So, if violence with guns has fallen so much and we should all be so proud about it...

[Lee-Lee]

39. It's worse than just not being controlled for

Many of the often cited studies actually drew their data from a sample population that way over represents those with criminal pasts and engaged in criminal activity.

The peop claiming a gun in the home is more likely to kill you almost often cite the Kellerman study. It had a whole bunch of flaws in methodology, but the most glaring is that it only took data from 3 counties.


Those counties were the ones that have Memphis, Cleveland and Seattle in them. All areas that at the time of the study had significant levels of criminal, drug and gang activity well above the average county in the USA.

That alone really shows that the study isn't applicable to the US as a whole.

Then you have more problems like the study determined who had a gun by taking any murder where a gun was found and counting that as the gun harming the person because it was kept there, the. Did their control going door to door asking people if they have guns. If you lived in an urban area with high crime rates and strangers came to your door asking if there were guns in the house how likely are you to be honest about that? I don't live in a high crime area and I won't tell people I have guns or anything else that is high on a criminals shopping list.

There really hasn't been a solid study for the most part. And the biggest problem is that we seem hung up on getting doctors to study this when doctors don't understand crime or guns or criminals. It really should be criminologists doing that work who understand the subject better.