A NICE SITE TO WASTE YOUR TIME ON https://www.quora.com/ HAVING GUNS….YOU BE SHOT A GOOD RESPONSE From Your Digest Is there any truth to the idea that people who have guns in their homes for protection are more likely to be shot or in more danger than those who don't have guns? Bruce Tiemann, studied at California Institute of Technology Updated Jul 30 Yes there is, in the same way that people who own nitroglycerine pills are more likely to have a heart attack than those who don’t have such pills, or that people who own numerous diet foods are more likely to be morbidly obese than people with no diet foods in their house. Or that people with lighters in their pockets or purses are more likely to die of lung cancer.[1] Which is not to say that nitroglycerine pills cause heart attacks, nor that diet foods cause morbid obesity, nor that lighters cause lung cancer - nor that owning a gun causes someone to get shot. The study which found that “a gun in the home nearly triples the risk of homicide”, authored by Arthur Kellerman, failed to account for reverse causation, namely, that people who tended to have guns in the home were more likely to either have chosen a criminal lifestyle or to have credible threats against their lives, e.g. estranged ex-spouses, or just plain living in a bad area of town. Of course, the study, originally published in the ‘prestigious’ New England Journal of Medicine, Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home | NEJM has been widely cited in the media, and still persists in the form of memes such as the OP. Thanks, in no small part, to the prestige commanded by the NEJM. It is amusing to read the letters to the editor in rebuttal to that article. They are available here: Guns and Homicide in the Home | NEJM Incredibly, the author responds to the criticism of reverse causation in response to these rebuttals in the following way: “If a gun in the home affords substantial protection from homicide (whether it is used to injure, kill, or frighten intruders or simply discourage them from entering), we should have found that homes in which a homicide occurred were less likely to contain a gun than similar households in which a homicide did not occur. The opposite was true.” (!!) It is also amusing and quite illuminating to apply that same tortured logic to the cases I open this response by citing: “If nitroglycerine pills actually treated heart conditions, we should have found that people who had them in their possession would have had a lower incidence of heart attacks than in those people who did not possess that medication. Instead, the opposite was true.” … “If diet foods prevented morbid obesity, we should have found that households filled with such products had fewer morbidly obese people than households lacking such products. Instead, the opposite was true.” If firefighters actually put out house fires, we should have found that houses surrounded by firefighters should have been burning less often than houses not surrounded by firefighters. If the Flight For Life actually saved people’s lives, we should have found that people being transported on such flights died at a rate less often than people not taking such flights. Such cases obviously draw the wrong conclusions - and yet, they employ the same “logic” as is used by Kellerman in his study. For some reason, the media, even including Scientific American (which one might think would employ editors versed in logic at least well enough to recognize this logical fallacy), continue to cite the study as if it were incontrovertible. Here is what Scientific American had to say: “So what does the research say? By far the most famous series of studies on this issue was conducted in the late 1980s and 1990s by Arthur Kellermann, now dean of the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and his colleagues. In one, published in 1993 in the New England Journal of Medicine and funded by the CDC, he and his colleagues identified 444 people who had been killed between 1987 and 1992 at home in three U.S. regions—Shelby County, Tennessee, King County, Washington State, and Cuyahoga County, Ohio—and then collected details about them and their deaths from local police, medical examiners and people who had been close to the victims. They found that a gun in the home was associated with a nearly threefold increase in the odds that someone would be killed at home by a family member or intimate acquaintance.” More Guns Do Not Stop More Crimes, Evidence Shows This case is possibly an object lesson why medical professionals are not the correct group to consider “gun violence”, especially considering that the NEJM took an editorial position against private gun ownership in the same issue, i.e. removing any doubt as to their lack of their objectivity on the subject. And also considering that some of the cases Kellerman counted as “increasing the risk of homicide” (i.e. cases of actual homicide) were actually legally justifiable homicides of criminal attackers - i.e. exactly the sort of homicides that underly the right of self-defense, rather than ones to be minimized or prohibited. Of course, this creates an enormous gulf between medical cases and ‘gun violence’ - there are no “good” or “justifiable” cases of plague or malaria or ebola, etc. Yet there are criminal homicides and justifiable homicides - which are night and day different both morally and legally; there is a world of difference between someone murdering others, and someone else who kills such a person in the act. The latter, of course, would never happen in households lacking guns - and yet, Kellerman expects us to view this as a good thing, a homicide avoided, when we are told “a gun in the home nearly triples the risk of homicide.” Unless and until the medical establishment can admit the difference between criminal and justifiable homicides, they should be kept away from ‘studying gun violence’, lest they produce more junk science studies as defective as the one giving rise to the OP question. Indeed, the possibility can not be ruled out that the authors maliciously overlook the reverse causation flaw in an attempt to disparage and denigrate the value of privately-owned guns for self-defense. Kellerman is no stranger to doing the latter, e.g. finding that “a gun in the home is 43 times more likely to kill friends, acquaintances or family than an unknown intruder” - counting suicides, and considering rival drug dealers as “acquaintances”, estranged ex-spouses as “family”, and only counting the *killings* of unknown intruders, thereby ignoring the vastly larger number of crimes successfully deterred or thwarted by merely showing the gun, or non-fatally shooting the criminal suspect. It makes no more sense to judge the value of private gun ownership by relative body counts than it does to judge the success of a police force by body counts, and yet, that is exactly what Kellerman does in this other study. (This sort of thing is why the NRA forced Congress to stop funding the CDC to do “gun violence research” - and rightly so. Note also how the Scientific American text gushes with the fallacy of Appeal to Authority, (dean of medicine at a University; published in the New England Journal of Medicine; funded by the CDC) rather than so much as taking a moment to look at what Kellerman’s article actually says - what the claim actually is, what the experimental design was, and whether the claim was actually supported by the results. Frankly, Scientific American should be ashamed of itself for citing such a study, and should not only apologize but also, to make amends, spend an article explaining to its readership what the experimental design actually was and what conclusions could rightly be drawn from it. They are welcome to use my answer here as guidance.) [1] This answer was suggested by my 13-year-old. 11.9k Views · View Upvoters · View Sharers Upvote · 499 Share · 2 RecommendedAll Shane Gericke Jul 29 · 25 upvotes including Bruce Tiemann There is a grain of truth to that—you are more likely to be killed by gun if there is a gun in your home—but only to the extent that you literally cannot kill yourself or others with a gun if you do not have access to a gun. Just like you cannot die in a car crash if you never travel by car, you cannot die in a plane crash if you never fly, and you cannot be an alcoholic if you do not drink alcohol. I have power tools in my shop. I am therefore more likely to injure myself with power tools than someone who doesn’t own them. So of course the possibility of gun deaths and injuries increase in homes that own guns. However, Kellerman’s “ten gajillion times more likely!!!” thesis was debunked ages ago. I seem to recall that Kellermann even admitted that eventually, but since I cannot find a cite or link, I cannot legitimately claim that admission. But others have pointed out his errors, so his admission or lack thereof doesn’t matter. Gun-haters cannot win an honest debate on gun murders, because 12,000 gun murders in a nation of 300 million Americans who own 400+ million guns is a statistical speck. To be specific, 0.00004 percent of Americans used a gun to murder someone last year. The gun murder rate is 3.8 per 100,000 Americans. And those murders are not spread evenly through the states and counties, or spread evenly among gun owners, but concentrated primarily in handfuls of neighborhoods in handfuls of urban areas. NOTE: A couple of Quorans tell me my math is off, and that the actual percentage of Americans who used a gun to murder someone last year is 0.004 percent, not 0.00004 percent. I asked them to ‘splain why to my poor math-challenged brain, and if they do successfully, I am happy to credit their correction. My conclusion: Measures other than “more heapin’ helpings of gun control” are needed to reduce gun murders AND gun suicides, but Americans will not spend the money and energy to do so. Reply Upvote · Downvote Report Bruce Tiemann: I have two comments on your response.... Don Forcash Jul 28 · 23 upvotes including Bruce Tiemann This was a fantastic response. On the very top of my list of things that really piss me off are the miss-use of statistical data…….and more times than not I believe the people that do this know damn well they are doing it. Any high schooler knows correlation is not causation and the plain and simple absurd examples you provided illustrate that wonderfully. I have a hard time believing medical professionals, many in the press, and many of our politicians don’t understand their conclusions are bad science/mathematics. Reply Upvote Downvote · Report Bruce Tiemann: I’m afraid there is a more sinister explanation at hand in this particular case. They know it’s i... Steve R. Hastings Jul 29 · 2 upvotes he Kellerman study is infamous. Very small sample size, and it only tracked instances of fatal shootings. If someone was threatened with harm and was able to deter the attacker by displaying a firearm, that was not counted; only if a defender shot an attacker dead was it counted. Since the great majority of defensive uses of a firearm don't even involve the firearm being discharged, let alone fatally shooting the attacker (see the Kleck study), this study seriously undercounted defensive uses of firearms. I won't claim that the Kellerman study was deliberately designed to overstate the dangers and understate the benefits of firearm ownership. However, if someone had wanted to do that, they might have structured their study exactly the same way that Kellerman structured his. Reply · Upvote · Downvote · Report Bruce Tiemann: If you look at the totality of Kellerman’s contribution to “gun violence research”, you might sta... Ray Bowen Jul 29 “The study which found that “a gun in the home nearly triples the risk of homicide” failed to account for reverse causation, namely, that people who tended to have guns in the home were more likely to either have chosen a criminal lifestyle or to have credible threats against their lives, e.g. estranged ex-spouses, or just plain living in a bad area of town.” Criminologist Gary Kleck has pointed out a major flaw in least one of these studies that showed increased risk of “gun violence” if one owned a gun. The study did not consider whether or not the gun owner was killed with his/her own weapon (!) Reply · Upvote · Downvote · Report Bruce Tiemann: Also it did not consider whether the owner was a criminal or a law-abiding citizen.
Guns and Homicide in the Home 4 Citing Articles Letters To the Editor Kellermann et al. analyze gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home (Oct. 7 issue).1 A matter related to the methods used in their study has bearing on its validity and, consequently, on the far-reaching conclusions made by the authors. Although the use of case proxies is accepted, a comparable data source must be used for controls. After the identification of the homicide victims, proxies were identified and asked to provide information on various characteristics of the deceased persons. Controls and control proxies were also identified, but the proxies in this group participated in fewer than 50 percent of the interviews. Surely it is apparent that the data provided by the controls about themselves are scarcely equivalent to the data obtained from case proxies about homicide victims. At the very least, one would expect less misrepresentation by the controls than by the case proxies. To eliminate this threat to the validity of the data, it might have been useful to have interviewed the controls and their proxies separately in order to establish a concordance rate for the information provided. Would the strength of the reported conclusions have been the same if the analysis had been restricted to data from case-proxy and control-proxy pairs? In addition, a significantly higher number of case subjects than matched controls lived alone. Such a finding compounds the problem noted above. Is the validity of data from an acquaintance or relative living apart from the case subject equivalent to the validity of data from a member of the same household? Although efforts were made to interview proxies for controls, it is clearly difficult to explain this approach to a person who has just consented to participate in the study. Although practical problems in the implementation of a study design call for practical solutions, I fear that the solution in this case has damaged an important study. David Litaker, M.D. Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH 44195 1. Kellermann AL, Rivara FP, Rushforth NB, et al. Gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home. N Engl J Med 1993;329:1084-1091 Full Text Web of Science Medline Google Scholar To the Editor The fatal flaw in the effort by Kellermann et al. to evaluate the protective value of firearms is that they used only data on criminal homicide. As Kellermann and Reay have previously noted,1 no study of homicide can evaluate the protective value of firearms, since only 0.1 percent of the over 2 million protective uses of firearms involve mortality,2,3 and those uses were noncriminal. Kellermann and his colleagues should have realized they were using the wrong methods and data when they found that “controlled security access” to the home was riskier than gun ownership and that the risk of homicide was four times higher in rented homes than in public housing. Even if we look only at homicide, the case-control approach used by Kellermann et al. tells us nothing about whether the use of alcohol -- found to be riskier than gun possession, although the authors offer no concomitant recommendation of teetotalism -- or possession of firearms is risky for ordinary citizens, since the study looked only at a high-risk population with dramatically different demographic characteristics from those of the general population. A substantial minority of the high-risk population studied may already be prevented from possessing firearms, since 53 percent of the case subjects reported a record of arrest of a household member, and 31 percent reported illicit drug use. Kellermann et al. reveal little about homicide, since they limited their analysis to homicides that occurred in the home in three metropolitan counties and excluded homicides involving people under the age of 13 years (about 25 percent of which involve firearms4). With a few other exclusions, the crude odds ratios were based on 21 percent of the areas' homicides, and the adjusted odds ratios on just 17 percent. The result was an unrepresentative sample of homicides -- over 40 percent involved family members killing family members, although nationally such killings account for just over 10 percent of homicides4. Their finding that most killings in and around homes involve people who know each other is as newsworthy as the finding that alcohol is involved in barroom slayings. Paul H. Blackman, Ph.D. National Rifle Association, Washington, DC 20036 1. Kellermann AL, Reay DT. Protection or peril? An analysis of firearm-related deaths in the home. N Engl J Med 1986;314:1557-1560 Full Text Web of Science Medline Google Scholar 2. Kleck G. Crime control through the private use of armed force. Social Probl 1988;35:1-21 Crossref Web of Science Google Scholar 3. Q and A: guns, crime, and self-defense. Orange County Register. September 19, 1993:3. Google Scholar 4. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Crime in the United States, 1992. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1993. Google Scholar To the Editor As we discussed the article by Kellermann et al. during our graduate statistics class, several questions arose, which we hope you will address. First, the authors state, “In the light of [other] observations and our present findings, people should be strongly discouraged from keeping guns in their homes,” implying that a gun in the home is a causal factor in homicide, suicide, and unintentional death. The study sample comprised people who had been killed in their homes and controls matched according to neighborhood, sex, race, and age. On what basis can one generalize from a sample of people who have been murdered to a population of people who keep guns in their homes? Second, the authors list alcohol use, domestic violence, and illicit drug use as contributing factors to homicide. Although they state that the use of alcohol was “strongly associated with homicide,” did they take into account the possible multicollinearity among the independent variables of living in a rented home, living alone, having a history of domestic violence, having an arrest record, using illicit drugs, and keeping guns in the house? Finally, the authors also state, “One or more guns were reportedly kept in 45.4 percent of the homes of the case subjects.” This implies that no guns were kept in 54.6 percent of the homes of the case subjects. In how many of the homicides was the victim killed with a gun that was kept in the house rather than a gun that was brought to the house by the perpetrator? To the Editor Kellermann et al. tar gun ownership with an unnecessarily wide brush. According to the univariate analysis of the risk of homicide, the odds ratio was less than 1 for ownership of a shotgun or rifle, 1.9 for ownership of a handgun, 1.6 for any gun kept in the home, 2.1 for any gun kept unlocked, and 2.7 for any gun kept loaded. However, the one number that will be widely quoted from this article is the odds ratio for “gun or guns kept in the home,” in the logistic-regression model (4). If the raw data permitted it, an analysis of handguns, unlocked handguns, or best of all, loaded and unlocked handguns in the logistic-regression model might be much more pertinent than an analysis of any “gun or guns kept in the home.” On the basis of the univariate analysis, the odds ratio for loaded, unlocked handguns would probably be much more specific and meaningful than the odds ratio of 2.7 for all guns. The subjects with an unlocked, loaded handgun in the home might well represent a group with tendencies toward violence or feelings of victimization, as well as a group that blatantly ignores the clear rules of gun safety. Jerry E. LeClaire, M.D. Spokane Eye Clinic, Spokane, WA 99204 To the Editor As so often happens in the health care arena, the article by Kellermann et al. raises some new questions. The term “risk factor” means different things to different people,1,2 and the authors' use of the term is open to various interpretations. Their data indicate that “keeping a gun in the home was strongly and independently associated with an increased risk of homicide” but do not tell us more than that. “Associated with” and “causally related to” represent two different concepts. Does the presence of firearms in the home predispose the residents to their use, which suggests that if guns were not available, the risk of domestic homicide would be greatly reduced? Is gun ownership a marker for having one's thoughts focused on violence and thus being more likely than others to act violently toward people in their environment, in which case getting rid of one type of weapon might simply lead to the substitution of another? Or is a combination of cause-and-effect relations at work here? Robert D. Gillette, M.D. St. Elizabeth Family Health Center, Youngstown, OH 44501-1790 1. Last JM. A dictionary of epidemiology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983:93. Google Scholar 2. Hensyl WR, ed. Stedman's medical dictionary. 25th ed. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1990:563. Google Scholar To the Editor The study by Kellermann et al. suffers from many flaws. Who or what were the controls? Nonvictimized households? We are told that 35.8 percent of the households of the controls had a gun. We are also told that the households of the case subjects were more likely to have a loaded or unlocked gun and were more likely to have a member with a record of a criminal arrest. Meaningful controls? I doubt it. The authors' interpretation of their results is an example of “data torturing”1. Specifically, Kellermann and his colleagues are guilty of Procrustean data torturing, which is defined as “deciding on the hypothesis to be proved [in this case, owning a gun increases the risk of homicide] and making the data fit the hypothesis.” Never mind that there were more users of illicit drugs, alcoholics, and persons with a history of violence in the households of the case subjects than in the households of the controls or that, by the authors' own admission, 11 of the case subjects were killed by private citizens acting legally in self-defense. In other words, some instances of gun ownership prevented the owner or family members from becoming victims -- indeed, may have even saved their lives. What the article did show is that illicit drug use, alcoholism, and a pattern of violent behavior are risk factors for homicide involving firearms. What the article failed to address is that gun ownership by responsible people is not a risk factor. In other words, it is not the gun (an inanimate object) that is the problem but its inappropriate use. What is equally disturbing is your editorial in the same issue,2 in which you criticize the National Rifle Association (NRA). Clearly, you have focused on the NRA's lobbying and not on the fact that the NRA promotes responsible, safe handling of firearms for appropriate activities, such as hunting, collecting, competitive shooting, practicing shooting to maintain proficiency, and using a gun as a last-resort means of personal defense. (It is interesting that the study by Kellermann et al. showed that home-security measures, such as deadbolts, window bars, security doors, and alarms, had little effect on the risk of homicide in the home.) Instead of criticizing the NRA, why not use that organization and its millions of members, many of whom are physicians and other health professionals, as a resource in our schools to teach our children how to use firearms in a safe and responsible manner? Pat Baranello, M.D. 200 S. Ostrander Rd., East Aurora, NY 14052 1. Mills JL. Data torturing. N Engl J Med 1993;329:1196-1199 Full Text Web of Science Medline Google Scholar 2. Kassirer JP. Guns in the household. N Engl J Med 1993;329:1117-1119 Full Text Web of Science Medline Google Scholar To the Editor I was as disturbed by the rhetoric and misunderstanding of the problem in your editorial on household guns as I have been by writings on the subject by the NRA. Those who advocate sweeping gun restrictions and those who advocate no restrictions are both missing the point and wasting energy that could be used to deal realistically and appropriately with the problem. I think everyone would agree with some basic ideas. Accidental or deliberate deaths or injuries involving firearms are outcomes that we should all actively work to avoid. Those who wish to hunt and shoot for sport should be allowed to do so in a free society, so long as in doing so they do no harm to others. Automobiles are tools that become deadly when used in a dangerous manner. Therefore, we have driver's licenses, which are obtained by demonstrating knowledge about the safe and expert use of an automobile. Similarly, firearms are tools. Society should require that those who wish to own and use firearms demonstrate their knowledge of how to use them safely and skillfully. States should issue firearm user's licenses with stringent requirements. This would not infringe on our rights, since the right to own and use firearms includes the responsibility to use them safely and appropriately. Hunting and sport shooting are not the same as military shooting. The former involves the use of rifles, pistols, or shotguns firing projectiles that differ considerably from those shot from military firearms designed for rapid fire against a protected human enemy. Military weapons and ammunition should be strictly reserved for use by the military and the police. Honestly, shooting a duck with an antitank missile will not do much for the dinner table. . . . Charles R.B. Beckmann, M.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison Medical School, Milwaukee, WI 53201 To the Editor Once again, you use your position as editor to expound on your desire for government confiscation of firearms. At the same time, you proclaim the imminent doom of the NRA, which you accuse of wasting huge amounts of money to oppose gun legislation that you claim is actually supported by the NRA's rank-and-file members. You fail to mention that the NRA, which you portray as fragmented and failing, has grown from 2.4 million to 3.2 million members in the past 18 months, making it one of the largest, fastest-growing organizations in the United States. You also fail to mention that there are already more than 20,000 gun-control laws in the United States at the local, state, and national levels, and that more than two thirds of Americans are already subject to a waiting period similar to the one in the Brady bill. Furthermore, it has yet to be shown that a waiting period for the purchase of handguns such as that mandated by the Brady bill reduces crime. Semiautomatic “assault” weapons (a misnomer, since assault weapons are, by definition, fully automatic) have been used widely for sport for more than 100 years, yet according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Report of 1992, such weapons account for less than 1 percent of guns used in crimes. The NRA has called for a response to violent crime in our country, including mandatory prison sentences, truth in sentencing, a comprehensive reform of juvenile justice, and protection against liability for people who exercise reasonable defensive force.1 Yet you mention none of this in your rush to blame private ownership of guns, in general, and the men and women of the NRA, in particular, for crime in America. The present fad of gun-control rhetoric is a vain attempt to find an easy solution to a complex problem rather than address the real causes of crime in our society: the glorification of violence by the media, the failure of the criminal-justice system, and the disintegration of the family unit in inner-city America. J. Marc Pipas, M.D. Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH 03756 1. Fighting crime the NRA wayAmerican Hunter 1993;21:44-45 Google Scholar Response The authors reply: To the Editor: Large-scale cohort studies are usually the best way to explore the relation between a potential risk factor and an outcome of interest. Since this approach was not feasible, we conducted a case-control study. By ascertaining the rate of gun ownership in households where a homicide had occurred and comparing this rate with that noted in a random sample of neighboring households that contained a person of the same age group, sex, and race as the victim, we obtained a good approximation of relative risk1. This is the same research technique that was used to identify the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer2. The exaggerated claim that guns are used in self-defense more than a million times a year has not withstood scientific scrutiny3,4. If a gun in the home affords substantial protection from homicide (whether it is used to injure, kill, or frighten intruders or simply discourage them from entering), we should have found that homes in which a homicide occurred were less likely to contain a gun than similar households in which a homicide did not occur. The opposite was true. We restricted our study to homicides in the home because the risk or protective benefit of a readily available firearm should be most plausibly demonstrated where it is kept. All such homicides were included, whether or not they involved a person at high risk for violence because of various behavioral factors. Although we noted a degree of association among several behavioral risk factors, each contributed independently to the risk of homicide. Therefore, we took these effects into consideration in our final model. A comparable ascertainment of exposure is crucial in any case-control study, which is why we based our analysis on interviews rather than on-the-scene reports. Ninety-three percent of the homicides involving firearms occurred in homes where a gun was kept, according to the proxy respondents. In 8 of the other 14 homicides, the investigating officer specifically noted that the gun involved had been kept in the home. Although we tried to interview a proxy respondent for each control, this was often impossible. However, the rate of gun ownership reported by the proxy respondents was actually higher than the rate reported by the controls themselves. We are confident that our findings will be corroborated. The early studies of smoking and lung cancer were confirmed by subsequent studies. Nonetheless, some doctors still smoke. Old habits -- and deeply held beliefs -- die hard. Arthur L. Kellermann, M.D., M.P.H. Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30329 Grant Somes, Ph.D. University of Tennessee, Memphis, Memphis, TN 38103 Frederick P. Rivara, M.D., M.P.H. University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 1. Schlesselman JJ. Case control studies: design, conduct, analysis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. Google Scholar 2. Wright JD, Rossi PH, Daly K, Weber-Burdin E. Weapons, crime, and violence in America: a literature review and research agenda. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1983:257. Google Scholar 3. Reiss AJ Jr, Roth JA, eds. Understanding and preventing violence. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1993:255-87. Google Scholar 4. Cook PJ. The technology of personal violence. In: Tonry M, ed. Crime and justice: a review of research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991:1-71. Google Scholar Response Dr. Kassirer replies: I have never proposed that all guns be confiscated. In my editorial I supported the passage of the Brady bill; recommended new design standards for firearms, registration of all firearms, and licensing of all gun owners; and proposed a ban on bringing guns into schools. I stressed the need for nationwide laws because of the variability of the thousands of local and state ordinances. It is pointless to restrict the sale and possession of handguns in one locale, for example, when they can be purchased across a nearby state line. I also supported a federal ban on the sale of automatic and semiautomatic weapons. I am unmoved by the argument that these weapons account for only a small fraction of deaths. What is their purpose other than to kill people? Why should any civilian own one? Poverty, frustration, humiliation, hopelessness, drugs, broken families, estrangement from society, and an obsession with violence as entertainment are some of the causes of our plague of gun-related violence, not the guns themselves. Yet guns, especially handguns and automatic weapons, are instruments of death, often of innocent bystanders, as the study by Hutson and his colleagues in this issue of the Journal illustrates (see page 324). The NRA supports all kinds of penalties for criminals but refuses to give an inch on reasonable gun-control measures. Yes, the NRA has achieved an impressive growth in membership recently, in part through scare tactics aimed at women in its “Refuse to Be a Victim” campaign1. More and more women have purchased handguns, adding to the dangerousness of society. I am convinced that the overwhelming majority of NRA members are responsible citizens who use their guns for sport and hunting and who support educational programs on the use of firearms. But I fault these rank-and-file members, 3 million strong, for supporting an organization whose leaders are so recalcitrant (see the Book Reviews, page 373). I fault them for preserving leaders whose solution to the Somalia crisis is to arm all mothers with AK-47s2. Fortunately, Congress has finally heard the wail of the people, and the NRA has lost some of its hold on lawmakers. The more the gun lobby spends trying to defeat courageous politicians, the less power they will have to oppose reasonable and effective gun-control legislation. Jerome P. Kassirer 1. Baer S, Citing crime, NRA woos women. The Baltimore Sun. October 17, 1993:1A. Google Scholar 2. Larson E. Harder line prevails as Neil Knox gains control over NRA. Wall Street Journal. October 26, 1993:A1. Google Scholar Citing Articles (4) Letters
Well a gun does need to be present and used , in order for the possibility of someone to be shot.... That said ... Like any number of other statements ...you can run to any extreme with it. For me its pretty simple. There are millions of gun owners in America...there are many millions of guns...if the mere fact of just owning a gun was inherently dangerous and or likely to get you killed....wouldn't millions of Americans die each day from doing so...? Owning a gun is not dangerous ...nor are the vast majority of gunowners. Andy
I'm not a teacher nor a missionary. I feel no desire to argue with the willfully ignorant or the closed eye blind. Let these sheep be fleeced and eaten. It is the way of sheep.
Only about 5% of Gun owners or less ever use their guns to defend themselves in any given year I like the odds
Having a Gun and the Skills to use one will certainly stack the deck in favor of survival as apposed to not having a gun and sure as hell needing one! I'll take my chances with my guns in the home! Life isn't all beer and skittles, life is dangerous, and along with all that danger, we need to have the tools to limit the dangers as best we can! It's better to HAVE a gun, and not ever need it, then to NEED a gun, and NOT have one! Survival of the fittest is often determined by a person having prepared for the very things they hope to never face!
I just wore my Android scrolling finger down to the second knuckle. Just as well it wasn't my trigger / nosepicking finger.
If you can't stop criminals from using weapons, why disarm the innocent, unless you, your self, are criminal ?
There you go, Chell Took the extra Spaces out... don't say I never did anything for you, or your finger....
Goodness Bruce...I'd only ever want to read those posts the once, but undoubtedly some here would wade through them repeatedly, so they ought to be the really appreciative ones of your assiduous moderating efforts.
Using that same line of reasoning, since the age 15 to 34 year age group of black males is 10 times more likely to die of homicide and live mostly in urban areas, the logical conclusion would be that they should not be allowed to own fire arms or live in urban areas. In actuality something nearly like that is happening with the high rate of that group either being under age, living in cities with prohibitive gun rules, in jail, or deemed unable to own firearms due to a criminal record.
The last time I was near this much BS I was in the fertiliser section at Lowe's! I'll take my chances with my guns.
When I went in to ER in MY OWN HOSPITAL the staff wanted me to surrender my Benchmade folder to the cop on duty. They rapidly cleared the exam room while I was gasping for air like a fish out of water when one identified the pocket clip. I simply handed it to a mechanic and saved all thier lives evidently. Patients can't have weapons! The dipshits paid no mind to the mechanic standing there now with TWO knives because co-workers are safe.
HAVING GUNS….YOU BE SHOT intriguing title, but as history prove. HAVING NO GUNS….YOU BE SHOT,BUT CAN TAKE A FEW WITH YOU !
I think I may have lost brain cells reading that article, I regret doing so. I'm reminded of a saying that you can use statistics to prove any thing. Especially if you slant your view of the numbers. Even more so if you do not separate the data & use very small, carefully selected instances that prove the point you go in trying to make. Accepting only the conclusion that you hope to prove, while not accepting any contrary data.
