From: hambidge@bms.com
Subject: Re: Gun Control
Reply-To: hambidge@bms.com
Organization: Bristol-Myers Squibb
Lines: 94


In article <C51L52.BGo@magpie.linknet.com>, manes@magpie.linknet.com (Steve Manes) writes:
>
>I would be surprised if there weren't contrary studies.  I might add that
>Sloan and Kellerman was endorsed by the police departments of both Seattle
>and Vancouver and is considered by most of the references I have at hand the
>most exhaustive study of its kind, even by those who take issue with some of
>the essay's conclusions.  S&K's statistics speak largely for themselves
>without postulate.

And, I might add, vitamin C has been endorsed by a Nobel Laureate as a
panacea for almost everything from the common cold to cancer.  

> In order to compare violent crime trends, S&K compared >all<
>violent crime categories, from simple assault through various mechanisms of
>homicide.  

Wait a minute. S&K did NOT compare trends.  If they did, they would
have seen that the advent of Canada's gun law had no effect on
homicides, total or handgun.  Without a pre- vs. post comparison, one
cannot speculate as to the utility of anything.  All they have is a
correlation, and correlation DOES NOT prove causality.


>If your point is that non-whites commit more handgun crimes than whites
>then yours is the dubious assumption.  Conventional social theory is that
>economic status, not color, is the primary motivating factor for crime,
>especially violent crime.  What's your point anyway, that white people
>are more responsible gun owners?  Should we assume that it's a coincidence
>that there are comparitively fewer white people earning below the poverty
>line and living in tenement neighborhoods where most violent crime occurs?

Hold it again. You dismiss a point about demographics, then you ask
about socio-economic demographics? Very slick.
>
>:    Differences between the two cities in the
>:    permit regulations render these two numbers strictly noncomparable.
>
>On the contrary, it's these differences that are the very basis of the study:
>the easy availability of legal handguns in Seattle and the much more
>difficult "restricted-weapons" permit required in Vancouver.

Once again, correlation does not prove causality.  Looking at pre-vs.
post data, the Canadian gun law had no effect.

>
>Not so.  Cook measures suicides and assaultive homicides with
>firearms against a survey-based estimate of the number of legal and
>illegal guns in circulation within a city.  

Sir, if you were a Canadian, and owned a gun before the restrictive
gun laws were passed, and decided to hide it rather than turn it in,
would you answer truthfully a question about gun ownership from
someone who calls, writes, or asks you on the street?  That is one
problem with surveys.  Nobody will answer an incriminating question.
Another is that people will often tell you what they THINK you want to
here.

>
>Again, your author misses the core issue: that Vancouver citizens are
>prohibited from purchasing handguns on the basis of self-defense.  They
>don't have a choice in the matter.

Does that mean no Vancouver citizens have handguns? I think not. You
are discounting guns purchased beforehand, and guns purchased for
purposes other than self-defense, which can also be used for defense.

>
>Hmmm... sounds like your author might like a bumper sticker that reads "Guns
>don't kill people, black people kill people!"  Honestly, his conjectures,
>backed up by zero evidence, zero studies and even less common sense, aren't
>worth the considerable time it must have taken you to type in.  His
>assumptions look frighteningly close to those pseudo-scientific "studies"
>that the white supremist assholes love... the crap that takes published
>statistics, twisted around in an attempt to prove the inherent criminal
>nature of black people.

He makes valid points about demographic differences.  You then resort
to the kind of argument that the "Politically Correct" movement often
uses to stifle any debate.  Nice, real nice.


>This author's essay contains 0% independent study upon which to base his
>conclusions, just some strained, disjointed statistical discourse attempting
>to blame Seattle's murder rate on blacks. 

One doesn't have to produce his own data in order to point out the
flaws in the methodology and conclusions of another's study. Again,
you resort to PC tactics.


Al
[standard disclaimer]

