91 Million Armed American Civilians Makes Me Feel Damned Good

[martybegan]

you don't get to decide that, and neither does the government, unless I am a convicted felon, or mentally adjudicated.

Again, buddy, Scalia's taking a dirt nap... The Second Amendment is going to be about Militias again.

And only one of us has been part of one of them thar well-regulated militias....

I want a handgun in my apartment for my own protection. I should not have to pay $1000 and wait 3-6 months for it, nor should I have to ask anyone's permission.

Except that handgun is 43 times more likely to kill a member of your household than a bad guy. Makign you wait 3-6 months would probably be prudent so we don't know that you are the type who is likely to shoot someone.

Again, the States can form militias if they choose, the PEOPLE keep the right to arms.

Stop quoting that debunked and trashed study from decades ago. It makes you look stupider than you actually are.

FOAD.

 

[rightwinger]

91 million? Less than 1/3 of Americans own guns....we are making progress

 

[Yousaidwhat]

Bullshit. you have been on record stating no one should own guns besides government actors. Taking gun advice from a twat like you is like asking for Brisket recipes from the President of PETA.

Hey, guy, I'm a reasonable guy.

Here's the thing. When you guys say "You can only have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead fingers", I don't say, "Okay. The ATF will be by later to do that."

I'm all for reaching a middle ground with you guys. But you'll probalby keep up the bullshit until the day the vast majority of us who don't need to compensate for tiny dicks get sick and fucking tired of watching children being wheeled out of whatever the latest attrocity is and put a stop to it.

When you all could have said, "Yes, we will make an effort to keep guns out of the wrong hands."

You know, like Germany, where they have 17 million private guns and only 250 gun murders a year compared to our 11,500.

We want to keep guns out of the wrong hands.

But you want ours too.

Compromise?

There is no compromise with you

 

[Yousaidwhat]

I think Joe should get arrested for the next rape after all everyone with a dick is responsible for the crimes every other person with a dick commits

Oh wait maybe that doesn't apply here

NObody suggested arresting you gun whacks for other people's crimes...

But I do love when you guys get hysterical...

You are the only one who is hysterical.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

You call your bullshit truth?

You fucking Progressive Marxists love to ban anything you disagree with.

No, we like to ban things that ACTUALLY CAUSE HARM.

If that were true you'd start by banning yourselves.

 

[Yousaidwhat]

Figures, you fascist.

And I call bullshit on your willingess to find a "middle ground". Your post history shows no concept of any compromise.

You wan't to keep guns out of ANYONE's hands, using criminals as the excuse to disarm the rest of us.

Go pound sand.

Well, true, you haven't given me a good reason why you should have a gun yet. That's usually the part of a comprimise.

You state your good reasons, I state my good reasons... and we meet somewhere in the middle.

Who fucking made you King?

We don't need a good reason and we don't need your approval.

Fascist.

 

[Skull Pilot]

91 million? Less than 1/3 of Americans own guns....we are making progress

Well 28% of the population is under 21 and can't legally own guns.

So about 38% of people over 21 own guns.
If you factor in the millions of people who are legally prevented from owning guns the percentage of adults who can legally and do own guns rises

 

[Skull Pilot]

So does big pharma
so does big oil
so does George Soros

So the fuck what?

None of them make a product that kills 33,000 people a year.

The NRA doesn't make guns so what's your point?

 

[Skull Pilot]

I think Joe should get arrested for the next rape after all everyone with a dick is responsible for the crimes every other person with a dick commits

Oh wait maybe that doesn't apply here

NObody suggested arresting you gun whacks for other people's crimes...

But I do love when you guys get hysterical...

No you just say we shouldn't have guns because some people commit crimes with them.

Well some people commit crimes with their penises so I don't think you should have one after all you seem to have an unhealthy obsession about them

 

[WinterBorn]

So does big pharma
so does big oil
so does George Soros

So the fuck what?

None of them make a product that kills 33,000 people a year.

No, but Big Pharma makes products that fuck up more than 33,000 a year.

 

[WinterBorn]

I think Joe should get arrested for the next rape after all everyone with a dick is responsible for the crimes every other person with a dick commits

Oh wait maybe that doesn't apply here

NObody suggested arresting you gun whacks for other people's crimes...

But I do love when you guys get hysterical...

Bullshit. You certainly want gun dealers put in jail based on what customers do with their guns.

 

[WinterBorn]

You have repeatedly said you want gun store clerks in prison based on what their customers do with a gun, despite the clerk following all the federal, state and local laws, and despite the clerk having no way of knowing what the customer plans to do. That is not "reasonable". You want guns banned. At least have the balls to be honest about it.

Yes, that's what I'd like to see. I'd also like to see all the Mormons sent to a Cult Deprogramming Camp, but heck, I'm willing to be reasonable, unlike you guys.

You know, guys who apparently think that someone who can't get on an airliner because the FBI thinks he might be a terrorist, but he's totally free to buy an AR-15 and a 100 round clip like Joker Holmes and Omar Mateen did.

Owning a gun is a constitutional right. Flying on a private airline is not.

Plus, your expectation that a gun store clerk be able to create an accurate psychological profile based on a short conversation is laughable. That you hold the medical professionals blameless, despite legal requirements to report their clients, shows your own hypocrisy.

 

[2aguy]

View attachment 86954

33,000 gun deaths.
70,000 gun injuries
400,000 gun crimes
$270,000,000,000 in economic losses a year

We know you guys are violent. Why we put up with your nonsense is the real question.

And of course you have to lie joe...you mix suicides with gun murder and accidents...even though South Korea, China and Japan only allow criminals and cops to have guns and their suicide rate is higher than ours....and our non gun suicide rate last year was higher than our gun suicide rate....

The gun injuries are not 70,000.....you lie about that...the CDC shows you are lying about that......

And 1,500,000 times a year Americans use guns to stop violent criminal attack and to save lives according to the clinton Department of Justice...

On top of that in the 1990s we had 200 million guns in private hands........in 2016 we now have 357,000,000 guns in private hands...and our gun murder rate dropped 49%.....

You are just wrong joe....on every single item you listed....

Yes....let's look at the truth...

In 2013 there were over 320,000,000 million guns in private hands, in 2015...there were 357,000,000 million guns in private hands...

Accidental gun deaths:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf


Accidental gun deaths 2014......586

Accidental gun deaths over time....

Then by year accidental gun deaths going down according to CDC final statistics table 10 from 2010-2013...

2010...606
2011...591
2012...548
2013...505
2014...586 (37 million new guns in private hands, up from 320 million in 2013....making the new total 357 million guns)



-------------------


Gun suicide vs. non gun suicide:



2014:

Gun suicide in 2014..... 21,334 (WISQARS Leading Causes of Death Reports)

non gun suicide in 2014...21,359 (WISQARS Leading Causes of Death Reports)

-----------

Gun murder:

Expanded Homicide Data Table 8

From 2014…..and I added 2011……

2006

Expanded Homicide Data Table 8 and

2006 fbi table 8

Murder by firearm….

Federal Bureau of Investigation - Uniform Crime Reports - 2000

gun murder rate 1997 -2000


1997..... 10,729
1998..... 9,257
1999..... 8,480
2000..... 8,493
2001..... 8,719
2002... 9,369
2003.... 9,638
2004..... 9,385
2005.... 10,158
2006.... 10,225
2007 10,129
2008-- 9,528
2009-- 9,199
2010- 8,874
2011-- 8,653
2012-- 8,897
2013-- 8,454
2014-- 8,124

--------

Self defense with a gun:

Self defense with a gun......40 years of actual research...

A quick guide to the studies and the numbers.....the full lay out of what was studied by each study is in the links....
GunCite-Gun Control-How Often Are Guns Used in Self-Defense

GunCite Frequency of Defensive Gun Use in Previous Surveys

Field...1976....3,052,717 ( no cops, military)

DMIa 1978...2,141,512 ( no cops, military)

L.A. TIMES...1994...3,609,68 ( no cops, military)

Kleck......1994...2.5 million ( no cops, military)

Obama's CDC....2013....500,000--3million

--------------------


Bordua...1977...1,414,544

DMIb...1978...1,098,409 ( no cops, military)

Hart...1981...1.797,461 ( no cops, military)

Mauser...1990...1,487,342 ( no cops, military)

Gallup...1993...1,621,377 ( no cops, military)

DEPT. OF JUSTICE...1994...1.5 million ( the bill clinton study)

Journal of Quantitative Criminology--- 989,883 times per year."

(Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology,[17] U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year.[18])

Paper: "Measuring Civilian Defensive Firearm Use: A Methodological Experiment." By David McDowall and others. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, March 2000. Measuring Civilian Defensive Firearm Use: A Methodological Experiment - Springer


-------------------------------------------

Ohio...1982...771,043

Gallup...1991...777,152

Tarrance... 1994... 764,036 (no cops, military)

Lawerence Southwich Jr. 400,000 fewer violent crimes and at least 800,000 violent crimes deterred..

*****************************************
If you take the studies from that Kleck cites in his paper, 16 of them....and you only average the ones that exclude military and police shootings..the average becomes 2 million...I use those studies because I have the details on them...and they are still 10 studies (including Kleck's)....

 

[2aguy]

View attachment 86954

33,000 gun deaths.
70,000 gun injuries
400,000 gun crimes
$270,000,000,000 in economic losses a year

We know you guys are violent. Why we put up with your nonsense is the real question.

And your 70,000 non fatal gun injuries...I don't know which anti gun, nut job site you got that from...since you never link to it...but here are the actual numbers from the Centers for Disease Control.....going back to the 1990s.....as you can see..as we went from 200 million guns in private hands in the 1990s.....to 357,000,000 guns in private hands in 2016....the non fatal gun accidental injury rate went down....

You are wrong again....

How Many Accidental Gun Injuries per Year? - The Volokh Conspiracy

A guest on the HuffPost Live discussion noted in the post below mentioned that guns injure 5,000 people per year (presumably in the U.S.). Actually, according to CDC’s WISQARS, there are about 14,000-19,000 nonfatal injuries stemming from accidental shootings per year in the U.S., though only about 600 people killed in such shootings. As always, keep in mind the limitations of this data, including that some suicides and suicide attempts could be misclassified as accidents.

WISQARS Nonfatal Injury Reports

The actual data from the CDC

CDC non fatal gun accident.....


Non fatal gun injury stats from 1999......

Nonfatal and Fatal Firearm-Related Injuries -- United States, 1993-1997
1993... 104,390
1994... 89,744
1995... 84,322
1996... 69,649
1997... 64,207
Surveillance for Fatal and Nonfatal Firearm-Related Injuries --- United States, 1993--1998
1998... 79,384
WISQARS Nonfatal Injury Reports

CDC non fatal gun accident.....

2001.... 17,696

2002... 17,579

2003... 18,941

2004... 16,555

2005... 15,388

2006... 14,678

2007... 15,698

2008... 17,215

2009... 18,610

2010... 14,161

2011... 14,675

2012... 17,362

2013... 16,864

2014..... 15,928

 

[WinterBorn]

View attachment 86954

33,000 gun deaths.
70,000 gun injuries
400,000 gun crimes
$270,000,000,000 in economic losses a year

We know you guys are violent. Why we put up with your nonsense is the real question.

And of course you have to lie joe...you mix suicides with gun murder and accidents...even though South Korea, China and Japan only allow criminals and cops to have guns and their suicide rate is higher than ours....and our non gun suicide rate last year was higher than our gun suicide rate....

The gun injuries are not 70,000.....you lie about that...the CDC shows you are lying about that......

And 1,500,000 times a year Americans use guns to stop violent criminal attack and to save lives according to the clinton Department of Justice...

On top of that in the 1990s we had 200 million guns in private hands........in 2016 we now have 357,000,000 guns in private hands...and our gun murder rate dropped 49%.....

You are just wrong joe....on every single item you listed....

Yes....let's look at the truth...

In 2013 there were over 320,000,000 million guns in private hands, in 2015...there were 357,000,000 million guns in private hands...

Accidental gun deaths:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf


Accidental gun deaths 2014......586

Accidental gun deaths over time....

Then by year accidental gun deaths going down according to CDC final statistics table 10 from 2010-2013...

2010...606
2011...591
2012...548
2013...505
2014...586 (37 million new guns in private hands, up from 320 million in 2013....making the new total 357 million guns)



-------------------


Gun suicide vs. non gun suicide:



2014:

Gun suicide in 2014..... 21,334 (WISQARS Leading Causes of Death Reports)

non gun suicide in 2014...21,359 (WISQARS Leading Causes of Death Reports)

-----------

Gun murder:

Expanded Homicide Data Table 8

From 2014…..and I added 2011……

2006

Expanded Homicide Data Table 8 and

2006 fbi table 8

Murder by firearm….

Federal Bureau of Investigation - Uniform Crime Reports - 2000

gun murder rate 1997 -2000


1997..... 10,729
1998..... 9,257
1999..... 8,480
2000..... 8,493
2001..... 8,719
2002... 9,369
2003.... 9,638
2004..... 9,385
2005.... 10,158
2006.... 10,225
2007 10,129
2008-- 9,528
2009-- 9,199
2010- 8,874
2011-- 8,653
2012-- 8,897
2013-- 8,454
2014-- 8,124

--------

Self defense with a gun:

Self defense with a gun......40 years of actual research...

A quick guide to the studies and the numbers.....the full lay out of what was studied by each study is in the links....
GunCite-Gun Control-How Often Are Guns Used in Self-Defense

GunCite Frequency of Defensive Gun Use in Previous Surveys

Field...1976....3,052,717 ( no cops, military)

DMIa 1978...2,141,512 ( no cops, military)

L.A. TIMES...1994...3,609,68 ( no cops, military)

Kleck......1994...2.5 million ( no cops, military)

Obama's CDC....2013....500,000--3million

--------------------


Bordua...1977...1,414,544

DMIb...1978...1,098,409 ( no cops, military)

Hart...1981...1.797,461 ( no cops, military)

Mauser...1990...1,487,342 ( no cops, military)

Gallup...1993...1,621,377 ( no cops, military)

DEPT. OF JUSTICE...1994...1.5 million ( the bill clinton study)

Journal of Quantitative Criminology--- 989,883 times per year."

(Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology,[17] U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year.[18])

Paper: "Measuring Civilian Defensive Firearm Use: A Methodological Experiment." By David McDowall and others. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, March 2000. Measuring Civilian Defensive Firearm Use: A Methodological Experiment - Springer


-------------------------------------------

Ohio...1982...771,043

Gallup...1991...777,152

Tarrance... 1994... 764,036 (no cops, military)

Lawerence Southwich Jr. 400,000 fewer violent crimes and at least 800,000 violent crimes deterred..

*****************************************
If you take the studies from that Kleck cites in his paper, 16 of them....and you only average the ones that exclude military and police shootings..the average becomes 2 million...I use those studies because I have the details on them...and they are still 10 studies (including Kleck's)....

I notice JoeyB includes suicides when he talks about the US, but only gun murders when talking about Germany.

 

[2aguy]

The NRA does not make gun laws
The NRA does not condone crime of any kind

The NRA spends millions influencing elections. The NRA blocks even the most common sense gun laws, like, 'If you are on the No-Fly List, you can't buy a gun."

Still going with the 33k gun deaths? Funny that the FBI says only 9,500 gun murders. Where did the other 13,500 gun deaths come from? Oh yeah, suicides. Everyone knows that if people are unable to kill themselves with a gun they won't commit suicide. Idiot.

Suicides are just as dead as the murders.

Hey, were's 2TinyGuy, a gun thread is like the Bat-Signal for him.

Yeah...that pesky Constitution........that whole part about not losing your rights because some nameless Bureaucrat put your name on a list....sort of like the IRS refusing conservative groups their 503 c status because of their political point of view......

 

[2aguy]

You have repeatedly said you want gun store clerks in prison based on what their customers do with a gun, despite the clerk following all the federal, state and local laws, and despite the clerk having no way of knowing what the customer plans to do. That is not "reasonable". You want guns banned. At least have the balls to be honest about it.

Yes, that's what I'd like to see. I'd also like to see all the Mormons sent to a Cult Deprogramming Camp, but heck, I'm willing to be reasonable, unlike you guys.

You know, guys who apparently think that someone who can't get on an airliner because the FBI thinks he might be a terrorist, but he's totally free to buy an AR-15 and a 100 round clip like Joker Holmes and Omar Mateen did.

They both targeted gun free zones......and the Orlando shooter....was vetted by the FBI for 10 months asshole, with 3 interviews with trained FBI interrogators...and a 10 month detailed search of his history....moron......and they fucking gave him a pass......he would not have been on the list moron.....

 

[Yarddog]

You call your bullshit truth?

You fucking Progressive Marxists love to ban anything you disagree with.

No, we like to ban things that ACTUALLY CAUSE HARM.

Lawn Darts were banned because a couple dozen kids were killed or injured.

But clearly, the Founding Slave Rapists who shit in chamber pots didn't mention Lawn Darts in their clumsy attempts to define a militia....

oh, no, wait. What happened was that the makers of lawn darts could be held liable for the damages they caused, and they took them off the market.

Lawn darts were dangerous. When you throw them at someone.

A steak knife is dangerous too.

Cars?

Swimming pools?

Bathtubs?

Plastic bags?

Shall I continue?

Keep wiping your ass with the Constitution.

You still won't get our firearms.

axes are very dangerous too if people dont know how to use them right

 

[2aguy]

View attachment 86954

33,000 gun deaths.
70,000 gun injuries
400,000 gun crimes
$270,000,000,000 in economic losses a year

We know you guys are violent. Why we put up with your nonsense is the real question.

And of course you have to lie joe...you mix suicides with gun murder and accidents...even though South Korea, China and Japan only allow criminals and cops to have guns and their suicide rate is higher than ours....and our non gun suicide rate last year was higher than our gun suicide rate....

The gun injuries are not 70,000.....you lie about that...the CDC shows you are lying about that......

And 1,500,000 times a year Americans use guns to stop violent criminal attack and to save lives according to the clinton Department of Justice...

On top of that in the 1990s we had 200 million guns in private hands........in 2016 we now have 357,000,000 guns in private hands...and our gun murder rate dropped 49%.....

You are just wrong joe....on every single item you listed....

Yes....let's look at the truth...

In 2013 there were over 320,000,000 million guns in private hands, in 2015...there were 357,000,000 million guns in private hands...

Accidental gun deaths:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf


Accidental gun deaths 2014......586

Accidental gun deaths over time....

Then by year accidental gun deaths going down according to CDC final statistics table 10 from 2010-2013...

2010...606
2011...591
2012...548
2013...505
2014...586 (37 million new guns in private hands, up from 320 million in 2013....making the new total 357 million guns)



-------------------


Gun suicide vs. non gun suicide:



2014:

Gun suicide in 2014..... 21,334 (WISQARS Leading Causes of Death Reports)

non gun suicide in 2014...21,359 (WISQARS Leading Causes of Death Reports)

-----------

Gun murder:

Expanded Homicide Data Table 8

From 2014…..and I added 2011……

2006

Expanded Homicide Data Table 8 and

2006 fbi table 8

Murder by firearm….

Federal Bureau of Investigation - Uniform Crime Reports - 2000

gun murder rate 1997 -2000


1997..... 10,729
1998..... 9,257
1999..... 8,480
2000..... 8,493
2001..... 8,719
2002... 9,369
2003.... 9,638
2004..... 9,385
2005.... 10,158
2006.... 10,225
2007 10,129
2008-- 9,528
2009-- 9,199
2010- 8,874
2011-- 8,653
2012-- 8,897
2013-- 8,454
2014-- 8,124

--------

Self defense with a gun:

Self defense with a gun......40 years of actual research...

A quick guide to the studies and the numbers.....the full lay out of what was studied by each study is in the links....
GunCite-Gun Control-How Often Are Guns Used in Self-Defense

GunCite Frequency of Defensive Gun Use in Previous Surveys

Field...1976....3,052,717 ( no cops, military)

DMIa 1978...2,141,512 ( no cops, military)

L.A. TIMES...1994...3,609,68 ( no cops, military)

Kleck......1994...2.5 million ( no cops, military)

Obama's CDC....2013....500,000--3million

--------------------


Bordua...1977...1,414,544

DMIb...1978...1,098,409 ( no cops, military)

Hart...1981...1.797,461 ( no cops, military)

Mauser...1990...1,487,342 ( no cops, military)

Gallup...1993...1,621,377 ( no cops, military)

DEPT. OF JUSTICE...1994...1.5 million ( the bill clinton study)

Journal of Quantitative Criminology--- 989,883 times per year."

(Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology,[17] U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year.[18])

Paper: "Measuring Civilian Defensive Firearm Use: A Methodological Experiment." By David McDowall and others. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, March 2000. Measuring Civilian Defensive Firearm Use: A Methodological Experiment - Springer


-------------------------------------------

Ohio...1982...771,043

Gallup...1991...777,152

Tarrance... 1994... 764,036 (no cops, military)

Lawerence Southwich Jr. 400,000 fewer violent crimes and at least 800,000 violent crimes deterred..

*****************************************
If you take the studies from that Kleck cites in his paper, 16 of them....and you only average the ones that exclude military and police shootings..the average becomes 2 million...I use those studies because I have the details on them...and they are still 10 studies (including Kleck's)....

I notice JoeyB includes suicides when he talks about the US, but only gun murders when talking about Germany.

That is because too many European countries, with the extreme gun control laws he wants here....every single one of them......doesn't stop their suicide rate from being higher than ours....

World suicide rates by country

World suicide rates by country

Per 100,000


Hungary ... 21.0
Belgium .... 18.4
Finland... 16.5
France... 14.6
Poland... 13.8
Austria... 13.8
Czech Republic... 12.7
New Zealand.... 11.9
Denmark... 11.3
Sweden..............11.1
Norway...............10.9
Iceland................10.4
Germany.............10.3
Canada...............10.2

United States.......10.1

And another list....
Here Are The Countries With The Worst Suicide Rates

 

[2aguy]

you don't get to decide that, and neither does the government, unless I am a convicted felon, or mentally adjudicated.

Again, buddy, Scalia's taking a dirt nap... The Second Amendment is going to be about Militias again.

And only one of us has been part of one of them thar well-regulated militias....

I want a handgun in my apartment for my own protection. I should not have to pay $1000 and wait 3-6 months for it, nor should I have to ask anyone's permission.

Except that handgun is 43 times more likely to kill a member of your household than a bad guy. Makign you wait 3-6 months would probably be prudent so we don't know that you are the type who is likely to shoot someone.

Wow.....another lie.......the guy you keep quoting changed that number...you know it...you keep posting it....you are a liar....

Here....this is how the 43% lie was debunked, and then changed by the guy who made the original lie....

Public Health and Gun Control: A Review



Since at least the mid-1980s, Dr. Kellermann (and associates), whose work had been heavily-funded by the CDC, published a series of studies purporting to show that persons who keep guns in the home are more likely to be victims of homicide than those who don¹t.

In a 1986 NEJM paper, Dr. Kellermann and associates, for example, claimed their "scientific research" proved that defending oneself or one¹s family with a firearm in the home is dangerous and counter productive, claiming "a gun owner is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than an intruder."8

In a critical review and now classic article published in the March 1994 issue of the Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia (JMAG), Dr. Edgar Suter, Chairman of Doctors for Integrity in Policy Research (DIPR), found evidence of "methodologic and conceptual errors," such as prejudicially truncated data and the listing of "the correct methodology which was described but never used by the authors."5

Moreover, the gun control researchers failed to consider and underestimated the protective benefits of guns.

Dr. Suter writes: "The true measure of the protective benefits of guns are the lives and medical costs saved, the injuries prevented, and the property protected ‹ not the burglar or rapist body count.

Since only 0.1 - 0.2 percent of defensive uses of guns involve the death of the criminal, any study, such as this, that counts criminal deaths as the only measure of the protective benefits of guns will expectedly underestimate the benefits of firearms by a factor of 500 to 1,000."5

In 1993, in his landmark and much cited NEJM article (and the research, again, heavily funded by the CDC), Dr. Kellermann attempted to show again that guns in the home are a greater risk to the victims than to the assailants.4 Despite valid criticisms by reputable scholars of his previous works (including the 1986 study), Dr. Kellermann ignored the criticisms and again used the same methodology.

He also used study populations with disproportionately high rates of serious psychosocial dysfunction from three selected state counties, known to be unrepresentative of the general U.S. population.

For example,

53 percent of the case subjects had a history of a household member being arrested,

31 percent had a household history of illicit drug use, 32 percent had a household member hit or hurt in a family fight, and

17 percent had a family member hurt so seriously in a domestic altercation that prompt medical attention was required.
Moreover, both the case studies and control groups in this analysis had a very high incidence of financial instability.

In fact, in this study, gun ownership, the supposedly high risk factor for homicide was not one of the most strongly associated factors for being murdered.

Drinking, illicit drugs, living alone, history of family violence, living in a rented home were all greater individual risk factors for being murdered than a gun in the home. One must conclude there is no basis to apply the conclusions of this study to the general population.

All of these are factors that, as Dr. Suter pointed out, "would expectedly be associated with higher rates of violence and homicide."5

It goes without saying, the results of such a study on gun homicides, selecting this sort of unrepresentative population sample, nullify the authors' generalizations, and their preordained, conclusions can not be extrapolated to the general population.

Moreover, although the 1993 New England Journal of Medicine study purported to show that the homicide victims were killed with a gun ordinarily kept in the home, the fact is that as Kates and associates point out 71.1 percent of the victims were killed by assailants who did not live in the victims¹ household using guns presumably not kept in that home.6