Subject:
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Re: Those stupid liberal judges are at it again!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 20 Sep 2002 10:06:06 GMT
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Viewed:
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1145 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Mike Petrucelli writes:
>
> > In areas with comparable crime rates and gun control laws;
> > those that have tightened gun owenership restrictions have increased their
> > crime rates, those that have loosened gun owenership restrictions have
> > decreased their crime rates.
>
> I don't have a lot to contribute to this debate, but this idea is invariably
> introduced at some point, and it needs careful examination.
> The problem with the statistic you've cited is that it is *very* difficult • to
> establish a causative relationship between crime rates and the relative
> restrictions on gun control. The problem is primarily methodological; there
> are a bazillion factors affecting the rate of crime, any of which might
> function in conjuction with or independently of gun control. A few examples:
>
> 1...16
>
> And that's just a few off the top of my head. A serious methodological
> approach to the study you cite would require a careful addressing of each of
> these factors as well as many others, and each would have to be accounted for
> and eliminated as the cause of reduced crime.
But it's typical to assume that the factors which multiple study venues (in
this case) fail to have in common are most likely trivial in their causative
power when compared to a single factor that is common across the study. If a
study of sixteen areas shows that each experienced an inverse correlation
between gun rights realization and crime rate, you could still assert that each
of the sixteen was confounded by one each of the variables that you've
suggested. But if there's no common thread between the sixteen samples except
for the changes in gun control over time, we feel pretty comfortable, absent
contrary evidence assuming that the gun control measures have some causitive
relation with crime rate.
Further, most of the variables that you quoted are inextricably linked to one
another which leads me to think that accounting for changes in "socioeconomic
status" and maybe "police funding" of an area across the time of the study
would make more sense (at least as a first step) than trying to account for
every niggly little bit of variance.
If under that kind of study structure, counties in Texas, Connecticut,
California, and Minnesota all demonstrate the same correlation between firearms
and crime, independent of lots of other factors (but not all of them) it is
still the accumulation of evidence supporting the hypothesis. It is just that
(as always) one could devise a more intensive and costly study that supplies
_more_ evidence. As Scott has pointed out, we don't have any kind of data
across the continents to examine how much of this is culture and how much is
innate. I agree, but the fact remains that what evidence we do have (even if
you doubt it's power) suggests one thing.
I'll be happy to revise my opinion when more data come along.
But as you said, it's a whole different issue than what our rights are today.
Until the second is repealed, I'll hew to the law of the land, regardless of
the inferior laws that people think matter.
Chris
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Those stupid liberal judges are at it again!
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| (...) I was just thinking, this last bit is the answer to the claim that we are stick on an outdated piece of paper. If the 2nd really is not appropriate as originally intended, then lets change it. The Constitution tells us how to change it. If a (...) (22 years ago, 21-Sep-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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