Your sample size is 35 people. I'm not sure if I'd run with that number.
The purpose is not to determine the exact percentage of defensive gun uses that are criminal, the point is that considering literally every possible advantage was given to the people analyzed and such a large percentage were likely criminal it is likely that ‘defensive gun use’ as you describe contains a large amount of criminal activity.
That would give me pause if I were a gun rights person as yet another primary reason to own a gun seems questionable.
They actually excluded a huge majority of all cases in what was already a very small sample size. I'm not sure how you think they literally gave them every advantage.
Not for a sample size of 35. I don't statistics very well but I bet this would be a bad statistics.
Did you read the study? They go into exactly why those cases were excluded. What part of those exclusions do you deem to be improper?
The good news is that I know statistics quite well and this is fine. The purpose of this study was not to determine the percentage of defensive gun uses that were criminal with any particular precision, it was to provide evidence that a significant portion of what people describe as defensive gun use may in fact be criminal activity. It's not a conclusion, it's a statement of - 'hey look, the defensive gun stats that pro-gun people cite may have a huge fucking problem'.
I kno w if I were a gun rights person the idea that all that defensive gun use was just more crimes that would bother me. Oddly enough they appear to have no interest in conducting research that would show most or all of that activity is legal. I wonder why?
No, they don't go into exact reasons. And I'm not deeming anything, I'm wondering things. The study excludes police, military, security guards, etc... with no mention of whether the gun use was ON THE JOB or not. That is critically important to know. These are groups of people who are allowed to have guns off duty in places where you and I are not allowed to. For instance, there are counties in CA where conceal carry permits are next to impossible to obtain outside of said professions. Doesn't it stand to reason that groups of people who are allowed to have guns might defend themselves with guns more than people who are not? If excluded due to occurring on duty then good job, but MENTION THAT IT IS IMPORTANT. Why didn't this question occur to you?
An example study of 35 cases out of hundreds of ambiguous exclusions does not seem much like evidence to me unless I really want it to be.
Why should they? Is this a widespread argument? Is there a need for the NRA to spend money to defend this position? I have never before today heard that most defensive uses of guns are illegal. This doesn't agree at all with research that almost all defensive uses of guns only involve brandishing the weapon and no shot is ever fired.
Let's consider the other side: the same exact question could be asked about the anti gun groups. If this is a thing, then why do most of them have no interest in conducting research that would show most or all of that activity is illegal? This would be very powerful data. It's likely that neither group is spending money and effort on this because it is bullshit.
As police officers are technically always on duty and may act under the auspices of their position at any time it makes no sense to compare their actions to those of private citizens as the same standards of legality do not apply. (a police officer has way more leeway to point a gun at someone than a private citizen, for example.)
I would suggest you consider the opposite. Doesn't this suggest to you the possibility that a substantial portion of defensive gun use may be criminal in nature and shouldn't we do more research to find out? If your answer is no you might want to consider why that is.
The fact that you've never heard that before today should be setting off warning bells. Also I'm confused as to why that wouldn't agree with the research based on the idea that almost all defensive use is brandishing a gun, as brandishing a gun is frequently a crime.
https://www.wklaw.com/brandishing-a-weapon-california-pc-417/
Have you seriously not heard of the various federal bans on gun related research and the extreme obstacles put in place by the gun lobby in identifying gun owners that makes it extremely difficult to conduct gun research?
https://www.npr.org/2018/04/05/599773911/how-the-nra-worked-to-stifle-gun-violence-research
If I were a gun rights person it would make me question my position very, very seriously if I knew that gun rights groups were desperately attempting to prevent research into guns. Only one side is doing this, why do you think that is?
This is my point, thanks. People who are allowed to use guns in self defense tend to use them more in self defense. Don't exclude them from self defense studies simply because they are allowed to defend themselves. That will clearly skew any data/results and it is really tough to argue otherwise unless you want it to.
Furthermore, you called it an "extreme advantage" to assume that none of these defensive gun uses were committed by criminals. I'm not sure I would consider you lumping everyone in with criminals in any study as an extreme advantage as I'm pretty sure the behavior of people illegally possessing weapons is not exactly angelic.
Why would you want more research when you have already made your decision based on the exhaustive study of 35 people? We don't even know where these people were from. Were they from drug gangs? Members of the Newport Beach parent's association?
I'd happily welcome more research as long as it isn't based on finding the least law abiding group possible, studying that group only while calling it an "extreme advantage", and then attempting to draw sweeping conclusions based on extremely small sample sizes.
Your link literally says that you can brandish a weapon in self defense but you can't if it's not self defense. Please tell me you understand that we already agree on this and it is not new information to me that should set off "warning bells". Please tell me you don't think you just "got me" with a link that says you can't brandish a weapon if not in self defense as if that were somehow against any of my beliefs.
"The legislation didn't explicitly ban gun research, but funding cuts reduced it by 90 percent". Cool, I was asking why the private groups who have money don't spend it on this just like you were asking why the NRA doesn't spend money on this. Why would you bring federal funding into this when both of us were talking about private funding? If this funding exists but is not being used then why? The answer is that it is of no advantage to either side or else the money would have been spent.
I don't want my government spending money to tell me why I shouldn't get to have a gun. I'd rather keep that tax money and keep my guns.
It's very easy to argue otherwise. The same rules of what is or is not legal do not apply to them, therefore it's not possible to compare them with the general population.
That is not what I said; I said it was an advantage to assume that no one possessed the gun illegally, which it undeniably is.
The assumption that possessing the gun is not a crime an advantage as some nonzero percentage of people own weapons illegally.
So yes, extreme advantage. There's simply no arguing that. What's odd is that you appear to think we shouldn't lump 'criminals' and non-criminals together as their penchant for criminality is different but have no problem lumping police officers and non-officers together despite the fact that their odds of criminal behavior are not only different but the literal legal standards for what constitutes illegal behavior are different.
A very large amount of social science research relies on state and federal data collection like the GSS, the census, etc. The government has been explicitly barred from collecting much of the information that would be useful in conducting research on this, making it very difficult to do. Furthermore, federal and state governments provide much of the funding for this sort of research so when that's prohibited by law you get very little of it. So, in the end you have data that's hard to get or nonexistent and statutory bans on money to fund the researchers that would need to compile it.
If your argument is that the reason this research is not funded is that people do not believe it would be fruitful then please provide me with a single, solitary nonpartisan source that agrees with you.
I knew this was your answer from the beginning but thanks for just coming out and saying it. If you don't want to learn about gun violence because you feel it will threaten your ability to have guns that's fine.
It's not a logical opinion, but it's your right to have it. You can't expect other people to treat your opinions seriously in that case though because they aren't based in an evaluation of the evidence.
If by chance you are interested in the evidence on gun ownership I can hook you up with a lot of it. In short, the average person probably shouldn't own a gun from a self interest standpoint.
The same types of rules of what is legal or not also apply to criminals illegally in possession of firearms, yet you want to compare THEM with the general population. I understand that excluding the most law abiding people in a study and including the least law abiding people make for better numbers for your agenda, but outside of that, why would you want that to be the study you base your opinions on???
It would be an advantage to EXCLUDE them. Exclusion of people in explicit violation of the law will lower your rates of law violation. You have already accepted the exclusion of the huge majority of cases simply because it is assumed that what they do is legal, so why is it OK to exclude military members but not convicted felons from your numbers? Essentially your study = general law abiding population + criminals - almost everyone legally allowed to defend themselves. That doesn't look like a good study to me. It probably looks great to you. And you said you statistic good.
That seems like a shit group to magically absolve of their criminality in order to include them in crime reports as somehow representing the general population. Criminals are the group I would always include if I only cared about making crime rates look higher. I would also exclude the cops/military/guards because that would also make crime rates look higher.
Either include both the cops and the criminals or exclude the cops and criminals. Either way I bet the number skews away from what you want to see. You want to exclude the cops because the rules are different for them but then include the criminals despite the fact that the rules are different for them too. If the literal legal standards for what constitutes illegal behavior are different for each group vs the general population, then why only exclude the one group that would make the statistics not look like what you want them to be?
You are still focused on the government spending. There is tons of money to be spent on studies as evidenced by the lots of well funded private organizations who do studies, including the money that was spent on your exhaustive and conclusive 35 person study. It is not very difficult, it just doesn't provide the answer that you seek.
The private money is there. It is not being spent on these studies. Tell me a single solitary nonpartisan source who might suggest "don't spend our money on studies that will make us look good". Maybe you think these organizations are just really stupid. I agree with you.
I actually don't want the government spending money to tell me why they should be force to choose between 1) take my shit that I'd never illegally use to harm someone 2) put me in ass-rape prison.
I will never support that and you shouldn't either.
You talk big talk about basing opinions on the evaluation of evidence when you are clearly fine with excluding the evidence that you don't like and including the evidence that you do like. If the evidence agrees with you then why are you OK with throwing out the shit you don't like?
If your evidence is studies which include drug gang members with the general population but exclude cops/guards/military then no thanks. Because that's what you've based the entirety of your arguments on thus far. And your'e OK with it. I don't think you care about the truth so much as being right. You aren't.
I don’t think you understand my position, the topic, or statistics. The reason not to include police officers is not that what they do is assumed legal, it is that they literally have a different set of laws applied to them as it regards to firearm use. The general population and convicted felons on the other hand are all subject to identical laws in this respect.
If you have a situation where identical actions are criminal for one person and not for another you have an invalid comparison. Do you understand now?
It may not look like a good study to you but you admittedly have no expertise in this. If you think these fundamental flaws escaped the other experts in the field who peer reviewed it perhaps you should contact the journal. Actual professionals disagree with you.
See above - the rules for what constitute an illegal act are the same for the general population in this regard, ex felons and felons alike. The same is not true for police.
So in other words you weren’t able to come up with a single source to back your argument up, just hand waving about how there must be money somewhere. I on the other hand can come up with tons of sources that talk about the lack of capacity for gun research.
Nope, I’m perfectly comfortable if the empirical evidence shows otherwise. I’m not the one trying to stop the research after all.
Maybe that’s how you would conduct gun research because you’re personally invested in the outcome being in favor of gun ownership. I honestly don’t care either way. Instead of getting angry and trying to impugn my motives, provide evidence as to why you’re right like I have.
NO, convicted felons DO NOT have the same laws as the general population. A convicted felon MAY NOT have a gun. That is very different than the general population. You are saying they are identical. They are not.
This is exactly what I'm trying to say. Take the identical action of someone possessing a gun who is a (1) felon and (2) not felon. One of these is criminal and one isn't. I don't think we should lump them together. See, we're totally getting onto the same page. You and me are gonna have beers after this.
No need appeal to authority. Convince me I'm wrong. If the experts in the field have laid their groundwork then it should be super easy for you. You are floundering, as are the experts who think we should look at the least law abiding segment of society and use that to come to sweeping conclusions about self defense policy.
Does the general population get to have guns? Do the felons get to have guns? Is the answer different? You are still trying to say that general population - cops + felons = accurate reflection of society. It's not.
Your sources talk about lack of capacity for FEDERALLY FUNDED gun research. You go ahead and waive your hands about how there aren't any private gun control organizations and how they don't have any money and don't do research. You would be wrong, because they exist. They exist because they have money. Explain why they have not chosen this proven, easy, powerful path to proving the gun owners wrong. If this one simple trick were enough, then why haven't they played it?
Yes you are. You are fine with research that explicitly states it is going to ignore 95% of its research because reasons. I understand that these reasons make your viewpoint look more "right" but that doesn't seem like a reason to be OK with crapping out 95% of actual research.
I just want you to know I am not angry with you. I like talking to you on the internet. I have noticed that you are OK excluding evidence that makes you look bad and including evidence that makes you look good. I don't like this but it doesn't make me angry.
I saw you had posted and was wondering if you had come to apologize for calling someone a liar for posting a real fact backed up by an anti-gun organization.