Guns in the Home

[ptmmatssc]

Was looking for some info and ran across a myths vs facts site about guns . For s**ts and giggles i read a little . This is one that I found interesting . It involves the "myth" about having a gun in the home for protection . i read it and then checked the source . What I have in bold , I think , has a lot more to do with people getting shot than the guns do .

MYTH: Keeping guns in the home increases personal protection.
TRUTH: Obviously, self defense is not a good argument against gun control since those who own firearms are actually more likely to be victims of homicide. Two studies published in The New England Journal of Medicine revealed that keeping a gun in the home increases the risk of both suicide and homicide. Keeping a gun in the home makes it 2.7 times more likely that someone will be a victim of homicide in your home (in almost all cases the victim is either related to or intimately acquainted with the murderer) (source) and 4.8 times more likely that someone will commit suicide (source). Guns make it more likely that a suicide attempt will be successful than if other means were used such as sleeping pills.

source:

Results During the study period, 1860 homicides occurred in the three counties, 444 of them (23.9 percent) in the home of the victim. After excluding 24 cases for various reasons, we interviewed proxy respondents for 93 percent of the victims. Controls were identified for 99 percent of these, yielding 388 matched pairs. As compared with the controls, the victims more often lived alone or rented their residence. Also, case households more commonly contained an illicit-drug user, a person with prior arrests, or someone who had been hit or hurt in a fight in the home. After controlling for these characteristics, we found that keeping a gun in the home was strongly and independently associated with an increased risk of homicide (adjusted odds ratio, 2.7; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.6 to 4.4). Virtually all of this risk involved homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance.

Conclusions The use of illicit drugs and a history of physical fights in the home are important risk factors for homicide in the home. Rather than confer protection, guns kept in the home are associated with an increase in the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance.

The other thing I noticed was a lack of any stats etc for incidences where a gun was used to protect someone in their home .

 

[jeepmor]

Antis are just like politicians, they skew the data to fit their needs and never mention any data or statistics to the contrary. Most of these types of organizations don't want anything to do with the truth, only push their points of view and claim they drew their results from raw data. They have no issue with omitting any conflicting information. Our politicos are the worst offenders of such actions.

It reminds of pulling out of the marina one day with Dad and being approached by some stats gathering summer hire college student with the ODFW who wanted to tally how many fish we had caught. (for the record, we were not breaking any laws or bag limits) Dad stated, NO, you guys just do whatever the hell you want with the data anyway, so you don't get to add my catch to your study, go bother someone else. Mind you, this college student had no intention of skewing the data, she was simply a pawn on the chessboard, nothing more.

This data skewing to get the results you want to come about is called cherry picking and is the holy grail of no no's to hardcore objective scientists that have no agenda other than to derive factual information. Let's face it, our politicians, the antis and the media have no interest in providing facts, they only want to bolster their ideologies and ignore any truths that undermine them.

 

[K-Romulus]

The study never looked at three things:

1) whether the guns involved were LEGALLY OWNED

2) whether the gun kept at home WAS THE ACTUAL MURDER WEAPON. John Lott reported that only 8 of the 444 guns were from the home of the victim. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/04/20/DI2007042001760.html

3) if 1 and 2, then whether the owner was trained in proper gun safety (4 rules, storage away from kids, etc.)

The study's conclusion makes as much sense as "strongly urging people to remove cars from their garages" because many people with suspended drivers' licenses killed people while driving drunk. Duh!

 

[Pilgrim]

Two studies published in The New England Journal of Medicine revealed that keeping a gun in the home increases the risk of both suicide and homicide. Keeping a gun in the home makes it 2.7 times more likely that someone will be a victim of homicide in your home (in almost all cases the victim is either related to or intimately acquainted with the murderer) (source) and 4.8 times more likely that someone will commit suicide (source).

People use trucks and trains to commit suicide and they are readily accessible to those who want to end their lives.

Pilgrim

 

[Dr. Dickie]

82% of Americans involved in a car accident had eaten hamburger during the previous week. Using the logic provided by that article, banning hamburgers would prevent auto accidents!

Oh, and how do I know that 82% had eaten a burger:
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=117249&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=597946&highlight=

Aren't stats fun!

 

[WolfMansDad]

Putting aside the issue of legal versus illegal gun ownership, how would you tell which way it went?

Say there is a correlation between being at risk for homicide and owning a gun. Does owning a gun increase your risk of being murdered, or does your increased risk of being murdered (because you live in a bad part of town, for example) prompt you to buy a gun?

Why don't people who publish statistics think these things through?

 

[Oohrah]

Hummm, Drug use and domestic problems. I would think any of
two would restrict ownership to where they probably can not leagally
own them in most cases. Jeepmor, I often wondered if there would
be a problem refusing to allow a State hired fish counter to look at
your catch. I know here there call a State trooper to ticket or arrest
violaters. Does co-operation if a rule is broken mean self incimmination?
I know of incident where a car license was run through DMV where the
owner was also a CCW holder. When stopped the only questions asked
were firearms related. When the minister tired of it, he asked why he
was pulled over, and if it were not driving related, have a nice day and
drove off. No further action taken. Only the officer can give this answer.
Does law enforcement go outside bounds??? Sometimes. Are these numbers
inflated or reported in gun crimes? Most likely they are. I think that
maybe public challenge through the public media, might make the other side
not be as aggresive to spew incorrect facts. Being called to task for mis-
information forces the embarrased haters to take a different road.

 

[akodo]

a gun in the home makes it 2.7 times more likely that someone in that home will be involved in firearm voilence, maybe with that gun, maybe with another

being a renter rther than an owner makes it 4.4 times more likely that someone ihn that home will be involved in firearm voilence, maybe with a gun in the home, maybe with another

lets give everyone free houses!

i rent