"Study" shows carrying a gun = "4.5 times more likely to get shot"

[K-Romulus]

A bit of counter-intel that I hadn't seen here at MD Shooters.

I first saw the news on this "study" last week. Here is a link to the media spin:
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news.../63225267.html

Posted on Fri, Oct. 2, 2009

Think a gun protects you in a fight? Think again
(...)
If you have a gun during a fight, think twice about the protection it might offer.

Epidemiologists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine yesterday announced the findings of a study about whether guns are protective or perilous during an assault.

It found that those possessing a gun in an assault situation were 4 1/2 times more likely to be shot than those not possessing one, according to the study's author, Charles C. Branas, associate professor of epidemiology.

It was released online this month in the American Journal of Public Health and will be printed in the November issue. (...)

and

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/63656382.html

Posted on Wed, Oct. 7, 2009

Monica Yant Kinney: A downside to carrying a gun?
(...)
"I carry when I go into cities for work or out to dinner with my family," Misus told me, "anyplace where I'm concerned for my safety."

I thought of my phone friend a few days later when University of Pennsylvania researchers released the results of a study seeking evidence that having a gun protects the holder from peril.

To the contrary, the epidemiologists found in the first-of-its-kind investigation: People with a gun on them were actually 4.5 times more likely to be shot than those who were unarmed.(...)

The media spin is just getting started, so expect to see references in the future, esp. at any shall-issue bill hearings.

I found a free link to the study here (saves you paying $30 to AJPH): http://works.bepress.com/dennis_culhane/88/

Abstract

Objectives. We investigated the possible relationship between being shot in an assault and possession of a gun at the time.

Methods. We enrolled 677 case participants that had been shot in an assault and 684 population-based control participants within Philadelphia from 2003 to 2006. We adjusted odds ratios for confounding variables.

Results. After adjustment, individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 (P<.05) times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. Among gun assaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist, this adjusted odds ratio increased to 5.45 (P<.05).

Conclusions. On average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault. Although successful defensive gun uses occur each year, the probability of success may be low for civilian gun users in urban areas. Such users should reconsider their possession of guns or, at least, understand that regular possession necessitates careful safety countermeasures.

******

Basically, the "conclusions" are total spin. Here are the facts as laid out in the study:

1) FACT: the study's data shows that out of the 677 people in the case group who were shot, 94% of them DID NOT HAVE A GUN.

2) FACT: the "control group" for the study was randomly telephoned Philadelphians who were asked "Were you shot on or around [the exact same time that a case group shooting happened in Philadelphia]? Yes or no?"

3) FACT: the study then matched up the "control" to the "gun possession" subset of the case group to get the "4.5x" number.

There are some other details in the study like they matched the case/control by age, race, etc., but that makes no difference in helping support the "conclusion."

"Knowing is half the battle."

More complicated analysis of the study is found here:
http://volokh.com/2009/10/05/guns-di...in-an-assault/

More analysis here:
http://www.skatingonstilts.com/skati...it-sounds.html

[Half-cocked]

Did the study sample a population of law-abiding permit holders, or does it operate "backwards" by sampling a population of people who were shot, AFTER they were shot?

If the latter, the study is totally meaningless, because it's obvious that criminals with a propensity for violence who carry guns, and who frequently put themselves in high-risk situations where violent encounters are likely, get shot at a far higher rate than law-abiding citizens who carry a gun only for self-defense.

[herr.baer]

Studies can show anything you want if you manipulate the data to show your point.

[MikeTF]

Figures never lie, but liars sure do figure! Key problems I see with the study: 1) Urban, specifically Philly, 2) No reference to crime rates in the study area, 3) very small sample size - probably not statistically representative, 4) a college/academic study outside of the field of criminology, 5) etc etc etc.

[sigrug17]

Originally Posted by herr.baer

Studies can show anything you want if you manipulate the data to show your point.

Totally agree. These studies are completely a FRAUD. Not scientific (meaningless control factors), and completely manipulated to show a certain result.

[zombiehunter]

amazon.com
How to Lie with Statistics

Book. Go.

[kohburn]

study seeking evidence that having a gun protects the holder from peril.

To the contrary, the epidemiologists found in the first-of-its-kind investigation: People with a gun on them were actually 4.5 times more likely to be shot than those who were unarmed

I think that is the part that bothers me the most - its presented as if they set out to prove one thing and "found" the other... when the reality is they carefuly manipulated the data to present something that I STILL can't figure out how they got.

677 people in the case group who were shot, 94% were unarmed

this says to me that if you are unarmed you are 16X MORE likely to get shot.

[alucard0822]

Originally Posted by kohburn

I think that is the part that bothers me the most - its presented as if they set out to prove one thing and "found" the other... when the reality is they carefuly manipulated the data to present something that I STILL can't figure out how they got.



this says to me that if you are unarmed you are 16X MORE likely to get shot.

yea, I took it the same way, you only have a few people that were shot during an assault, no telling if they were in the middle of a drug deal gone bad, gang fight, or even a law abiding citizen that stopped the crime, shot the assailant, and then got shot themselves. Like most brady funded BS "studies" it is easily debunked and countered, and serves the purpose of making them look like idiots to anyone that has any concept of scientific principals.

[-Mil-Surp-Phreak-]

There are 3 kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

One of my favorite quotes.

[fightinbluhen51]

Originally Posted by zombiehunter

amazon.com
How to Lie with Statistics

Book. Go.

More Guns, Less Crime, The Bias Against Guns, GO!

Seriously, this is ridiculous, which can be evidence by just simply doing a study on PA permit holders by themselves. Seems that they probably didn't ask "are you a criminal or have you been convicted of a crime, charged with a crime, arrested, ect" to provide for the fact that criminals have a higher chance of actually being shot. And shot by perhaps, legal gun owners? Yes.

[novus collectus]

What I also wonder is how many of those shot were inner city minors who could not legally have a gun in the first place, who are less likely to know how to use a gun for self defense, who likely have a low caliber gun that does not function, and who are likely to be looking for trouble if they are in a gang or dealing drugs.

Out of their 40 or so "randomly" found shot assault victims in the three year time span of 2003 to 2006, Clayton Cramer's self defesne blog has at least five successful defensive gun uses by lawful gun owners in the city of Philly itself in just the last six months of 2006 (Clayton Cramer's blog has only been recording defensive gun uses since about that time). This is just a sampling of what was reported in the news there and does not include all DGUs in Philly at that time, but even at five in six months that would be approximately 30 successful DGUs where the defender did not get shot in an assault, but what the study does not address is that of their 40 or so armed shooting victims, how many of them are alive and injured instead of dead because they were armed? It is possible if they did not have a gun there would be 40 more murders instead of simple assault victims.

[JSW]

so does that mean the city of Philadelphia will now disarm thier police so they can go back to the "city of brotherly love" and peace will reign throughout the land. Because as we all know if the police don't have guns then there will be no reason for the criminals to have them. After all it is the police presence that causes all that crime,right

[danielw]

I can hit what I shoot at and I ain't afaid to defend my family or myself.

[Brooksy]

For another good analysis of why this study is not helpful see here.
I think three of the four authors are Joyce Foundation sponsored, so it's pretty clear they had an agenda.

[boricuamaximus]

Is this the one that they did interviewing thugs and gangsters? "They had a Glock Fohtay and still got shot in a driveby"

Thought this one was debunked or on the way to getting debunk a few weeks ago. I can go interview drug dealers that got shot and good chance they had a weapon on them.

Did they ask them if they were high or drinking?
Did they ask them if they had a holster? Or were they doing a mexican carry with the gun somewhere down there knees cause their pants are 8 sizes to big?

[Kashmir1008]

it doesn't matter if you are a million times more likely to be shot while carrying a gun. It's a freaking right. What if a study shows you are 10 times more likely to get beat up for speaking your mind on a street corner? Do we ban public speaking? It's still your right to speak your mind.

[Boondock Saint]

Originally Posted by Kashmir1008

it doesn't matter if you are a million times more likely to be shot while carrying a gun. It's a freaking right. What if a study shows you are 10 times more likely to get beat up for speaking your mind on a street corner? Do we ban public speaking? It's still your right to speak your mind.

Comrade, I implore you, have a sip of Koolaid.

[Luke 12:49]

Was there, at any point in time during the "experiment", a flag raised with the word; BULLSHIT embossed on it?

[K-Romulus]

More from Prof. Gary Kleck, the author of the "2.5 million defensive uses" study back in the mid-1990's. This is cut and pasted from this week's VCDL alert.

Comments on forthcoming article by Branas et al., AJPH 2009

Gary Kleck, College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Florida State
University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1127 (850) 894-1628, gkleck@fsu.edu.
September 28, 2009.

The article by Branas and his colleagues (forthcoming in the American Journal of Public Health) is the very epitome of junk science in the guns-and-violence field - poor quality research designed to arrive at an ideologically predetermined conclusion. Like all articles in on this topic published in the AJPH, it concludes that guns (no matter who possesses or uses them) invariably raise the risks of violence. This is not what competent research indicates, but it is certainly what the peculiar body of poor quality research appearing in medical and public health journals almost always concludes.

The authors conclude that "on average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault" and that successful defensive gun uses are unlikely. In fact, none of the evidence presented by the authors actually has any relevance to the issue of the effectiveness of defensive gun use, for the simple reason that at no point do they ever compare crime victims who used guns defensively with victims who did not. Instead, they made only the essentially irrelevant comparison between people who were shot in assaults with the rest of the population, noting whether gun possession was more common among the former than among the latter. Not surprisingly, after controlling for a handful of (badly chosen) control variables, they found that gun possession is more common among gunshot victims.

This pattern, however, says nothing about the effectiveness of defensive gun use, but rather is merely a reflection of the fact that the same factors that place people at greater risk of becoming assault victims also motivate many people to acquire, and in some cases carry away from home, guns for self-protection. In sum, this is what researchers refer to as a "spurious" association - a non-causal statistical pattern due to the influence of some third factor(s) on the purported cause (gun possession) and the effect (gunshot victimization). For example, being a drug dealer or member of a street gang puts one at much higher risk of being shot, but also makes it far more likely one will acquire a gun for protection.

Previous published research, however, has directly compared crime victims who used guns with victims who used other self-protective strategies (including doing nothing to resist), and reached precisely the opposite conclusions from those at which Branas et al. arrived (Kleck 1988; Kleck and DeLone 1993; Southwick 2000; Tark and Kleck 2004). Significantly, Branas et al. ignore all but one of these studies, and do not share with readers the main finding of the one study they do mention in passing (Kleck and DeLone 1993) - victims who resisted with guns were less likely to be injured that those who did not. Indeed, all published research to make such direct comparisons has yielded the same conclusion.

The most authoritative study (Tark and Kleck 2004) used data from large-scale surveys conducted by the federal government (the National Crime Victimization Survey), covering large samples that were representative of the entire U.S. population, compared 18 different self-protection victim strategies, and controlled for far more confounding variables than Branas et al. did. The results indicated that the probability of success in defensive uses of guns approaches 100% - it is virtually unheard of for a crime victim to be injured after using a gun for self-protection. More specifically, only 2% of gun-wielding victims were injured after using a gun for self-protection (p. 878). On the rare occasions that gun-using victims were hurt, it was almost always injury that came first, followed by armed resistance - i.e., injury provoked previously reluctant victims into finally using their guns.

Strictly speaking, the results of Banas and his colleagues do not conflict with those of prior researchers; rather, they are simply irrelevant, and do not actually bear on the use of how effective defensive gun use is. The authors draw a non sequitur conclusion from irrelevant evidence. They find that gun shot victimization is more common among those who have guns, and conclude that gun possession raises one's risks of being shot. It is precisely as if medical researchers found that insulin use is more common among persons who suffer from diabetes than among those who are not diabetic (something that is most assuredly true), and concluded that insulin use raises one's risk of diabetes. This silly conclusions would certainly come as a surprise to medical researchers, and is obviously wrong. So is the conclusion drawn by Branas et al.

Cited Studies

Kleck, Gary
1988 "Crime control through the private use of armed force." Social Problems 35:1-21.

Kleck, Gary and Miriam A. Delone
1993 "Victim resistance and offender weapon effects in robbery." Journal of Quantitative Criminology. 9:55-81.

Southwick, Lawrence
2000 "Self-defense with guns." Journal of Criminal Justice 28: 351-370.

Tark, Jongyeon, and Gary Kleck. 2004. "Resisting Crime." Criminology 42:861-909.

[jonnyl]

I'm straight and all, but if I ever meet Gary Kleck I'm probably just going to give him a great big hug.