Tag Archives: laws

Ranking Redux

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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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90% Wrong

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The news was abuzz last week with reports about yet another doctor committing criminology malpractice. This time, The Lancet, “a major contributor to health and medical media coverage worldwide” published a piece claiming that if just three gun control laws were passed on a national level, 90% of gun deaths would disappear. In the next article, statistical proof that Santa and the Easter Bunny were shacking up in Vegas was also provided. It is sad wonder that the media actually ran with the story, though I do favorably note that fewer reporters did than normal. It takes only a little Googleing to gain perspective on gun deaths, and the real numbers about gun violence are even spilling onto presidential debate stages. So perhaps the media, having been lambasted for a few decades for not doing their homework, has started. There were numerous problems with “Firearm Legislation and Firearm Mortality in the USA”. Most obvious are suicides, which … Continue reading →

Kids, Carrying and Con Jobs

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The media was lightly abuzz, echoing without critical review a study that said states with strict gun control laws had fewer kids carrying guns. As with all studies the media fails to study, there is far less here than meets the eye. The report itself has too many lapses to even consider it worthwhile, except perhaps as a case study in poor research methodology. The major defects to this study include: Raw data source and its collection are suspect. Major omissions of U.S. states and territories. Selection of specific years that ignore trends in juvenile gun misuse. Raw Data, Unintentionally Cooked Let’s ignore using the Brady Campaign Scorecard – unlike the authors of the study currently under my microscope – as the definition of good/strict gun control laws. We have repeatedly shown that Brady scores have no correlation to violent crime. The real problem is less with the Brady Scorecard … Continue reading →