Does merely purchasing a handgun increase your risk of death?

[LibLabUK]

Inj Prev. 2003 Mar;9(1):48-52.

Association between handgun purchase and mortality from firearm injury.
Grassel KM, Wintemute GJ, Wright MA, Romero MP.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the association between mortality from violent or firearm related injury and previous handgun purchase.

METHODS: Case-control study of 213 466 Californians ages 21 and older who died in 1998; cases were the 4728 violent or firearm related injury deaths, with subsets by specific cause and means of death, and controls were the 208 738 non-injury deaths. The exposure of interest was the purchase of a handgun during 1996-98. The main outcome measure was the odds ratio for handgun purchase, adjusted for age, sex, race, education, and marital status.

RESULTS: Handgun purchase was more common among persons dying from suicide (odds ratio (OR) 6.8; 95% confidence interval (CI) 5.7 to 8.1) or homicide (OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.6 to 3.7), and particularly among those dying from gun suicide (OR 12.5; 95% CI 10.4 to 15.0) or gun homicide (OR 3.3; 95% CI 2.1 to 5.3), than among controls. No such differences were seen for non-gun suicide or homicide. Among women, those dying from gun suicide were much more likely than controls to have purchased a handgun (OR 109.8; 95% CI 61.6 to 195.7). Handgun purchasers accounted for less than 1% of the study population but 2.4% of gun homicides, 14.2% of gun suicides, and 16.7% of unintentional gun deaths. Gun suicide made up 18.9% of deaths among purchasers but only 0.6% of deaths among non-purchasers.

CONCLUSION: Among adults who died in California in 1998, those dying from violence were more likely than those dying from non-injury causes to have purchased a handgun.

----

Discuss

[MrBenchley]

1. Consistent with other studies...

"Oh, I'm a danger to myself and others.
My cousins are as close as brothers.
I stay out in the rain all the time!"

http://www.d.umn.edu/~molson2/mst3k/dangerto.html

[library_max]

2. So, Injury Prevention joins the New England Journal of Medicine

in the great gun-grabber conspiracy among scholarly journals.

Either that, or facts are facts, and who's gonna believe that?

[MrBenchley]

3. LOL!

[DonP]

4. I wonder if insurance actuarial tables cover it?

Seriously, the life insurance industry seems to be pretty good at identifying risk factors that might impact their bottom line. That's why they exlcude suicide from many policies because it can't be accurately predicted.

When I got my last policy, along with the physical they wanted to know if I was a private pilot, sky diver, rode a motorcucle regularly, had ever been treated for depression or was I taking any prescription medications for depression, hypertension etc.

They never asked me if I owned a gun of any kind or if I hunted, target shot etc.

Anybody out there have access to the actuarial tables to see if gun ownership is considered a "high risk" behavior for life insurance purposes?

[slackmaster]

41. I asked my homeowner's insurance company about that

Great point.

They don't charge higher liability premiums to people who own handguns, and they don't offer a "gun-free home" discount. I've never heard of a company that does.

If there is an increased risk for gun owners, it's small enough that it's not worth the insurers' time to cost it out. So they spread it out among all policy holders.

[LibLabUK]

42. Ahh...

But do they actually pay out on gun-related injuries?

They may not charge a premium because they don't actually cover that risk.

[slackmaster]

43. Yes, I carry $1 million in liability insurance

If someone suffers an accidental gunshot wound (or any other accidental injury) while on my property, or if I negligently injure someone by gunshot (or any other means) anywhere else, my insurance company would be obligated to pay. If I'm involved in a vehicle accident and liable, my car insurance would pay out first.

[MrSandman]

55. Umbrella policy...

Covers harm caused by liable actions on my part, with or without a firearm. No extra premium.

[DoNotRefill]

5. ROTFLMAO!!!!

People contemplating committing suicide with a gun buy guns to commit suicide. Go figure. :)

Correlation is not causation....

[LibLabUK]

6. Hmm..

What about the increased risk of homicide?

[DoNotRefill]

10. so let me get this straight....

are you (and the study) suggesting that if a person buys a gun, they are more likely to be murdered? That's still not causation. If somebody thinks they're in danger of being murdered, they very well might buy a gun for self defense, but if they're murdered by somebody else with another gun, their purchase of a firearm didn't contribute to their death, their purchase of the gun was BECAUSE they knew they were in danger.

For example, suppose a woman without a gun thinks her psycho stalker ex-boyfriend is going to kill her, so she buys a gun, but he kills her anyway. Did her buying a gun contribute to her death IN ANY WAY? I don't see how...

[slackmaster]

13. It may be that people who are more likely to be murdered

because of their circumstances (living in a bad neighborhood, working at night, etc.) are more likely to buy a gun for self-protection.

[library_max]

7. Likewise people contemplating gun homicides

and unintentional gun deaths, I suppose. That'd follow, wouldn't it? Or are we ignoring those numbers because we don't have an answer?

[DoNotRefill]

9. "unintentional gun deaths"...

yup, buying guns shows somebody's contemplating an unintentional gun death, alright....just like somebody buying a car is contemplating getting run over by a semi accidentally.

Given that there are 300 million guns in the us, and around 8 thousand gun homicides, that works out to what kind of ratio? Does the term "statistically insignificant" ring a bell?

[library_max]

11. Let's see - 1% of the population, 16.7% of the unintentional gun deaths -

no, I'd have to say that's statistically significant.

My point, of course, was that even though gun buyers don't contemplate unintentional gun deaths, they die that way anyway, grossly out of proportion to the rest of the population. You were trying to make the conclusion of the study go away by commenting on suicides. I was pointing out that your logic doesn't stretch (very appropriate word, btw) to the gun homicides and unintentional gun deaths. Wake up and smell the sarcasm.

[DoNotRefill]

17. Did the study control...

for people who already owned guns and then bought another? The way it's worded, it sounds to me like it didn't.

I'm not going to try to invest a great amount of time in analyzing this study, since I don't have that much time to do it, and don't have the data sets or methodology. What I'd be interested in seeing is how many accidental deaths we're talking about in the actual study. Since there are so few nation-wide, and the study looked only at a tiny fraction of the population in one state, I'm wondering how many actual accidental fatalities were included.

[Wickerman]

26. Actually, that is the nice thing about a peer-reviewed journal

you don't have to do the analysis yourself, or have to have the data set at hand. Someone else (actually a panel very qualified someone elses) has already checked methodology and found it sound enough to publish in a highly respected scientific journal.

[DoNotRefill]

31. Luna...

just because something is peer-reviewed doesn't mean it's "gospel". Remember, the science of Phrenology used to have peer-reviewed journals, too.

[MrBenchley]

32. Yes, science isn't really science

to our trigger-happy brethren...

Tell us refill, what was the name of one of these peer reviewed journals of phrenology? Who published it? When did it go out of business?

[DoNotRefill]

34. "science" isn't a dogmatic belief in something...

look at what happened with MC Hawking recently WRT black holes....

The whole POINT of science is to offer theories, and then try to tear them down. A lot of what we take for scientific fact now is undoubtedly wrong, and will be disproved in time.

[MrBenchley]

35. So I guess that's "No, I was making that up about phrenology"

"The whole POINT of science"
Explain it to Mary Rosh...

[DoNotRefill]

36. nope...

you ARE familiar with the history of phrenology, aren't you?

BTW, try "Phrenological Journal and Miscellany", which started up in 1821, or "The Medico-Chirurgical Review, and Journal of Practical Medicine" or a bunch of other ones out there.

[MrBenchley]

37. And show us where they did any peer review....

Here's the introduction...and there's not a word about any peer review as scientists know it...although the editor does promise he's going to do book and article reviews personally....

http://pages.britishlibrary.net/phrenology/other_texts/pj_intro.htm

[LibLabUK]

38. Hmm....

Having failed in their attempt to successfully rebut the statistical analysis, they instead shift their aim (pun intended) toward the scientific establishment. Choosing to highlight theories disproved over 100 years ago, as proof that one cannot derive fact from science.

I wonder if anyone's done a study on creationists and gun ownership... the "It's only a theory" argument would seem to be a common thread.

[MrBenchley]

40. Guess if you don't have anything else...

You can try to hang your hat on the "One hundred years hence statistical analysis will seem as quaint and wrong as phrenology" peg...

That doesn't look really desperate to anyone.

[Wickerman]

39. I didn't say gospel

I said that methodlogy was checked out and from all apparant evidence it is a relaible and valid study. That's the beauty of work accomplished by scholars - they do work that can be verified. John Lott has his very own journal, too, but it ain't reliably peer-reviewed.

And, if I had time I would read through the rest of these posts to see that you were being silly, but of course phrenology was the science of the moment, perhaps it had peer review, perhaps not. but I do know it was a very short lived science and accepted by an incredibly small population.

This study, as opposed to Phrenology was accomplished with modern scientific standard.

[iverglas]

14. funny

yup, buying guns shows somebody's contemplating an unintentional gun death, alright

haha, in fact. And, in fact, I think that's exactly the point the poster you were responding to was making. The question is: how do YOU explain the correlation between purchasing a handgun and dying an unintentional gun death?? If it wasn't the intended consequence of buying the handgun (which is what makes the population in the case of gun suicides a tad self-selecting and the correlation a tad by-definition), what was it?

Given that there are 300 million guns in the us, and around 8 thousand gun homicides, that works out to what kind of ratio? Does the term "statistically insignificant" ring a bell?

I give up. What did that have to do with the purpose, and findings, of the study actually under discussion?

Handgun purchasers accounted for less than 1% of the study population but 2.4% of gun homicides, 14.2% of gun suicides, and 16.7% of unintentional gun deaths.

Wouldn't you say that the very fact that these people were NOT contemplating dying an "accidental gun death" is what makes that figure so interesting?

As for homicide, removing some of the confusing bumph from the original statement, it goes like this:

Handgun purchase was more common ... among those dying from ... gun homicide ... than among controls.

It's a correlation. Causation isn't established. Handgun purchasers may well have been people already at higher risk for gun homicide, indeed. I guess we need a study of "people at elevated risk for gun homicide" in which the control group doesn't buy handguns and the other group does, to see what the effect of buying a handgun might be ...

[JayS]

15. I read the study as only looking at correlation but not attempting...

...to deal with causation, leaving that for folks in J/PS to solve. :) :)

As for some shots at causation, I'd say the suicide one doesn't need much comment. A gun is great for that sort of thing, although somewhat messy. I think there might be liability issues if manufacturers included a message with each handgun advising that if the purchaser is contemplating suicide to be sure and use the product outside or in an easily washable environment. Suggestions to drink antifreeze or salt substitute would of course be over the top. :)

I would think that someone purchasing a gun for self defense would fall into a higher risk group as a number of purchasers will most likely be dealing with an imminent threat or live in a dangerous environment.

And of course there are accidents, but this would not be much of a factor.

[DoNotRefill]

16. that'd do it, but would likely be unethical...

"I guess we need a study of "people at elevated risk for gun homicide" in which the control group doesn't buy handguns and the other group does, to see what the effect of buying a handgun might be ..."

kind of like the Tuskeegee STD study...

As for the unintentional gun deaths, there are fewer than 800 of them a year in the entire nation. Trying to draw conclusions out of such a miniscule sample isn't necessarily possible. Take, for example, a city with a million inhabitants, and almost no crime. Let's say that one year the city had one homicide, and the next year it had two. You could say that the homicide rate doubled and be very accurate, but it's not statistically significant.

[iverglas]

18. you're going at it ass backwards

As for the unintentional gun deaths, there are fewer than 800 of them a year in the entire nation. Trying to draw conclusions out of such a miniscule sample isn't necessarily possible.

That's not what was done.

The study looked at people who had bought handguns vs. people who had not bought handguns.

This particular finding *wasn't* a matter of "what proportion of the people who bought/didn't buy handguns died an accidental gun death?"

It *was* "what proportion of the people who died an accidental gun death had/had not bought a handgun?"

They're different questions.

The people who had bought handguns represented something like a 16 times higher proportion of the population of "dead by accidental gun death" than they represented of "the population".

Yes, absolute numbers of the populations studied will matter. And if you want to critique the significance of those numbers then you oughta do that.

[Romulus]

44. what's an "unintentional gun death"?

Seems we are operating under the assumption that it is an accidental or negligent discharge-type of death.

Wouldn't being caught in the crossfire of a drive-by or something be an "accidental" death, since your death wasn't specifically intended?

We would have to see how the study coded "accidental gun deaths" to be sure we know what we are talking about.

BTW: I bought a sea kayak this past spring. My "risk of drowning" has just gone through the roof. Oh, well.

That "risk" of drowning had probably significantly increased, anyway, because my neighbor also put in a pool this year (even though I don't socialize with them). The "drowning risk" is undoubtedly statistically the same even though I will never actually step foor in the pool, but because I potentially have "access" to the pool.

Edited to add:

DNR, remember the Kellerman study that "found" that renting your residence meant a higher "risk factor" of homicide than firearms ownership? I think it's the same principle at work here.

[library_max]

46. Well, at least you'll get some good exercise out of that kayak.

And you won't be drowning anyone else with it.

[Endangered Specie]

8. OTHER people purchasing said handguns..

damn well sure does increase your chance of death too.

[slackmaster]

12. The probability of death is 1

Otherwise known as 100%. There's no way a handgun or any other object is going to increase it.

[library_max]

19. That kind of ignores the issue of "how"

and the even more interesting issue of "when."

If it doesn't matter how or when we die, then the whole self-defense argument in favor of guns goes right out the window, doesn't it?

[slackmaster]

21. No, it does not

[library_max]

25. Oh, I see.

That settles it . . . I guess . . .

:eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes:

[LibLabUK]

23. Actually it depends.

On how you consider it.

If you look at the probability of death over the entire course of someone's life, then it will be 1.00 because everyone dies. If you look at the probability of death on a particular day, today, then it will not be 1.00... it will infact be much lower than 1.00.

If you look at risk in this way, you can do useful things like look at factors that may increase or decrease this risk. Things like wearing or not wearing a seatbelt, smoking etc. would affect this risk.

[MrBenchley]

33. And of course

toting a popgun around in your pants and pretending to be a tough guy increases the risk significantly...as the numbers show.

[Columbia]

20. NEWSFLASH!

Females are more likely to become pregnant than males.

People who drive cars are more likely to crash while driving a car than those who take the bus.

Those who own a home are more likely to be paying a mortgage than those who rent.

NEWS AT ELEVEN!

[iverglas]

22. yeah, eh?

People who purchase handguns are more likely to die by accidental gunshot than people who don't purchase handguns.

Seems so damned obvious, doesn't it?!

[Columbia]

24. Refer to post 5

[skippythwndrdog]

27. I own 23 handguns (I went to the safe and counted them.)

Does that mean my chances of death by handgun are 23 times greater than a non owner?

I'm still here.

[MrBenchley]

28. Wow, guess we've got another candidate

for luna's award....

[iverglas]

29. I've got one!

[MrBenchley]

30. So apt...

[library_max]

45. Still with us, skippy? /nt

[MrBenchley]

47. LOL!!

Should we check in on the hour?

[library_max]

48. Skippy? /nt

[library_max]

49. Skippy? /nt

[Name removed]

50. Deleted message

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

[library_max]

51. Skiiiiiiiiiiiiiii - ppeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! /nt

[skippythwndrdog]

52. Hi there!

I was out shooting up the back forty.

added on edit: Then there was all that cleaning to do; and the reloading.

[library_max]

53. Oh, there you are!

Thought something awful had happened . . .

[Retired AF Dem]

54. It is safer owning a handgun

than being a pedestrian in a marked cross walk. Most people know guns are dangerous, it seems to me most drivers don't know what a marked cross walk is.

[iverglas]

56. and an awful lot of people ...

It is safer owning a handgun than being
a pedestrian in a marked cross walk.
Most people know guns are dangerous,
it seems to me most drivers don't know
what a marked cross walk is.

... wouldn't know a sound statistical analysis if it ran over them in their own backyard ... and the evidence of that fact is with us daily.

[MrBenchley]

57. THERE's a swell argument, eh...

"I don't trust people who drive, so let's let 'em all have more guns, too...."
Some days these guys read like a parody of themselves....