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Ranking Redux

Gun Facts Posted on 2023/01/06 by admin2023/01/06
Everytown Gun Law Ranking and Homicide Rates

Everytown for Gun Safety is rank. And by that, we mean their state gun control law ranking system is rank(ed at the top of the silliness scale). Takeaways Everytown’s state law ranking system: Is arbitrary, lacking any criminological basis. Shows very little gun violence variability between states based on their gun laws. Omits the most violent district, which has stringent gun laws. Includes suicides, which are inappropriate in such an analysis. Echoing the Brady Campaign The moribund Brady Campaign (or whatever they are calling themselves this week) used to produce a state gun law scorecard every year. It was, in a word, a gun control wish list and nothing more. We keep their last scorecard criteria to reference their arbitrary scoring system for reference and a few laughs (whichever laws they were promoting that year tended get a higher score).

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Posted in Everytown | Tagged everytown, laws, ranking, scorecard | 1 Reply

Misleading Cause of Child Deaths

Gun Facts Posted on 2022/12/20 by admin2022/12/20
Teen Gun Deaths by Intent and Age - 2019

When it comes to children and guns, both the New York Times and California Governor Gavin Newsom seem to lack both honesty and basic math skills. The former created a misleading meme using bad definitions and incorrect analysis. The latter, being a politician of the craven variety, aped bad data without even a cursory fact check. The Equine Effluvium Conflates different age groups Omits many rows of data about child and teen deaths that are higher than gun deaths Portrays teen age street gang members as “children” Ignores age-related issues or the underlying causes of deaths The Data is Raw The Times perpetrated intellectual fraud by using a subset of the causes of death common to children and to teens (two different groups) and amalgamating them into one entirely inaccurate meme. The fallacious point they want you to believe is that guns are now the leading cause of death among … Continue reading →

Posted in Children and Guns, Propganda | Tagged child gun deaths, gavin newsom, teen gun deaths | 1 Reply

Carry Calculations

Gun Facts Posted on 2022/11/27 by admin2022/11/27
Days per Month People Carry Firearms in Public

You have very likely stood next to someone in line at the grocery store who was carrying a concealed handgun. Multiple times. Perhaps in the same day. A tally from the largest survey of gun ownership and usage produced some surprising data, including how people in may-issue states ignore a lack of permits. Takeaways 4% of all adults in America carry daily. About 6M, or nearly 120,000 in each state. 30% of all handgun owners carry once or more a month. In may-issue and shall-issue states, a sizable number of people carry without permits. Nine times as many people carry daily than there are on-duty police. Carry rate is lower in permitless states than shall-issue states. The Source We recently reported about the largest modern survey of gun ownership. From that, other researchers extracted data on public carry of firearms. Key is that there is not presently a larger, more … Continue reading →

Posted in Concealed Carry | Tagged concealed carry | 4 Replies

Mass Shootings, Private and Public

Gun Facts Posted on 2022/09/26 by admin2022/09/26
Mass Shootings 1980 thru 2018 by Circumstance

Even sullied terms can be analyzed. We came across a quality study that looks at “mass [not-just-public] shootings” and paints a not-quite-alarming story. Main Take-aways As defined more broadly herein: Mass shootings are not steadily increasing and are decreasing as a function of population. Most mass shootings are in private residences and are “family related.” Assault weapons are a minority share of guns used. A third of assailants had mental health issues, higher than the general population but lower than mass public Public and non-public The term “mass public shooting” has had a multi-decade, criminology-derived definition (4+ dead, not including the perp, in a single public place). These events, tragic as they are, are very rare; and in terms of dead people, they account for a fraction of a fraction of gun homicides each year. This fact has proved so inconvenient to some activist groups (including some activist media) that … Continue reading →

Posted in Mass Shootings | Tagged mass shootings | 4 Replies

Big Gun Data

Gun Facts Posted on 2022/09/15 by admin2022/09/15
GUNS AND CRIME PREVENTION - Defensive Gun Uses (DGUs) studies

We normally don’t post a blog entry for a single academic paper, but this one is important because it is the largest well-conducted survey concerning gun ownership and self-defense with guns (as well as other topics) to date. The survey size makes most of the data unassailable, and thus “gold standard.” Take-aways 54,000 people contacted, 16,708 gun owners within that group. Low-side concurrence with other surveys concerning defensive gun use (DGU). New insight into public carry and self-defense, both public and private. Scale data for assault weapons (AR-15s specifically) and magazine capacities more than 10 rounds. Why this paper matters Much of what we know about guns has some limitations:

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Posted in Assault Weapons, Availability of Guns, Crime and Guns, Guns and Crime Prevention | 4 Replies

Culture, Homicides and Violence

Gun Facts Posted on 2022/08/01 by admin2022/07/31
Culture homicides and violent crime

Who is more likely to shoot you, an NRA member or a member of the Crips? The primary difference between these two groups is culture. NRA members tend to be law-and-order types, whereas Crips (or members of any garden variety American street gang) are rather indifferent or openly hostile to laws. It is the adherence to a social norm – in this case, obeying or not obeying the law – that influences one’s probability to act violently, which in tern means using a gun to commit unilateral violence (e.g., not self-defense). We saw this in one study that details the propensity of people in poor and crime-ridden neighborhoods to get and use guns for criminal activities. But what cultural norms influence such behavior? We found a cross-national survey of culture and wanted to see if we could map similarities between nations concerning culture, violence and guns. The Main Take-Aways Gun … Continue reading →

Posted in Availability of Guns, Crime and Guns, Guns in Other Countries | Tagged guns, homicides, international, violent crime | Leave a reply

California Con

Gun Facts Posted on 2022/07/24 by admin2022/10/17
Firearm Deaths by Intent and State 2010-2019

There must be an election coming. The current California governor is making presidential maneuvers and the New York Times appears to be propping up his (inaccurate) statements about guns. I lived in that politician’s home turf for 22 years, during his political rise, so I have a deeper than average interest – and knowledge – of what the reality is, and in which alternate reality the politician resides. Main Take-aways California’s gun homicide rate is exactly the national average. Their overall suicide rate is rising, but is 29% lower that national averages, which bends the curve on gun suicide rates. For mass public shootings, California has 17% more incidents and 60% more deaths than the national average. The New York Times agitprop In a rather choice bit of partisan hackery, the New York Times (NYT) makes the following assertions about California and guns.

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Posted in California, Crime and Guns, Mass Shootings | Tagged california, gun control, homicides, mass pulic shootings, suicides | 2 Replies

Single Parent Gun Violence

Gun Facts Posted on 2022/07/16 by admin2022/07/16
Fatherless Households, Poverty and Homicide Rates 2017

Does not having a father in the home increase the odds of committing a homicide? It appears so, though there are a few factors that complicate things. But leave it to say that fatherless homes might be manufacturing more murders. Major Take-aways Both homicide and firearm homicide rates are well associated with fatherless homes. This matches with nonmarital birth rates by some demographics. A Bit-o-Background Any number of studies have focused on race, urbanization, and poverty as contributing factors to young men murdering. For decades criminologists have noted that the odds of being a murder victim or perpetrator is vastly higher if you are poor, live in a metropolitan area, and are black. Many people openly speculate that part of the puzzle might be the disruption of traditional family structures within the inner cities.

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Posted in Crime and Guns | Tagged family, guns, homicides | 2 Replies

Permitless Murders

Gun Facts Posted on 2022/06/17 by admin2022/06/16
Homicide Rates for States Switching to Permitless Carry vs. No-change States - sans Alaska

In August of 2022, half of the states in America will (or did, depending on when you read this) switch to “permitless carry,” which means residents (and, depending on the state, occasionally non-residents) can carry firearms concealed in public and not have to obtain a permit first. Naturally, this scares some people. So, with seven states currently having been permitless long enough for analysis, it’s worth seeing if the fear is warranted. Main Take-Aways Compared to states that made no changes in concealed carry laws, there was no change in homicide rates. When we remove one outlier state, there is a drop in homicides in the permitless states compared to states that made no change. When we eliminate a sparsely populated frontier state, most trends are flat or downward. Comparing Apples and Pineapples Our objective is to see if states switching to permitless carry have a noticeable change in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Concealed Carry | Tagged concealed carry, permitless | 4 Replies

Trends in Mass Public Shootings

Gun Facts Posted on 2022/06/13 by admin2022/06/17
Leading Mental Health Issues among Mass Public Shooters 1966 thru 2021

The largest multilingual international database of mass public shootings (MPS) tells us that they are increasing globally, less rapidly in the United States, but the average number of deaths in American MPSs is rising faster than the world at large. Let us then look at some of the factors that may contribute to mass shootings and see if there are rising rates of underlying causes. Main Take-aways 41% of mass public shooters with mental health issues got their guns legally, and the rate is rising. MPSs are on the rise, but not steeply. Handguns are outpacing all other weapon types, including “assault weapons.” Higher capacity magazines are radically increasing in use. The rate of legally acquired guns is rising much faster than illegally obtained guns. Precautions and Notes Repeat after me… mass public shootings are statistically rare events, and as such, trends and isolating causes are of a fragile nature.

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Posted in Mass Shootings | Tagged mass public shootings | 4 Replies

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