send someone to the emergency room. Suicides are more likely to be successful when guns are involved, even though most people who survive such an attempt don't generally try a second time.

<more>

This is why pediatricians ask parents about guns in the home.

This is why the GOP/NRA wants to silence them.

GOP/NRA anti-science pro-death

yup

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[spin]

54. Gee, I wish the NRA would pay me for posting ...

but since I disagree with some of their positions such as allowing or requiring private sellers to access the NICS background check system, the chances of that happening is slim.

[AtheistCrusader]

2. Difficult to correlate since the legal defensive gun use numbers compiled by the Department of Justi

ce do not indicate whether each incident was home/away use.

[jpak]

4. And it is difficult to verify Obama's long-form birth certificate

yup

[AtheistCrusader]

12. Bullshit. The Birth Certificate has been verified 6 ways till sunday.

Nice false equivalency though.

[StClone]

33. How about this

U.S. most armed Country by far.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/08/28/us-world-firearms-idUSL2834893820070828

The United State's murder rates and violent crime statistics through gun use are the highest in the world for advanced nations.

http://gun.laws.com/gun-statistics/country-wide-trends


It's all bullshit and non sequiturs right!

Face it Americans and their guns are a bad combination. I wonder if the Constitutional writers would have been more careful with phrases like:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

If they knew how their open-ended writings would be interpreted by the SCOTUS pushed by those wanting to make big money off selling guns and those so fearful and gun-dependent they allow few controls over gun ownership.

Talk about bullshit.

[AtheistCrusader]

43. Completely ignoring guns, we still have a shockingly high murder rate.

We also have a defensive gun use rate in excess of 60,000 instances per year, according to the DOJ.

I think the 2nd amendment is doing just fine. It is exactly as open-ended as the 1st, which protects your use of expression on media unforseen by the founding fathers.

[gejohnston]

55. our homicide by baseball bat is higher than them, so what is your point?

we have more gun suicides but most of those countries still have higher suicide rates. That is no bullshit

[beevul]

60. My my my...

"Face it Americans and their guns are a bad combination."

Yeah, because a tiny fraction - a percentage of a percent - misuses guns.


30,000 gun deaths - if you bother to include suicides, which I feel is nobodys business but that person that doesnt want to live


while 80 MILLION own 300 MILLION guns.



The problem, while it IS a problem, isnt the guns.


Otherwise those numbers would be MUCH larger.


"If they knew how their open-ended writings would be interpreted by the SCOTUS pushed by those wanting to make big money off selling guns and those so fearful and gun-dependent they allow few controls over gun ownership."

Way to compound such a number of falsehoods into a sentence (in short, FAIL):

First, they knew EXACTLY whet they were doing when they wrote the bill of rights:

Placing restrictions on government - it ever says so in their words here:

THE Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution

http://billofrights.org/

Second, with your "make big money off guns" schtick - the civilian firearms industry as it relates to civilians in America, is TINY.


To quote another poster:

It's deeply saddening that someone would consider his/her opinions about an important public policy issue to be worth spewing in public when s/he is so totally ignorant of the subject matter, and so deeply uninterested in learning the minimum necessary to have an opinion of even minimal value.

[Hoyt]

69. Like you -- as an inveterate public gun toter -- will likely have an objective view of this.

It is clear that life would be all but "meaningless" to you if you couldn't carry a gun tucked down your pants when in public restaurants, public parks, churches, etc.

[beevul]

72. For the N-th time genius...

I don't carry a gun.


As I have told you before:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=383593&mesg_id=384188


Too bad you didn't remember it - again.


Or maybe you see gun carriers in everyone that disagrees with you.



Now, did you have a point or were you simply blabbering?

[rl6214]

75. You just LOVE to make shit up

I guess your life would be meaningless to you if you weren't able to make unfounded statements and veiled insults to people on the internet.

[rl6214]

66. And yet it was just released, right?

[krispos42]

78. Translation: I have no rational response, so here's a non sequitur

I can play, too.


A 2005 Dodge Stratus with the 2.7L V-6 takes a Fram PH-16 oil filter.

[pnwmom]

6. Maybe so, but

" in cases where a homicide occurs in a home, the presence of a gun there is correlated with increased risk, even after controlling for things like drug use and previous arrests."

[AtheistCrusader]

13. Makes sense.

Firearms are more effective tools than fists/feet/knives, etc.

[gejohnston]

46. which is rare

and it does not explain how it controlled for those things.

[rl6214]

67. Maybe we should consider making homicide illegal?

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[eallen]

15. Yeah, I know that's how I started shooting. I was a ten year-old looking for a phallic symbol.

I'm not sure which of my sisters was insecure, and which was mentally challenged.

Or maybe the sin sits further back on the family tree. I know my father was shooting and hunting when he was a young. And his father. I'm sure if you go far enough back, though, there was some First Adult who started the tradition. Back in the 19th or 18th centuries.

Now, how do I get some of that NRA money?

:hippie:

[MicaelS]

24. Why are you so concerned about the sizes of men's penises? n/t

[PavePusher]

36. So, women firearms owners are searching for a "phallic symbol"?

Honey, you are deeply disturbed.

P.S. Why don't you screw your broad-brushed bigotry instead? You'll be a lot happier afterwards....

[LibertyFox]

45. People actually believe this?

I thought it was a joke made up by bad comedians and activists.

[spin]

52. Stereotyping all firearm owners as suffering from insecurity and as being ...

intellectually challenged is hardly a sign of enormous intelligence.

[gejohnston]

56. Thank you Dr. Ruth

practicing psychology without a license is a crime you know.

[TheWraith]

5. This nonsense has been pushed before, and debunked before.

It was, is, and remains, bullshit, based on completely fudged numbers and personal agendas. It's exactly as trustworthy as the "studies" by pro-lifers which say that abortion causes depression, suicide, and psychosis.

[pnwmom]

8. Right. Those no-nothings at the Harvard School of Public Health

can't be trusted. What idiot could believe this, for example:

"Nevertheless, within the limited scope of the review, his conclusions make sense: people do stupid things when angry or depressed, and the presence of a gun helps make that stupidity fatal. In contrast, successful use of a gun in self-defense is far more rare, and challenging to get right, so the public health perspective will always be skewed."


For the real facts, trust the NRA.


:sarcasm:

[X_Digger]

16. For the real facts, trust the DOJ, the BJS, the FBI, and the NCVS

Gun use in crime? Down. (BJS, FBI)
Gun accidents? Down. (National Insurance Association)
Gun defensive uses? Outnumber criminal uses. (BJS, NCVS)

Notice that Hemenway didn't publish this article in any of the HSPH's organs, and it's not listed on his CV at hsph.harvard.edu.

We'll have to see if his review methodology stands up to scrutiny- assuming he releases it.

[gejohnston]

47. you are doing the same

public health has nothing to do with criminal science. It is like a criminologist doing a physical. Still want to see the methods and peer review.

[Euromutt]

73. Lessons from the College of It Stands To Reason

History is littered with notions that intuitively "made sense," but when somebody actually sat down and looked at empirical evidence, rather than accepting whatever seemed to "make sense," those notions turned out to be completely incorrect.

Moreover, the person asserting that Hemenway's conclusions "make sense" is the author, John Timmer. The guy has a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology, which is impressive, but it doesn't give him any particular expertise in social sciences.

(It might be noted that history is also littered with people who were recognized geniuses in their own field of expertise, but proved themselves complete cranks when they ventured into other fields. Linus Pauling, for example. I'm not saying this applies to John Timmer, but simply that even winning a Nobel Prize doesn't mean you know anything outside the field you got the prize for. If you won the Nobel Prize for Economics, it doesn't mean you know anything at all.)

[jpak]

9. Debunked by a peer reviewed study? - or gungeoneer poutrage?

:shrug:

[gejohnston]

51. it tried to debunk a peer reviewed study

done by Florida State University criminologist, and failed miserably. Oh yeah, the criminologist in question is a liberal Democrat and won the Michael J. Hindelang Award of the American Society of Criminology for his study in 1993.

http://www.law.fsu.edu/faculty/gkleck.html

http://www.asc41.com/awards/awardWinners.html (have to scroll down the page a bit)

http://www.asc41.com/awards/HindelangAward.html

Now I am waiting for the antis to scream shill without even bothering to read his work or even research anything about Dr. Kleck

[Euromutt]

80. You don't understand how science and scientific journals work, do you?

The fact that a study passes peer review and is published in a journal, even one considered highly reputable, is evidence of nothing except that the peer reviewers couldn't see anything that was glaringly wrong with the methodology, and that the editors found it sufficiently exciting to publish. Peer review and publication is merely the first hurdle, and the real review comes only after publication, when the general scientific community gets to read it, and try to replicate the results.

The fact is, the bulk of research that gets published in journals ultimately turns out to be wrong. And that's okay, because it's just the way science works, but it does mean that the fact that a piece of research has been peer reviewed and published does emphatically not mean its findings are correct. They shouldn't even be considered as provisionally correct until proven false, because the only test of scientific validity is when the results of research are replicated by other researchers, preferably using more thorough forms of experiments. Unless and until that has happened, there is no reason to assume a piece of research is even provisionally correct.

In Hemenway's case, this is compounded by the fact that most of the work he cites to support his thesis is his own. Saying "my claim is correct, because I myself said it was correct earlier" isn't sound science.

[X_Digger]

7. Lol, might as well cite Wakefield about vaccines.

The full text isn't available yet, but I'll make some educated guesses, based on past screeds by this author-

1. The only successfully counted 'defensive use' of a firearm in his study will be if someone was killed. (Aha, he pre-emptively tries to discount them. Hah!)

2. A majority of the studies referenced will be his own, or Wintermute, or Azrael (there's a small circle-jerk of folks who collaborate on these.)

[jpak]

10. poutrage fail

#2 and counting

[pnwmom]

11. What would a Prof. of Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health know?

He's obviously just a nut.

:sarcasm:

[ProgressiveProfessor]

17. This particular one has a documented history of agenda grinding

[jpak]

18. Yeah by using *data* to explode GOP/NRA myths/lies

yup

[AtheistCrusader]

21. You mean like FBI/DOJ data?

Sorry, hasn't directly supported the conclusion in previous efforts to show a link.

But I will wait till the full study is released before passing judgment.

[X_Digger]

23. By using only *deaths* as a measure of sucessful defensive uses of guns.

By comparing dissimilar groups as though they were similar in his case-control "studies".

By conveniently leaving out previous criminal history as a variable to be accounted for in the 'case' part of his case-control "studies".

By counting someone being shot by a third party's gun as though it were their own gun.

I can go on, but we've been down this road before. - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=334436&mesg_id=334436

[ProgressiveProfessor]

27. If only that were true

His assumptions and methods ignore data that does not support his agenda. It is one of the reasons he is not being published in a journal with standing, something ArsTechnica pointed out.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

34. *data*

yeah, you see when you put those asterisks around the word...... it makes me wonder just how accurate is that data....

kind of like crooking ones fingers to make quotations

if you get my drift.

[X_Digger]

20. Appeal to Authority. Logical Fallacy.

Care to try again?

[pnwmom]

It's only a logical fallacy when the authority doesn't know anything.

This guy isn't Orly or the Donald. He's a researcher who's well respected in the academic world -- just not by NRA types.

[X_Digger]

25. And you compound it!

How well someone's respected, or what organization they represent has no bearing on the validity of their conclusions.

This is logic 101.

[pnwmom]

48. Yeah, right. No bearing at all.

All the gun guys here are the real experts.

:sarcasm:

[gejohnston]

53. no all of the real experts agree with us, even though they often disagreed before research

[X_Digger]

62. Perhaps you missed the point.. who is or isn't an expert on something..

has no bearing on whether or not any particular statement or study is inherently more correct.

That is an argument from / appeal to authority.

[PavePusher]

39. Hahaha, hahahahaha, hahahahaha.....whew....

The only people who "respect" him are the whacko fringe of the anti-gun-rights movement. And they read "respect" as "bought and paid for".

If you can find five college mathematics profs who will approve his statistical methods, you might start to have a talking point. Good luck with that....

[Euromutt]

74. Hemenway is well respected? By whom?

Is he respected by social scientists and statisticians? Criminologists? Or just by other public health and medical "researchers" who spend their time cranking out the same study with the predetermined conclusion that Guns Are Bad and hoi polloi shouldn't be allowed to own them, over and over and over?

[jpak]

22. Appeal to BS - logical fallacy

yup

[X_Digger]

26. Let me educate you..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

Argument from authority (also known as appeal to authority) is a fallacy of defective induction, where it is argued that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

28. The poster is willfully clueless

[Tuesday Afternoon]

40. +1 and ....

what does that say about all the people who continue to rec this poster's threads....

[jpak]

30. You should contact the editor of that journal with yer fallacy BS

yup

:D

[X_Digger]

31. The editor didn't claim that he was right because he's from the HSPH-

pnwmom did.

The editor at ars technica took special note that this was published in a very back water journal- which is strange for a chair at Harvard School of Public Health.

[pnwmom]

49. He has dozens of articles published in peer-reviewed publications.

And the respect of his peers at the School of Public Health.

I'll listen to him over the NRA nuts anytime.

[X_Digger]

63. You feel free to base your opinion of his "study" on that..

the rest of us will actually evaluate the methodology, the math, and what *isn't* included in any particular study.

You're sounding like a fundamentalist who says, "but the bible says so!" (the ultimate appeal to authority)

[Euromutt]

77. That would be the same Harvard School of Public Health that...

...since 1990 has had Deborah Prothrow-Smith as its assistant dean, the same Deborah Prothrow-Smith who in 1991 stated:

My own view on gun control is simple. I hate guns and I cannot imagine why anyone would want to own one. If I had my way, guns for sport would be registered and all other guns would be banned.

Yeah, I'm sure the HSPH in no way suffers from an institutional bias against private firearm ownership. No agenda there, no sir, not a bit of it.

Do I really need to use the sarcasm tag?

[jpak]

14. Oh yeah, unlike CDC gun violence studies Harvard doesn't have to submit its gun research to the NRA

for suppression

yup

[X_Digger]

29. Free clue, this wasn't published by Harvard.

You must've missed it. You're welcome.

[X_Digger]

41. Lol, I was right about #2..

http://ajl.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/02/01/1559827610396294.full.pdf+html

Full text..

Hemenway D, Barber C, Miller M. Unintentional firearm deaths: a comparison of other-inflicted and self-inflicted shootings.
Richardson EG, Hemenway D. Homicide, suicide, and unintentional firearm fatality: comparing the United States with other high-income countries
Miller M, Azrael D, Hemenway D. Firearm availability and unintentional firearm deaths.
Miller M, Azrael D, Hemenway D, Vriniotis M. Firearm storage practices and rates of unintentional firearm deaths in the United Sta
Hemenway D. Private Guns Public Health
Miller M, Hemenway D. The relationship between firearms and suicide: a review of the literature.
Kellermann AL, Rivara FP, Somes G, et al. Suicide in the home in relation to gun ownership.
Grassel KM, Wintemute GJ, Wright MA, Romero MP. Association between handgun purchase and mortality from firearm injury.
Wintemute GJ, Parham CA, Beaumont JJ, Wright M, Drake C. Mortality among recent purchasers of handguns.
Birkmayer J, Hemenway D. Suicide and gun prevalence: are youth disproportionately affected?
Miller M, Lippmann S, Azrael D, Hemenway D. Household firearm ownership and rates of suicide across the 50 U.S. states.
Miller M, Azrael D, Hemenawy D. Household firearm ownership levels and suicide across U.S. regions and states,
Miller M, Azrael D, Hepburn L, Hemenway D. The association between changes in household firearm ownership and rates of suicide in the United States


Gah.. enough.. tired of copy / pasting. At least 50 of the 95 cited works contain one of the usual suspects.

[Euromutt]

76. What's especially remarkable is how often Hemenway cites *himself*

As if public health "research" into firearms wasn't enough of a circle-jerk as it is, Hemenway has to take it one further by furiously masturbating with his free hand.

It should raise large red flags in any piece of research when a researcher leans that heavily on his own work. The primary reason the scientific method was developed is to counter the fact that people, including scientists, tend to blind to their own biases, and if, as a researcher, you find that the primary source of findings that support your hypothesis is you yourself, you really need to take a step back and ask yourself whether the reason almost nobody else is coming up with this stuff is because it's wrong.

[X_Digger]

19. Not a harvard study, actually. n/t

[jpak]

32. Oh my stars - the Harvard School of Public Health isn't affiliated with Teh Harvard Yard

it's affiliated with Teh Harvard Beets!!111

:rofl:

[X_Digger]

35. If it were a Harvard study, it would be published in a Harvard publication.

If Hemenway wrote a book, would it be a 'Harvard book'?

You're trying to attach the mantle of credibility to a work that he didn't publish in a reviewed journal.

[jpak]

37. Yeah - no one at Harvard publishes in Science or Nature or PNAS or NE J.of Medicine

or any other peer reviewed journal

like I sed before - anti-science and anti-intellectual

yup

[X_Digger]

38. Is this article peer reviewed? (Hint: No.)

Here, let me re-quote from the OP-

The fact that it came from a relatively obscure journal—the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine is not indexed by the PubMed system, and has no impact factor

[petronius]

42. The full article is online if anyone wants it:

http://ajl.sagepub.com/content/early/recent

[gejohnston]

44. I read it, it is almost 20 years old.

Written by an MD and not a criminologist. Wake me up when the peer review comes out, there will not be one. On the cover page it said it was sponsored by the Joyce Foundation, which means "put in the stack with the climate change denial paid for by American Petroleum institute."

[Euromutt]

59. Actually, IIRC, Hemenway is an economist, not an MD

In other words, a practitioner of the social science that likes to pretend it's "hard" science like physics.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

64. and yet, people keep reccing this....

sheeple.

[ManiacJoe]

50. Woefully unimpressive.

As an executive summary it is way too long. As a report it is extremely lacking in data to back up his conclusions.

[DonP]

57. "So, aside from that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln"

So in a few hours we find that:

1. It's not really a Harvard study, the guy has a job at Harvard but none of the Harvard Healoth School journals would really touch it.

2. The study is over 20 years old and has never been peer reviewed.

3. The "researcher" has been a hired gun for the Joyce Foundation et. al. in the past, producing studies that show what they want shown - by the pound.

4. His methodology is fatally flawed using non-comparable groups and unacceptable parameters for any serious researcher to accept (hence no peer review - can anyone say Michael Bellisles or Kellerman?).

5. The "research" is published in a vague, unknown journal.

and

6. Some people here, with no knowledge of professional research procedures, approved methodologies or what "peer reviewed", "Harvard published" really mean, want it to be true so bad they accept it, make it sound far more credible than it is and demean anyone that even questions any facet of the so called study.

I'm just ignoring the penis focused comments since they are irrelevant, childish and usually by people with serious oedipal mother issues.

That about right so far? Or did I miss something?

[rl6214]

68. I think you got it all, well said. Rec to your post.

[YllwFvr]

58. I lost interest when I got to the bolded section

Everyone is irrational when pissed and a gun makes it worse.
Don't buy it. Unstable people perhaps. My psych tests have come back fine, but I've still been called nuts on here lol

[Euromutt]

61. "Suicides are more likely to be successful when guns are involved" More likely than WHAT?

As far as I'm aware, suicide attempts by jumping off bridges and other high places or in front of oncoming trains have a fatality rate that's about the same as using firearms; all work about 90% of the time. Self-strangulation/asphyxiation (i.e. hanging) is effective almost as often. So how does Hemenway come by that statement?

The most likely explanation is that he's taken all the non-firearm methods of suicide, averaging out their fatality rates and comparing that to the fatality rate for firearms. Of course, that would include the methods known to be less reliable that people use when they're not genuinely trying to kill themselves, but want to issue a cry for help, thereby masking the ones mentioned above, which generally work very reliably.

[rl6214]

65. Holy shit we'd better make "people do stupid things when angry or depressed"

illegal then. Who knows what they could do while angry or depressed, whether they have a gun or not.

Unrec for your normal GOP/NRA SHTICK.

Always playing the fool.

[lawodevolution]

70. Self defensive use is much more common than accidentally being shot

[ileus]

71. or in other words "GUNS KILL PEOPLE" condense it

[LibertyFox]

79. It's a step up from the gun kills by itself.

Admitting the gun has to be used stupidly at least implies some form of responsibility on the user's side.