are on Hemenway's side. Much of their research has been called out by criminologists as being shoddy at best. The worst offender was Author Kellerman who came up with the "x times more likely" was thrashed when his work was peer reviewed by sociologists. The public health types still like his "study" for whatever reason.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x334436

Criminologists on the other hand, I have found to come to the opposite conclusions. BTW, Hemenway is a gun control activist, just like John Lott is a gun rights activist. I don't take either one of them very seriously.
worth checking this out
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x96850

Besides, public health research methods doesn't seem impressive.
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8#q=flaws+in+public+health+research&spell=1

Thanks for caring, but a gun free home is a chance I'm not going to take.

in the late 19th and early 20th century. Back then it was called eugenics and that science was used to strip people (especially the poor) of a number of their rights.

when one disagrees with them but they are only cast in stone when one agrees with them

A brief overview of the article:

"This is what David Hemenway, a professor at Harvard's School of Public Health"

You mean the same person that said:

"The gun is a great equalizer because it makes wimps as dangerous as people who really have skill and bravery and so I’d like to have this notion that anyone using a gun is a wuss. They aren’t anybody to be looked up to. They’re somebody to look down at because they couldn’t defend themselves or couldn’t protect others without using a gun."

"one survey asked whether having a gun in the home increased the risk of suicide. An overwhelming share of the 150 people who responded, 84%, said yes."

By what degree? It some non-specific general BS, not to scientific. I ask because DGU is about 100,000 cases a year so it should be compared against those suicide victims that would not have killed themselves without a gun.

"I also found widespread confidence that a gun in the home increases the risk that a woman living in the home will be a victim of homicide"

Why that sounds like some study he published that looked at samples of victims of domestic violence. Perhaps asking for women that want to volunteer for your study that already own guns and conducting a longitudinal study. Heck, they do it with gay parenting studies and those are well received.

" that a gun in the home makes it a more dangerous place to be (64%) rather than a safer place"

So we better remove them from the White House correct? I make the statement because it's relative on WHO own the gun.

"There is consensus that guns are not used in self-defense far more often than they are used in crime"

So those crimes that involved a firearm would have not occurred without a gun? The US is actually medium when it excludes firearm assault and murder. So its likely we will have the same amount of crime just with different implements.

" that the change to more permissive gun carrying laws has not reduced crime rates"

Why don't you ask if carry laws have a causation effect on crime rates?

"Finally, there is consensus that strong gun laws reduce homicide (71% vs. 12%).”"

Yet, we will not specify what gun laws.

I can have a five year old commission a better poll.

It is a foregone conclusion that if there is a chance of adverse result X from item Y, then more of Y is going to result in more of X. And this is trotted out on a near-daily basis by gun control advocates as a "reason" for more gun laws.

But when you ask a gun control advocate who thinks this is a good argument about anything else, somehow the logic no longer applies.

Want to reduce fatal auto accidents by 30,000? Get rid of cars!

The leading suicide method for women is over-the-counter pills and alcohol. All the gun control advocates wanting to reduce suicides by cutting gun availability should line up for making women go through a background check to buy Nyquil.

Stairs are a killer too.

Somehow, whenever I bring this up, the responses are never in the form of rational arguments, but instead are excuses to justify the double standard, or failing that, the usual crop of personal attacks and insults. It is almost like they are only in favor of restricting things that would not personally inconvenience them. The second link in the first comment has some good examples of fuzzy thinking, excuses, denials, broad stereotyping and insults when a gun controller is confronted with actual science.

And FYI, you'll sound less biased from the start if you start with accuracy. Hemenway did not "share the results of monthly polls of gun researchers". He asked anyone who wanted to call themselves an expert on the subject to be part of his polling. In terms of scientific accuracy, it would be about the same as wandering into the Inquisition and asking for experts on the menace posed by heretics, and using the results of that polling to justify persecution of heretics.

Or to put it in a more modern perspective, would you accept the conclusions if the exact same methodology was used by the NRA to poll self-selected "experts" and get their opinions on the subject? If not, then why on Earth would you accept it from someone with a known anti-gun bias?

When a researcher with a known bias on a subject makes a call for people to be part of a survey for that subject, the ones who care if their names are associated with reputable science tend to decline the offer, leaving Hemenway with a group of "experts" who are either as biased as he is or do not know any better.

The people who want to believe his message swallow it hook, line and sinker. Those who examine the issue critically (whether pro or con) know better. Which is why this story was first posted over in GCRA, where its poster knew it would remain free from any rational discussion of its flaws.

Nobody "needs" a rifle that goes pew pew pew! When do you ever hear a liberal say that citizens don't NEED X, Y or Z product unless that product is a gun? When else does a liberal ever suggest that the burden of proof upholding a RIGHT falls on those who desire to exercise the right rather than restrict it? The hypocrisy is glaring beyond escape -- and when a pro-rights liberal points it out he's accused of being a right wing shill, and worse.

To address your question, "Where does science fall on the gun control debate?" and the article you linked, some of the polls and data quoted in the article are not the latest and are a bit misleading. I generally question the wisdom of appealing to science in order to make assessments on laws, rights and criminology.

Do you have a view on what should change in the US regarding this debate?

Posts a lot to groups where his assertions cannot be challenged? Check.
Cherry-picking data? Check.
Misrepresenting the issue? Check.
Double standards? Check.
Broad stereotyping? Check.
Appeals to emotion? Check.
Ignores any data that does not support his beliefs? Check.
Unquestioningly accepts any data that does support his beliefs? Check.
Not very informative? Check.

Flamin lib is of course free to challenge this characterization of his stance and tactics, but successfully doing so would require a time machine to go back and undo his years of comments on the issue, so I suspect his response (if any) will neither be useful nor informative, but would stand an excellent chance of falling into one or more of the above descriptions.

But I do agree with him on one thing:

In fact, the story at the link would be a good example of some of the previously listed qualities.

Cherry-picking data? Check.
Misrepresenting the issue? Check.
Double standards? Check.
Broad stereotyping? Check.
Appeals to emotion? Check.
Ignores any data that does not support his beliefs? Check.
Unquestioningly accepts any data that does support his beliefs? Check.
Not very informative?

Apply to any and all gungeoneers.

Exactly like climate deniers.

trying to reasonably discuss the dangers that some gun owners pose to society at large that personal attacks are all any gungeoneers have to offer.

There once were reasonable people in this group, capable of making cogent points and actually willing to consider that an opponent might have a point. Too bad the current denizens chased them all away.

Now it's just blind faith in the worship of guns.

I'm done with this sub thread. Should never have responded to a personal attack anyway.

Your first post was an attempt to link refutation of Kellerman -- which gejohnson provided, with links -- to climate change. Your comment was based on nothing more than the fact the article employed the rhetorical coincidence of the words "scientists" and "consensus." It's just that lacking in substance and you used it to diminish people rather than actually address their statements.

And now you hypocritically complain about personal attacks after another poster asked you to demonstrate your assertions.

To recap --

1. Ignore countering evidence in order to make personal insult

2. Ignore statement and make another personal insult

3. Ignore request for evidence as a personal insult

It seems anything less than blind acceptance of what you have declared to be true is deemed to be a personal attack. Well, then, I guess you should get used to being so-called "attacked" because nobody here or anywhere else is obligated to buy in to your solipsism.

Considering you posted a broad based smear in the thread to start.

But, since you represent a full 33% of the entire gun control group on DU, based on the posts in the "Activism" safe haven group. We tend to ignore your lack of basic civility and rude behavior because we understand you probably don't get out with other people much.

Well that, and the fact that the gun control "activists" can't seem to get jack or shit done in the real world, so angry posting in threads (that people might actually read here as opposed to the safe haven) is about all you have going for you these days.

You and both your friends just have a swell week in the "activist" group.

Those gun owners are known as criminals. The data has been presented over and over. It is not subject to debate. Those who commit gun crimes are overwhelmingly persons with extensive criminal records, NOT gun owners who have the temerity to carry guns openly or concealed, or who choose not to carry at all. (the majority)

Now it's just blind faith in the worship of guns.

And yet you whine about "insults"?!

should be considered equivalent to, superior to or inferior to the CDC Report "PRIORITIES FOR RESEARCH TO REDUCE THE THREAT OF FIREARM-RELATED VIOLENCE" http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=18319&page=R1
That stated, among other things;

and

Courtesy of David Hemenway, of course.


Author? David Hemenway.

Who to trust? The CDC and a panel of multi-disciplinary actual experts on the subject, or David Hemenway? Tough choice...

Fun fact of the day: The CDC report you linked to did include a number of Hemenway's papers when compiling their report (at least according to the appendix) and after careful consideration of his work? They still said what you quoted above.

Using data from a national random-digit-dial telephone survey of over 1,900 adults conducted in 1996, we find that criminal gun use is far more common than self-defense gun use.

When I hear this I ask the author to provide evidence that crimes that occur with guns, which are predominately robberies where no physical violence is used, would significantly decline if the US did not have guns.

To help them I throw in the data from Western countries UK and Australia that have comparable violent crime percentages with restrictive gun laws.

In the conclusion all this changes are the weapons used in violent crime not the amount of crime.

Welcome to the wonderful DU world of liberals and discussions on guns, though I suppose I should put liberals and discussion in air quotes when it comes to the control side of the issue.

If you ever choose to make a rational, well-informed post on the subject over at Gun Control Reform Activism, make it a good one, because it will be your only one. They ban users who post in that way.

To be fair, there are a handful of polite, well-informed and intelligent gun control proponents here at DU, they are just not the ones you will likely encounter. If you do see one, make their acquaintance, you may learn something even if you do not ultimately agree with them.

........given that the CDC was busted COLD for fabricating a citation to back a false claim.

I am questioning more what is "science".

Is it research backed by verified data and open for review and critique or is it 'anything that agrees with my opinion'?

Without knowing it, you've just outed yourself as a person who's done no honest research on the gun violence issue.

The "work" of Hemenway and Arthur Kellerman on the issue of the value of keeping a gun in the home isn't taken seriously by anyone but truth-aversive ideologues.

http://www.guncite.com/journals/tennmed.html

I looked pretty closely at this study's methodology a couple weeks back when a discussion about it began on DI. I find it to be methodologically sound.

It's important, however, to realize that the study doesn't demonstrate that owning a firearm makes one's home a more dangerous place. It instead demonstrates that a statistically significant group of researchers in related fields (albeit sometimes only marginally so: there were economists in the survey, which I find bizarre) believe that owning a forearm makes one's home more dangerous. It can thus provide substantiation for someone agreeing with that belief, but it in no way proves that that belief is true. Critical distinction, that...

I don't think "dangerous" is a very scientific term, but rather subjective. I support anyone's right to keep a gun in their home, but I also think it is obvious that there then exists a possibility of someone being hurt by that gun. And statistically, it makes sense that homes with guns are more likely to be homes where folk get shot.

...does the presence of a gun make a statistically significant contribution to a home's danger quotient? If say, controlling for any other factors, a home with a gun is on par with a home that has a pool or a set of stairs, I don't see the issue.

When deciding to have a pool, introduce firearms or other high risk factors, one must consider the potential risks against the potential advantages.
Personal and parental responsibility is the key. When my daughter was small, her mother (my ex) borrowed a 12 gauge from her brother, because of a serial peeping tom who was stalking her. She is no gun lover, but I had no issue with it being in the house. She was being a responsible parent and continued to keep the shotgun. Doubt she ever pointed it at anyone, let alone fired it.

So often people ignore the very step in preparing for anything. In terms of self/home defense that first step needs to a safety assessment. Not much sense locking that barn door if one of the other walls is missing altogether.

that guns in a home make the home more dangerous, not that "a statistically significant group of researchers in related fields (albeit sometimes only marginally so: there were economists in the survey, which I find bizarre) believe that owning a forearm makes one's home more dangerous." His "findings" always fall in favor of gun restriction, and are always arrived at through either devious or feeble means.

Regarding the member above who stated that common sense dictates that having a gun in the home more dangerous -- well, that's what you get when you rely on "common sense". Many of the facts relating to gun violence are counter-intuitive.....which you don't realize UNTIL YOU BOTHER TO CRACK OPEN A BOOK.

Liberal Democrat Dr. Gary Kleck won the Michael Hindelang Award for his book Point Blank. This honor is the highest bestowed for contributions to the field of criminology by the American Society of Criminology. Given that Kleck started his career assuming that guns were a net problem to society, and only changed position as his own findings refuted that notion, there is no excuse for anyone who runs their mouth on gun restriction not to read Targeting Guns -- an updated and revised version of Point Blank. In it he spends a good deal of time exposing the flaws in the Hemenway "research".

Edited to add: Anyone deciding to start honestly researching gun restriction who doesn't want to deal with the relatively bulky and sometimes technical 'Targeting Guns' can substitute the briefer 'Armed - New Perspectives on Gun Control' co-written by Kleck and left-leaning civil rights attorney Don Kates. In fact, it might be a better starting point for some. It also covers the politics of gun restriction, which Targeting Guns doesn't.

I'm quite familiar with this researcher and his viewpoints on civilian gun ownership. That familiarity caused me to take an even more critical look at his methodology than I otherwise might (or maybe not...this is, basically, what I do for a living, and I like to think I'm fairly meticulous even when I'm not getting paid for it). I don't doubt for a minute that Hemenway wouldn't mind at all if people (mis-)interpreted the data as indicating that gun ownership means a more dangerous home, even though he knows full well the data does no such thing.

But the fact remains that the data collection and categorization methodologies were sound, and that the survey does indeed represent a reasonable proportional take on the opinions of researchers in (more-or-less) related fields.

FWIW, I'm quite familiar with your other citations (Kleck, Kates, etc.). Again, not research I've been called on to analyze professionally - I work in Philosophy of Science, if you were wondering - but because I'm a competitive shooter (and socialist...yes, we exist!), I often look at this sort of research on my own time.

And clearly, you're better qualified to study complex analysis than I am.

I don't doubt for a minute that Hemenway wouldn't mind at all if people (mis-)interpreted the data.......

Hemenway has demonstrated that not only would he be content if people misinterpreted his data, but that he would intentionally lead people to the wrong conclusion. Quoting H here:

Scientific consensus isn't always right, but it's our best guide to understanding the world. Can reporters please stop pretending that scientists, like politicians, are evenly divided on guns? We're not.

The first offensive part of this statement is that H is defining himself as a scientist. Technically true, but his track record of blunders which all lead in one direction demonstrate that he's an advocate, and as such has no business analyzing gun violence. Another massive problem is asking a group of scientists about gun violence is that the field is so utterly polluted with incompetent research that you run into the GIGO problem. (for those not aware, garbage in - garbage out) He's dishonorably trying to convince his readers that the bulk of sharp minds side with him -- that guns are a net negative in society. As Kleck points out, the best empirical research (which is to say modern research, with the strongest methodology) proves no such thing. And he convincingly demonstrates this in Targeting Guns.

......but because I'm a competitive shooter......

Ha!

My "recreational" reading list would be intimidating (or pretentious, depending on your PoV), were it not for the presence of plenty of mindless brain candy along with the hard stuff.

Hemenway's statement regarding an asserted (near) consensus among scientists on guns is indeed offensive (and inane). For one thing, the number of scientists actually researching (non-technical/mechanical) gun issues is quite small (as the number of potential and actual respondents in this survey indicates). Among that already small pool, only a fraction are actually working in any area germane to analysis of the risk factor of firearms in the home. The opinion on this question of any scientist who is not either one of those actually researching it or one in possession of their data might be the opinion of a scientist, but it is not a scientific opinion. The distinction is critical...

Research on the guns-in-the-home question runs afoul of multiple problems in reduction of confounding factors. Because several causal factors in violent crime are psychological in nature (and thus subject to considerable ambiguity in terms of empiricization), standard statistical techniques like logistic reduction, etc., have a buttload* of error margin...when they can be validly performed at all. The leap from correlation to demonstrable causation is often a very long leap indeed (and often not really defensible).

* that's the scientific term: buttload

https://www.google.com/search?q=buttload&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

-- a large number or amount.

Are the phobically anti-gun typically afflicted with incredible nebbishness?

In fact, quite the opposite. This research is grossly unsound

There is a significant opportunity for sample bias in this methodology.

After all, the methodology allows anti freedom-activists hand picked by Hemenway to hand pick who the survey goes to. Also, in a broader context the idea that consensus is important in science is also profoundly erroneous. In science consensus just means it is possible for a majority of researchers to be incorrect. There are many hundreds of cases of scientific orthodoxy being literally turned on its head. To name a few: Continental drift confirmed since the fifties was proposed in 1912 by Wegener who was quite literally laughed out of the academy, Proteins were widely considered to be genetic material until Crick, Watson, Franklin and Wilkins discovered how DNA Worked, Uniformitarianism in Geology was unchallenged until cataclysmic extinctions forced geologists to revise their central ideas, and Newton's laws were widely accepted before Einstein published the Theory of relativity. In science only data is really important. The opinion of scientists is just that, opinion. It carries no real weight. In the last two hundred years there is scarcely a major scientific concept that has not been challenged, or overturned. In short, a skewed poll of researchers is about as far from methodologically correct science as one could get.

Furthermore, Hemenway outright lies in his article. If he is willing to outright lie in his article what was he willing to do to bias his study. I include the following quote from Hemenways article.

A 2014 meta-analysis, conducted by researchers at UC San Francisco, of the scientific studies on guns and suicide concluded that access to firearms increases the risk of suicide. Similarly, the 2012 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention from the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention and the U.S. Surgeon General concluded that “firearm access is a risk factor for suicide in the United States.”

I provide the part of the quote left out by Hemenway "

...Individuals who own firearms are not more likely than others to have a mental disorder or to have attempted suicide. Rather the risk of a suicide death is higher among this population because individuals who attempt suicide by using firearms are more likely to die in their attempts than those who use less lethal methods. (page 43 of the 2012 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention)

Since the source of the quote used by Hemenway clarifies that guns do not cause suicides, but only make suicides more fatal, taking the quote out of context in order to support his point that access to guns increases the risk of suicide is profoundly dishonest. I wish I could say that this kind of dishonesty is atypical.

When we look at the conclusion of the study summarized by Hemenway we find that he has also misrepresented the study.

"Conclusion Access to firearms is associated with risk for completed suicide and being the victim of homicide." (The Accessibility of Firearms and Risk for Suicide and Homicide Victimization Among Household Members: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis) Remember, Hemenaway stated that the study concluded that access to firearms increases the risk of suicide. In actually it only concludes that access to firearms increases the risk that suicides will be completed.

If Hemenway is willing to lie, distort and misrepresent other people's opinions twice in less than one paragraph, then how can we trust him to conduct any sort of survey.

David

On April 16th, in a highly publicized finding, the Pew Research Center revealed that public opinion had flipped w/regards to the danger of having a firearm in the home. The majority of Americans now believe that a gun in the home makes a home safer:

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/17/despite-lower-crime-rates-support-for-gun-rights-increases/ft_15-04-01_guns_safer/

A mere six days later, the L.A. Times Times publishes the David Hemenway rubbish:

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-83361247/

Does anyone believe for a moment that there's no connection between the timing of the L.A. Times article and the publication of the Pew Research findings?! So here we have yet another in a very long list of examples of "sour grapes" on the part of The Controllers, along with a stunningly feeble attempt to regain control of the message. Hemenway is in full poutrage mode, essentially whining: "Well, you uneducated masses can think what you want. We "scientists" know better." Pathetic beyond words!

Yes, Hemenway's analysis of the ramifications of his survey is unsupported (and even vacuous). He is all too often dishonest to the point of violating scientific ethics. I wholeheartedly agree with your assertions in that area.

However, I can't agree that the data collection methodologies employed in his survey were faulty. The only strong objection I have is that there was no way to factor for bias in the final pool of respondents. The initial accumulation of potential respondents was about as broad a net as could reasonably be cast: requests were sent to virtually everyone who published a relevant peer-reviewed study within a relatively brief period of time. There are only a limited number of such publications/authors per year, so the total initial pool was somewhere around 500 (I don't have the study open right now...working form memory, but I took a pretty hard look at it a couple weeks ago). Only a portion of those contacted agreed to participate. This is where I do have methodological objections though: there was no way to factor for bias on the issue of gun control in that decision to participate. It stands to reason that researchers with a pro-gun-rights PoV would refuse to participate in research conducted by a person with a strong anti-gun past, a person they don't trust. Again, this is my largest methodological objection, as it calls into question whether or not the sample set is a genuine cross section of scientists working in closely-related fields. A better rate of response would increase confidence on this point.

Because not all members of the final pool were asked every question (some questions were clearly outside the area of expertise for some researchers), each question had c. 100 respondents. 20% of the total pool, with a higher percentage of the total of respondents qualified for any given question, is not a very large sample set, but it's enough to draw conclusions within easily determined error margins (with a caveat for the above-mentioned potential imbalance in the respondent pool).

The study is quite clear about it's factoring methodologies, which are sound(ish). Respondents were categorized according to their specific area of expertise, as were the survey questions. A good match between expertise and a particular question received the highest weighting, less-ideal matches were reduced. Outright bad matches meant that the question wasn't asked of that respondent. I've a bit of a niggle here, too: the pool includes economists, and only a few of the questions seem to me to be in any way related to economics. That field has some relevance in the gun control debate, for sure (there are major economic ramifications to violent crime, obviously), but why the opinion of an economist would be relevant to a purely criminological question is a bit of a mystery. Of course, Hemenway is an economist by training, and doubtless has many friends in that field...who would be inclined to agree with him. fancy that...

So yeah, Hemenway is as full of shit as usual in his analysis/conclusions. But I can't object (much) to the data collection methodologies (or to the actual content of the survey questions, for that matter). As long as it's understood that the data only demonstrates trends in the opinions of researchers in related fields, the only problems I have with it are detailed above.

Oh, and that opinion trend is contrary to data that actually does comment on the utility of defensive firearms...so some of those "expert" opinions are not actually very well informed.