New study, more guns = LESS safe

[HumblePie]

I'm certain that everyone who disagrees with you is a troll in your mind. It must be tough living in a world where most every other sentient creature is trolling you.

No, just you are specifically a troll. All you do on these boards is troll.

 

[BoberFett]

Stupidity and blabbering snipped

It's amusing that you can't see how my study is exactly the same as the one referenced in the OP.

 

[Daverino]

The thread has largely been about the author's assertion that "coincident exactly with the policy change, there was an immediate upward trajectory to the homicide rates in Missouri." Missouri's homicide rates are already available, and analysis shows his claim to be extremely misleading at best, if it's not a blatant lie.

Maybe the study is valid despite the author's bullshitting ahead of its release, and despite his history of regurgitating gun control talking points and calling them science. But probably not.

And that's the thing, and coincidentally getting back to the hovering baseball.

Looking at the overall rate is not informative. The overall rate is the sum of the forces acting upon it. If we have a decelerating car with the brake down, yet you step on the gas enough to maintain a constant velocity, you still have acceleration. You have enough to offset the deceleration.

The assumption made by people posting the historical data is that the rate is constant. What if the rate was decelerating, or should be decelerating, and then stopped decelerating to remain constant? Well if that happened, some accelerating force has come into play. But again, I haven't read the study, so I don't know what data they used or how the did their analysis. But the data shown doesn't yet contradict their conclusions, not in any obvious way.

I can measure the velocity and acceleration of a hovering baseball for hours and come up with zero, zero, zero zero. It doesn't change the fact that it is accelerating upwards at 9.81m/s^2. The reason it is hovering is because it is ALSO accelerating downwards at 9.81m/s^2.

 

[Daverino]

It's amusing that you can't see how my study is exactly the same as the one referenced in the OP.

Have you read the study in the OP. If so, please post a link? I cannot find it. I hit up Google and it still says it hasn't been released.

 

[Daverino]

No, just you are specifically a troll. All you do on these boards is troll.

Man oh man, are you still ass sore that your hero Dunn is going to jail for 75 years? Go be bitter somewhere else, please.

 

[BoberFett]

Have you read the study in the OP. If so, please post a link? I cannot find it. I hit up Google and it still says it hasn't been released.

Correct. However very simple numbers prove that his base assertion about the jump in the murder rate is phony, just as my assertion that the baseball will continue traveling unimpeded is phony.

 

[HumblePie]

Man oh man, are you still ass sore that your hero Dunn is going to jail for 75 years? Go be bitter somewhere else, please.

No, you are just a troll. That's all you do. Even in this thread. Everyone else got the satire within bober's post and you are still trolling about it.

 

[Daverino]

Correct. However very simple numbers prove that his base assertion about the jump in the murder rate is phony, just as my assertion that the baseball will continue traveling unimpeded is phony.

That you can type this only shows that you have no understanding of statistics. It is my fortune that I have a degree in the subject although this being the internet there's no way for me to prove that. So please do not claim that your data contradicts the study. Who knows, it may. But on the surface it doesn't. We do not know what the study measures or how it measured it. We do not know how it implemented its controls. Until any of those things are known, simply stating that the murder rate in Missouri remained constant does not contradict the author's statement. Just like the hovering baseball, things can be accelerating and not move. You need to understand all the forces in action in order to interpret the data correctly.

That is good science.

The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research is part of the Bloomberg School of Public Health, which is considered one of the best, if not the best, public health institutions in the country. The study was peer reviewed and submitted and accepted to a journal conference. The author is the director of the Center itself who has a long publication history. The paper starts with a lot of credibility. But you cannot start tearing into it unless you read the paper itself.

 

[rudeguy]

Have you read the study in the OP. If so, please post a link? I cannot find it. I hit up Google and it still says it hasn't been released.

come on man....

You are going to take flaming you from an Olympic sport down to a middle school recess sport.

Don't do this to me. I like my hobby!

 

[Daverino]

No, you are just a troll. That's all you do. Even in this thread. Everyone else got the satire within bober's post and you are still trolling about it.

Neato! I have a thread stalker. It's like a forum pet that isn't snuggly or adorable. Also can't seem to housebreak it because DAMN! it sure likes shitting all over the place.

 

[Daverino]

come on man....

You are going to take flaming you from an Olympic sport down to a middle school recess sport.

Don't do this to me. I like my hobby!

No, I'm serious. If nobody has read the study then there isn't a thing that anyone here can say about it intelligently. But I damned sure know enough about statistics to know that the rates that Boba posted don't contradict the authors statement on the face of things. It may look like it, sure. But as I said, a hovering baseball doesn't look like it's accelerating.

Seriously, we can all read this thing next month, probably. Why not read it then and go berserko on the forums? I consider the OP pretty much troll bait because it was information free. Like a CGI-packed trailer for a movie that may or may not suck.

I reread the thread. If there was some other salient point that I'm still missing, please point me at it. I consider you and I on opposite ends of the rational world but still at least on the same planet.

 

[Daverino]

(Do you see how pointless the article and this thread are?)

I missed this from before. Yes, the article and thread are pointless. The whole thing is information free. And I cannot decide what is worse, an OP that is a great big nothing or some people trying to contradict the nothingness in the OP.

 

[rudeguy]

No, I'm serious. If nobody has read the study then there isn't a thing that anyone here can say about it intelligently. But I damned sure know enough about statistics to know that the rates that Boba posted don't contradict the authors statement on the face of things. It may look like it, sure. But as I said, a hovering baseball doesn't look like it's accelerating.

Seriously, we can all read this thing next month, probably. Why not read it then and go berserko on the forums? I consider the OP pretty much troll bait because it was information free. Like a CGI-packed trailer for a movie that may or may not suck.

I reread the thread. If there was some other salient point that I'm still missing, please point me at it. I consider you and I on opposite ends of the rational world but still at least on the same planet.

Here's how I saw the thread:

Bradly Manning posts thread because he is afraid of guns
I point out that the article linked to meant nothing, because the study wasn't released
Some people came in defending the study, even though it hasn't been released
I suggested this thread was more about pudding than fact
When we tried to point this fact out, those people defended defending the study
Then it all went downhill and we were all arguing "what ifs"
Then you took one of the people trying to point out how stupid the whatifers were literally


This thread was and is still pointless. There are no new facts to argue and the old facts haven't changed.

 

[theeedude]

A single data point is not a trajectory. The majority of years between 2008 and 2012 had lower homicide rates than 2007.

2004: 6.1
2005: 6.9
2006: 6.3
2007: 6.5
2008: 7.7
2009: 6.4
2010: 7.0
2011: 6.1
2012: 6.4

That's effectively flat with a single aberration, not upward. The average murder rates from the four years preceding and following 2008 are identical. Calling this data an "upward trajectory" is disingenuous no matter how hard you try to spin it.

There is an immediate upper trajectory, as the author says. It is absolutely true statement. What is disingenuous is to claim it's not because you think (without statistical proof) that it's an aberration.

 

[theeedude]

Sure, there was a 1 year immediate upper trajectory. 2009, 2011, and 2012 were totally insignificant changes. 2008 and 2010 showed some increase.

Annual murders:

1999 - 359
2000 - 347
2001 - 372
2002 - 331
2003 - 289
2004 - 354
2005 - 402
2006 - 368
2007 - 385 <- law change
2008 - 456
2009 - 387
2010 - 420
2011 - 366
2012 - 389

As said, correlation does not prove causation and a disinterested scientist would not draw conclusions like he has. I don't see much statistical significance in a one year 15% swing. And, even if it's significant there are a lot of other economic (and other) factors at play.

That's why you need to wait for the study. Obviously the whole point of the study is to control for these other factors, not just republish previously known crime statistics.

 

[theeedude]

Hey guys, on a side note, I threw a baseball in the air and measured it's trajectory for about two seconds. I have conclusive evidence that the ball will reach the moon in about six months. I haven't released my study yet, but don't worry, my conclusions are solid based on that two seconds worth of data.

Science, bitches.

On a side note, I held a baseball over the bridge, and when I let it go, I saw it accelerate downwards. I concluded that it was just an aberration, and the baseball would be back in my hand in no time. I haven't released my study yet, but don't worry, my conclusions are solid based on that two seconds worth of data.

 

[Daverino]

This thread was and is still pointless. There are no new facts to argue and the old facts haven't changed.

More or less yeah. That's why I didn't even bother with it until Boba's post. His 'analogy' was so bad it directly contradicted his own point. I let it pass that his point wasn't valid in the first place because we're comparing his data to fuck-knows-what. But come on man, the baseball thing was horrible. My eyes rolled so far back in my head they nearly came around the other side.

If we're not going to settle anything about gun control, can we at least get a basic understanding of how gravity works? Sheesh.

 

[TerryMathews]

I missed this from before. Yes, the article and thread are pointless. The whole thing is information free. And I cannot decide what is worse, an OP that is a great big nothing or some people trying to contradict the nothingness in the OP.

Its almost like a light snapped on over your head.

Welcome to the conversation.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

All the law did was remove the sheriffs review when purchasing a handgun which was a redundant with the required federal background check.

With or without this law it's impossible to stop weapons transactions between individuals without background checks.

 

[rudeguy]

I missed this from before. Yes, the article and thread are pointless. The whole thing is information free. And I cannot decide what is worse, an OP that is a great big nothing or some people trying to contradict the nothingness in the OP.

this is why everyone was picking on you. That is the point bober was making and you took him literally.

Its just a stupid thread and reason and logic have no place in it.

SO:

Pudding

 

[rudeguy]

Its almost like a light snapped on over your head.

Welcome to the conversation.

I just farking LOLd. BAD

Someone please explain to my coworkers that I'm not nuts.

 

[zinfamous]

And then they studied Chicago

since that kind of violence is isolated to a small corner of the city--yes, I'd be interested to see the number of guns related to violence in that population.

 

[Daverino]

this is why everyone was picking on you. That is the point bober was making and you took him literally.

Its just a stupid thread and reason and logic have no place in it.

SO:

Pudding

Well on that point, I think you're giving Bober too much credit. I think he sincerely believes that his data contradicts the still unknown data in the paper. We'll have to disagree on that one.

 

[Venix]

And that's the thing, and coincidentally getting back to the hovering baseball.

Looking at the overall rate is not informative. The overall rate is the sum of the forces acting upon it. If we have a decelerating car with the brake down, yet you step on the gas enough to maintain a constant velocity, you still have acceleration. You have enough to offset the deceleration.

The assumption made by people posting the historical data is that the rate is constant. What if the rate was decelerating, or should be decelerating, and then stopped decelerating to remain constant? Well if that happened, some accelerating force has come into play. But again, I haven't read the study, so I don't know what data they used or how the did their analysis. But the data shown doesn't yet contradict their conclusions, not in any obvious way.

I can measure the velocity and acceleration of a hovering baseball for hours and come up with zero, zero, zero zero. It doesn't change the fact that it is accelerating upwards at 9.81m/s^2. The reason it is hovering is because it is ALSO accelerating downwards at 9.81m/s^2.

The author did not claim that the homicide rate would have been lower had the law not passed. He said that the homicide rate rose after the passage of the law. Those are distinctly different assertions.

The first claim requires an in-depth analysis of his data and methodology to validate or disprove. The second requires only a comparison with the homicide rate numbers. That comparison disproves his claim.

 

[Daverino]

The author did not claim that the homicide rate would have been lower had the law not passed. He said that the homicide rate rose after the passage of the law. Those are distinctly different assertions.

The first claim requires an in-depth analysis of his data and methodology to validate or disprove. The second requires only a comparison with the homicide rate numbers. That comparison disproves his claim.

No it doesn't. Gah. You need to read the paper before you make a claim like this. Pudding!