Why we know anti-gun research is a joke....a study lies about permitless carry and its effect on homicide rates...

2aguy

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Jul 19, 2014
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Anti-gun extremists lie when they do research. Their blind hate of guns and gun owners forces them to create research that doesn't prove what they want...so they lie to cover that defect...



An 11 percent increase in handgun homicides attributable to permitless carry is significant enough to make anyone sit up and take notice. If the figures bear out, gun owners can expect a governor (who at times appears to be working up the guts to chicken out) to set his speechwriters to work on excuses. And making that claim, right under the headline, is certainly an attention grabber.

“[P]ublic health researchers have found that states with permitless carry laws have experienced an 11 percent increase in handgun homicide rates after their enactment,” the article elaborates, providing a link to an August 2017 American Journal of Public Health abstract titled “Easiness of Legal Access to Concealed Firearm Permits and Homicide Rates in the United States.”
The curious thing is, I couldn’t find their subhead-“worthy” assertion substantiated. Perhaps readers here can check my work by following my methodology and see if they get different results.

First, I read the abstract. Nothing.

Then I decided to do a word search, starting with (since it’s the percentage quoted) the number “11.” That returned 18 results, for dates, footnotes, and stuff, with the only one coming close to relevancy being a claim that “firearm homicide rates … were 11.7% higher in ‘shall issue’ states.”

That’s very different from permitless carry. It also recalls a noteworthy deceptiveness of relying exclusively on rates over numbers:

“For example, in 1880 Dodge City, one person out of 996 was killed. However, 100 years later in Miami, 515 people out of 1.5 million were killed. Although more people were murdered in Miami, statistically speaking the city has a lower homicide rate — just 32.7, compared to the 100.4 of Dodge City in the 1880s.”
Relying on that abstract observation also neglects a significant and fundamental admission that it makes:

“At least 10 national studies have examined the relationship between shall-issue concealed-carry laws and firearm-related or total homicide rates at the state level. In 2 studies, shall-issue laws were found to decrease homicide rates. In 2 studies, these laws were found to increase homicide rates. Six studies reported no clear impact of shall-issue laws on homicide rates.”
That’s hardly “settled science,” and note it (unsurprisingly) makes no mention of the other side of the coin, lives saved by armed citizens.

Since “11” didn’t work to substantiate Columbus Alive’s claims, the next logical search to perform would be for the word “permitless.” Here we hit paydirt:


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“We examined the potential impact of shall-issue laws, comparing them to may-issue laws. In other words, using the may-issue states as the reference group, we estimated the impact of shall-issue laws on homicide rates. Because only 4 states had permitless-carry laws in place during the study period, there were not enough observations to allow any meaningful analyses of these laws.

Therefore, we deleted state–year observations in which a permitless-carry law was in effect … The number of states that had permitless-carry laws in effect at all during the study period was small … as was the number of observations … limiting our ability to analyze the impact of these laws … Finally, we were unable to analyze the impact of permitless-carry laws because of the small number of observations.

Only 4 states had permitless-carry laws in place during the study period. However, in the past 2 years, an additional 5 states have enacted such laws. Elucidating the impact of permitless-carry laws will require follow-up for the 9 states that now have such laws in effect.”

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So what does that make of the claim that “Researchers have found that states with permitless carry laws have experienced an 11 percent increase in handgun homicide rates after enactment”? Their website does not provide for reader comments to correct the record and get the real information out, so wanting to give the benefit of the doubt, I approached both Columbus Alive and writer Craig Calcaterra on Twitter (politely, even):

“Please explain why the study you link to on that claim says: ‘Finally, we were unable to analyze the impact of permitless-carry laws because of the small number of observations.’”
That was three days ago. I have not received a response nor seen a correction published. You know they’re aware of it, the writer and the editor. And that seems at odds with another feature at their website, a pledge to readers, really, “USA TODAY Network’s Principles of Ethical Conduct for Newsrooms”:



 
So what does that make of the claim that “Researchers have found that states with permitless carry laws have experienced an 11 percent increase in handgun homicide rates after enactment”?
I'm on the Gulf Coast of south Alabama. Constitutional Carry just passed and will go into effect next January (our sheriff's departments needed to go through withdrawal now that their slush fund is ended) and we can watch this study disproved in real-time, AGAIN... I forget who said it first but it's proven true over and over:
AN ARMED SOCIETY IS A POLITE SOCIETY!
 
I'm on the Gulf Coast of south Alabama. Constitutional Carry just passed and will go into effect next January (our sheriff's departments needed to go through withdrawal now that their slush fund is ended) and we can watch this study disproved in real-time, AGAIN... I forget who said it first but it's proven true over and over:
AN ARMED SOCIETY IS A POLITE SOCIETY!
You live in L.A.
 

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