Harvard (!) Study Finds Inverse Relationship Between Rates of Private Gun Ownership and Rates of Crime

[MaduroBU]

This isn't new. The Kellerman study, the source of the notorious "a gun in the home is 20x more likely to kill someone in the home than an intruder" claim, also found that a rifle or shotgun in the home reduced the risk of murder for the occupants (while finding that a handgun raised it). The big issue with that study was its use of Cleveland, Memphis, and Seattle without any effort to determine if the findings between the three sites were in any way similar. Since Seattle had a murder rate that sat around 15-20% of the other two cities in the study, that subgroup analysis probably would've shown that living in Cleveland or Memphis was far more dangerous than any factor related to firearm use. However, that would've been insufficient granularity.

Look up the book Don't Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner City America. David Kennedy, the architect of Operation Ceasefire in Boston, wrote it. Gun violence in America is a problem endemic to extremely small, hyperviolent communities that are a major factor in holding down poor black people in inner city America. The vast majority of the people who live in these neighborhoods are there because they cannot afford to get out and live in fear of these violent gang members. Focusing upon that tiny group stops gun crime. Focusing upon weapons, which the medical establishment has done in the service of its own bias for 30 years, does nothing to stop violence.

Kellerman like the rest who tout the study ignored the qualification of "legally possessed in the home".

They also conveniently leave out how much more likely you are to be the victim of a crime involving guns if you or someone else in the home is currently or has recently been involved in crime.

Almost 90% of murders in this country are directly related to gang activity and illicit drugs. None of the above facts will ever get more than passing play in the major media in this country and for a very good reason, they don't actually want to have the public informed, just controlled.

The Kellerman study is pretty up front with its findings. Renting vs owning a home increases your odds of bring a murder victim by 5x. That certainly doesn't reflect any inherent danger of rental properties, but the extreme socioeconomic bias in gun violence. The data from the Kellerman study makes the point that small groups of violent people with no way out kill one another almost to the exclusion of everyone else. Folks who cite that study have mostly never read it because they cherry pick the data that seems to support gun control while ignoring the rest.

[WildRose]

This isn't new. The Kellerman study, the source of the notorious "a gun in the home is 20x more likely to kill someone in the home than an intruder" claim, also found that a rifle or shotgun in the home reduced the risk of murder for the occupants (while finding that a handgun raised it). The big issue with that study was its use of Cleveland, Memphis, and Seattle without any effort to determine if the findings between the three sites were in any way similar. Since Seattle had a murder rate that sat around 15-20% of the other two cities in the study, that subgroup analysis probably would've shown that living in Cleveland or Memphis was far more dangerous than any factor related to firearm use. However, that would've been insufficient granularity.

Look up the book Don't Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner City America. David Kennedy, the architect of Operation Ceasefire in Boston, wrote it. Gun violence in America is a problem endemic to extremely small, hyperviolent communities that are a major factor in holding down poor black people in inner city America. The vast majority of the people who live in these neighborhoods are there because they cannot afford to get out and live in fear of these violent gang members. Focusing upon that tiny group stops gun crime. Focusing upon weapons, which the medical establishment has done in the service of its own bias for 30 years, does nothing to stop violence.

Kellerman like the rest who tout the study ignored the qualification of "legally possessed in the home".

They also conveniently leave out how much more likely you are to be the victim of a crime involving guns if you or someone else in the home is currently or has recently been involved in crime.

Almost 90% of murders in this country are directly related to gang activity and illicit drugs. None of the above facts will ever get more than passing play in the major media in this country and for a very good reason, they don't actually want to have the public informed, just controlled.

The Kellerman study is pretty up front with its findings. Renting vs owning a home increases your odds of bring a murder victim by 5x. That certainly doesn't reflect any inherent danger of rental properties, but the extreme socioeconomic bias in gun violence. The data from the Kellerman study makes the point that small groups of violent people with no way out kill one another almost to the exclusion of everyone else. Folks who cite that study have mostly never read it because they cherry pick the data that seems to support gun control while ignoring the rest.

It excludes all of the factors I laid out which is why the anti's are so successful in quoting it.

[MaduroBU]

This isn't new. The Kellerman study, the source of the notorious "a gun in the home is 20x more likely to kill someone in the home than an intruder" claim, also found that a rifle or shotgun in the home reduced the risk of murder for the occupants (while finding that a handgun raised it). The big issue with that study was its use of Cleveland, Memphis, and Seattle without any effort to determine if the findings between the three sites were in any way similar. Since Seattle had a murder rate that sat around 15-20% of the other two cities in the study, that subgroup analysis probably would've shown that living in Cleveland or Memphis was far more dangerous than any factor related to firearm use. However, that would've been insufficient granularity.

Look up the book Don't Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner City America. David Kennedy, the architect of Operation Ceasefire in Boston, wrote it. Gun violence in America is a problem endemic to extremely small, hyperviolent communities that are a major factor in holding down poor black people in inner city America. The vast majority of the people who live in these neighborhoods are there because they cannot afford to get out and live in fear of these violent gang members. Focusing upon that tiny group stops gun crime. Focusing upon weapons, which the medical establishment has done in the service of its own bias for 30 years, does nothing to stop violence.

Kellerman like the rest who tout the study ignored the qualification of "legally possessed in the home".

They also conveniently leave out how much more likely you are to be the victim of a crime involving guns if you or someone else in the home is currently or has recently been involved in crime.

Almost 90% of murders in this country are directly related to gang activity and illicit drugs. None of the above facts will ever get more than passing play in the major media in this country and for a very good reason, they don't actually want to have the public informed, just controlled.

The Kellerman study is pretty up front with its findings. Renting vs owning a home increases your odds of bring a murder victim by 5x. That certainly doesn't reflect any inherent danger of rental properties, but the extreme socioeconomic bias in gun violence. The data from the Kellerman study makes the point that small groups of violent people with no way out kill one another almost to the exclusion of everyone else. Folks who cite that study have mostly never read it because they cherry pick the data that seems to support gun control while ignoring the rest.

It excludes all of the factors I laid out which is why the anti's are so successful in quoting it.

They didn't leave any of that out. They give precise measurements of the effects of all of those factors, all of which are more predictive of murder risk than whether or not the household has a pistol. Just because that part of the study is conveniently exluded during discussion of it in the news doesn't mean that it isn't there.

The paper is free to download and I'd strongly encourage you to read it if you haven't.

[Abraham]

When a predominantly leftist school produces a study with firearms a big part of such a study, I'm not going to waste my time reading it.

[Paladin]

This is a key part of the Harvard study:

almost all murderers are extremely aberrant individuals with life histories of violence, psychopathology, substance abuse, and other dangerous behaviors. “The vast majority of persons involved in life ‐ threatening violence have a long criminal record with many prior contacts with the justice system.” 61 ...approximately 90 percent of “adult murderers have adult records...

It shows that if gun control advocates truly want to have an impact on crime, they must keep guns out of the hands of criminals, not law abiding citizens.

[Paladin]

What to do about juvenile school shooters and murderers?

Psychological studies of juvenile murderers variously find that at least 80%, if not all, are psychotic or have psychotic symptoms 73

Psychosis is clearly a serious mental health issue that must be dealt with aggressively.

[Paladin]

studies ...suggest there is no reason for laws prohibiting gun possession by ordinary, law ‐ abiding responsible adults because such people virtually never murder. If one accepts that such adults are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than to commit it, disarming them becomes not just unproductive but counterproductive. 83

[WildRose]

This isn't new. The Kellerman study, the source of the notorious "a gun in the home is 20x more likely to kill someone in the home than an intruder" claim, also found that a rifle or shotgun in the home reduced the risk of murder for the occupants (while finding that a handgun raised it). The big issue with that study was its use of Cleveland, Memphis, and Seattle without any effort to determine if the findings between the three sites were in any way similar. Since Seattle had a murder rate that sat around 15-20% of the other two cities in the study, that subgroup analysis probably would've shown that living in Cleveland or Memphis was far more dangerous than any factor related to firearm use. However, that would've been insufficient granularity.

Look up the book Don't Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner City America. David Kennedy, the architect of Operation Ceasefire in Boston, wrote it. Gun violence in America is a problem endemic to extremely small, hyperviolent communities that are a major factor in holding down poor black people in inner city America. The vast majority of the people who live in these neighborhoods are there because they cannot afford to get out and live in fear of these violent gang members. Focusing upon that tiny group stops gun crime. Focusing upon weapons, which the medical establishment has done in the service of its own bias for 30 years, does nothing to stop violence.

Kellerman like the rest who tout the study ignored the qualification of "legally possessed in the home".

They also conveniently leave out how much more likely you are to be the victim of a crime involving guns if you or someone else in the home is currently or has recently been involved in crime.

Almost 90% of murders in this country are directly related to gang activity and illicit drugs. None of the above facts will ever get more than passing play in the major media in this country and for a very good reason, they don't actually want to have the public informed, just controlled.

The Kellerman study is pretty up front with its findings. Renting vs owning a home increases your odds of bring a murder victim by 5x. That certainly doesn't reflect any inherent danger of rental properties, but the extreme socioeconomic bias in gun violence. The data from the Kellerman study makes the point that small groups of violent people with no way out kill one another almost to the exclusion of everyone else. Folks who cite that study have mostly never read it because they cherry pick the data that seems to support gun control while ignoring the rest.

It excludes all of the factors I laid out which is why the anti's are so successful in quoting it.

They didn't leave any of that out. They give precise measurements of the effects of all of those factors, all of which are more predictive of murder risk than whether or not the household has a pistol. Just because that part of the study is conveniently exluded during discussion of it in the news doesn't mean that it isn't there.

The paper is free to download and I'd strongly encourage you to read it if you haven't.

By all means then please provide the citations and quotes.

[MaduroBU]

The data tables list the crude and corrected odds ratios. It seems like you haven't read it, because these tables are impossible to miss.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/N ... 0073291506

Scroll to the Results section and then tables 3 and 4.

[WildRose]

I have and still dont' see some of the critical details.

He documents the number that directly involve drug deals. I'm not seeing the much larger figures of those involved otherwise in gangs/drug business.

I don't see the percentage of thoset guns in the home are illegal vs legal.

I don't see the percentage of how many shootings occur in homes where at least one or more of those resident have prior criminal records.

We all know that when you get right down to it, unless you have a piror criminal record or are yourself engaged in crimimal activity or cohabitating with same your odds of committing a murder with a firearm are truly infinitesimal.

Those of us with no such record who don't share a home with same commit somewhere under 5% of all unlawful shootings much less murders.

The generally law abiding person simply does't consider that an option and barring the most trying of emotional circumstances or a complete mental breakdown we have the self control to make rational decisions rather than be ruled by our emotions.

To find these kinds of details generally you have to go to people like Lott and Keck who are really willing to dig in like few others acquiring, analyzing and posting the data and results.

Maybe the NRA and other gun rights groups shold put together a crack research team of credentialed professionals to do just that and we could then bury the anti's in fact they cannot obfuscate, twist, or ignore any longer.

[MaduroBU]

I have and still dont' see some of the critical details.

He documents the number that directly involve drug deals. I'm not seeing the much larger figures of those involved otherwise in gangs/drug business.

I don't see the percentage of thoset guns in the home are illegal vs legal.

I don't see the percentage of how many shootings occur in homes where at least one or more of those resident have prior criminal records.

We all know that when you get right down to it, unless you have a piror criminal record or are yourself engaged in crimimal activity or cohabitating with same your odds of committing a murder with a firearm are truly infinitesimal.

Those of us with no such record who don't share a home with same commit somewhere under 5% of all unlawful shootings much less murders.

The generally law abiding person simply does't consider that an option and barring the most trying of emotional circumstances or a complete mental breakdown we have the self control to make rational decisions rather than be ruled by our emotions.

To find these kinds of details generally you have to go to people like Lott and Keck who are really willing to dig in like few others acquiring, analyzing and posting the data and results.

Maybe the NRA and other gun rights groups shold put together a crack research team of credentialed professionals to do just that and we could then bury the anti's in fact they cannot obfuscate, twist, or ignore any longer.

We're limited to murders in homes,which would exclude many gang related crimes. Nonetheless, drug use, alcohol use, proxies for poverty, and interactions with the law were all much stronger predictors of gun violence than gun ownership. Most telling was that a rifle or shotgun in the home was one of the most protective decisions that one could make apart from the choice to live in a low crime area.

They didn't break the stats down by city, which was perhaps the biggest weakness of the study (and likely deliberate as it would've failed to demonstrate the author's desired outcome). Reading between the lines clearly demonstrates that King County wasn't a big contributor to the murder statistics vs Memphis and Cleveland.

[WildRose]

So far the only guys I know that drill down on those details I was point out are Kleck and Lott. They are both pretty meticulous.

Basically it all boils down to stay off dope, and donlt live with a user. Don't be involved in crime, and don't have anyone with such a record in your home.

Live your life that way an odds are you'll never be either the victim or perpetrator of an unlawful shooing.

[MaduroBU]

It's not just Kleck and Lott. Sociologists, who are not verbally pro 2A, have been awakened to the idea that gun violence is an extremely focal problem. Don't Shoot, David Kennedy's history of project Ceasefire and the recent study by Andrew Pappachristos on gun violence as a communicable disease, both strongly reinforce that.

As responsible citizens who want to keep the right to own guns, we cannot be eternally defensive. Defense without the possibility if counterattack is seige, and that situation implies that if the opponents of the 2A just endure, they'll win. We MUST support solutions to gun violence if we want to keep our 2A rights, and the evidence overwhelmingly supports the assertion that we don't need to give up rights to achieve that goal.

Suicide is a disease of the lonely, isolated and estranged. 67% of folks who die from being shot did so themselves, but we can see from two groups with limited access to firearms (namely teens and adults from the rest of the world) that legal access to firearms poorly correlates to suicide rates. Our mental health system remains abysmal, and nothing typifies that better than our use of prisons as mental health facilities.

Murder remains an extremely focal phenomenon, and that's what we can more easily address. People who grow up without opportunity, with criminals as role models, and with violence as the arbiter of interpersonal disputes versus the law and LEOs have extreme rates of murder and victimization, and drag others who had a chance to break free down with them.

The use of gun control to address that problem is directly drawn from the Jim Crow laws. There is the obvious but superficial parallel in the letter of the law, but the real similarity is deeper and more sinister. Take as an example the recent NEJM paper on caliber vs lethality, which suggested that banning larger calibers would reduce the gun homicide rate. The last sentence, which would've been edited out save for the overwhelming bias of the editors, stated that limiting people to clubs would further reduce violence. The clear implication is that the overwhelmingly black participants in homicide can't help themselves (which is demonstrably false) and thus must be disarmed for their own good.

That rationale is the exact rationale used under Jim Crow to deny blacks their 2A rights in the South for 100 years. Academics are normally smart enough to avoid painting themselves into that corner publicly, but they all think the same way. The very worst part is that these people see themselves as paternal defenders of poor black people, who require their guiding hand to become a civilized race; they don't even have the honesty of the Southern politicians who were happy to admit that keeping blacks disarmed was merely a way to oppress them.

The people who make the evidence want to ban guns. But the numbers that they produce say that the opposite is needed in pursuit of their stated goal of reducing violence. Further, their solution has been tried and is a hallnark of one If the greatest inhustices in American history.

Why not use their own data to demonstrate that they're lying racists?

[WildRose]

It's not just Kleck and Lott. Sociologists, who are not verbally pro 2A, have been awakened to the idea that gun violence is an extremely focal problem. Don't Shoot, David Kennedy's history of project Ceasefire and the recent study by Andrew Pappachristos on gun violence as a communicable disease, both strongly reinforce that.

As responsible citizens who want to keep the right to own guns, we cannot be eternally defensive. Defense without the possibility if counterattack is seige, and that situation implies that if the opponents of the 2A just endure, they'll win. We MUST support solutions to gun violence if we want to keep our 2A rights, and the evidence overwhelmingly supports the assertion that we don't need to give up rights to achieve that goal.

Suicide is a disease of the lonely, isolated and estranged. 67% of folks who die from being shot did so themselves, but we can see from two groups with limited access to firearms (namely teens and adults from the rest of the world) that legal access to firearms poorly correlates to suicide rates. Our mental health system remains abysmal, and nothing typifies that better than our use of prisons as mental health facilities.

Murder remains an extremely focal phenomenon, and that's what we can more easily address. People who grow up without opportunity, with criminals as role models, and with violence as the arbiter of interpersonal disputes versus the law and LEOs have extreme rates of murder and victimization, and drag others who had a chance to break free down with them.

The use of gun control to address that problem is directly drawn from the Jim Crow laws. There is the obvious but superficial parallel in the letter of the law, but the real similarity is deeper and more sinister. Take as an example the recent NEJM paper on caliber vs lethality, which suggested that banning larger calibers would reduce the gun homicide rate. The last sentence, which would've been edited out save for the overwhelming bias of the editors, stated that limiting people to clubs would further reduce violence. The clear implication is that the overwhelmingly black participants in homicide can't help themselves (which is demonstrably false) and thus must be disarmed for their own good.

That rationale is the exact rationale used under Jim Crow to deny blacks their 2A rights in the South for 100 years. Academics are normally smart enough to avoid painting themselves into that corner publicly, but they all think the same way. The very worst part is that these people see themselves as paternal defenders of poor black people, who require their guiding hand to become a civilized race; they don't even have the honesty of the Southern politicians who were happy to admit that keeping blacks disarmed was merely a way to oppress them.

The people who make the evidence want to ban guns. But the numbers that they produce say that the opposite is needed in pursuit of their stated goal of reducing violence. Further, their solution has been tried and is a hallnark of one If the greatest inhustices in American history.

Why not use their own data to demonstrate that they're lying racists?

Very well said.

At it's heart gun control is simply people control. Throughout history gun contro has been used to make the elites feel more secure and to keep various races, religions, and ethnic groups subjugated to the ruling class/authority.

There are a lot of people who mean well on the gun control side of the debate but that's not who leads the charge, that's just the sheep who have been scared by the left/press into believing that disarming us is oging to somehow prevent criminals from betting and using guns which is a fantasy.

[equin]

It's not just Kleck and Lott. Sociologists, who are not verbally pro 2A, have been awakened to the idea that gun violence is an extremely focal problem. Don't Shoot, David Kennedy's history of project Ceasefire and the recent study by Andrew Pappachristos on gun violence as a communicable disease, both strongly reinforce that.

As responsible citizens who want to keep the right to own guns, we cannot be eternally defensive. Defense without the possibility if counterattack is seige, and that situation implies that if the opponents of the 2A just endure, they'll win. We MUST support solutions to gun violence if we want to keep our 2A rights, and the evidence overwhelmingly supports the assertion that we don't need to give up rights to achieve that goal.

Suicide is a disease of the lonely, isolated and estranged. 67% of folks who die from being shot did so themselves, but we can see from two groups with limited access to firearms (namely teens and adults from the rest of the world) that legal access to firearms poorly correlates to suicide rates. Our mental health system remains abysmal, and nothing typifies that better than our use of prisons as mental health facilities.

Murder remains an extremely focal phenomenon, and that's what we can more easily address. People who grow up without opportunity, with criminals as role models, and with violence as the arbiter of interpersonal disputes versus the law and LEOs have extreme rates of murder and victimization, and drag others who had a chance to break free down with them.

The use of gun control to address that problem is directly drawn from the Jim Crow laws. There is the obvious but superficial parallel in the letter of the law, but the real similarity is deeper and more sinister. Take as an example the recent NEJM paper on caliber vs lethality, which suggested that banning larger calibers would reduce the gun homicide rate. The last sentence, which would've been edited out save for the overwhelming bias of the editors, stated that limiting people to clubs would further reduce violence. The clear implication is that the overwhelmingly black participants in homicide can't help themselves (which is demonstrably false) and thus must be disarmed for their own good.

That rationale is the exact rationale used under Jim Crow to deny blacks their 2A rights in the South for 100 years. Academics are normally smart enough to avoid painting themselves into that corner publicly, but they all think the same way. The very worst part is that these people see themselves as paternal defenders of poor black people, who require their guiding hand to become a civilized race; they don't even have the honesty of the Southern politicians who were happy to admit that keeping blacks disarmed was merely a way to oppress them.

The people who make the evidence want to ban guns. But the numbers that they produce say that the opposite is needed in pursuit of their stated goal of reducing violence. Further, their solution has been tried and is a hallnark of one If the greatest inhustices in American history.

Why not use their own data to demonstrate that they're lying racists?

Very well said.

At it's heart gun control is simply people control. Throughout history gun contro has been used to make the elites feel more secure and to keep various races, religions, and ethnic groups subjugated to the ruling class/authority.

There are a lot of people who mean well on the gun control side of the debate but that's not who leads the charge, that's just the sheep who have been scared by the left/press into believing that disarming us is oging to somehow prevent criminals from betting and using guns which is a fantasy.

Both excellent posts. I wholeheartedly agree.