Reply To: THE PUZZLE OF MURDER-BY-GUN STATISTICS

[SteveInCO]

Gallup’s Mirror wrote:

The study claims to have found a link between firearms ownership rates and “firearm-related death,” not the aggregate murder rate.

And that is why it refutes Unseen’s claim that there is no “NO RELATION WHATSOEVER between the rate of gun ownership and the murder rate”.

You’re not suggesting that “firearm related deaths” exclude murder or that such murders are not part of the aggregate murder rate?

Please.

I make no such claim. But I also do not assume that the ratio of firearms related deaths and firearms murders is fixed, nor do I assume that the ratio of firearms murders to murders is fixed…an assumption that must be made if you want to claim that an increase in one necessarily means an increase in the other.

I take that back… I do make the claim that “firearms related deaths” exclude some murders. I also claim that they include a lot of non-murders.

But you cannot claim that a (hypothetical) doubling of firearms related deaths means a doubling of firearms related murders. It may be that the entire increase is explained by accident, self-defensive shootings, and suicides.

Likewise, a hypothetical doubling in the number of firearms murders–a number not even given here, so this isn’t even touched on–cannot be taken as implying the murder rate doubled; it could be that it stayed exactly the same but for some reason twice as many people chose to use guns instead of something else.

the study makes NO CLAIM about firearms ownership rate being related to murder. They very carefully phrase it “firearms related death” with consistency–because the two aren’t the same thing and no linear relationship between them has been established. They seem to realize this even if you are being obtuse about it.

You saying that they have shown that firearms ownerships rates are correlated with murder rates is the actual lie; you’ve put words in their mouth as they’ve said nothing of the kind.