zuch: jack burton:So, as I essentially said above to someone else, it’s like this: “Oh, it’s just a few whiners who are bitching about being put in mortal danger. Just a tiny number, though, so f**k ‘em, I got mine….”Cheers,

And that is the best you can do, eh…

When you make laws that negatively affect the freedoms of those 99.99 percent of people who are doing no harm… it becomes a great concern.

So, as I essentially said above to someone else, it’s like this: “Oh, it’s just a few whiners who are bitching about being put in mortal danger. Just a tiny number, though, so f**k ‘em, I got mine….”

Cheers,

zuch: Jack Burton:I’d say that it’s cold comfort to you to know that even a thousand well-mannered and law-abiding gun owners out there are no threat to you … when your abusive hubby can easily go out and get a gun. If they were allowed to go out and get an absentee ballot or a constitutionally protected blue movie DVD, there wouldn’t be quite the concern. But you’ll have to admit there’s something inherent in guns that makes them just a tad different.Cheers,

yes, some people do horrible things with their freedom that hurt other people. And if one is the person getting hurt I understand that it is perhaps meaningless to them at that moment that millions upon millions of other people are not being hurt. But we make our laws on logic and reason… not on the passion of the moment and high levels of emotionalism.

When you make laws that negatively affect the freedoms of those 99.99 percent of people who are doing no harm… it becomes a great concern.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by eclecticbuzz: How Stats Get Distorted – http://bit.ly/i8BiW...

What I mean by “statistically representative” is what anybody having any acquaintance with statistics will tell you it means, namely, that if a statement is true with respect to x% of the sample then it is true (to some reasonable accuracy) with respect to x% of the general population. For example, if roughly half the population is male and half female, then a sample consisting of 90 males and 10 females is not statistically representative, at least not with regard to gender, because it is not true of the general population (as it is with the sample) that 90% are male.

Actually, it’s the converse of the bolded statement. The population statistic is not uncertain or variable. It makes no sense to talk of what is true of the general population “to some reasonable accuracy”. It is the estimate of the population statistic (from the sample statistic) that has some uncertainty, but that doesn’t change the actual population statistic.

Apply this to households with battered wives. Of those, look at the households containing guns. In some fraction of those households, the gun was used to threaten or assault the wife. Can we conclude therefrom that in the SAME fraction (or any remotely similar fraction) of gun-containing households in the general population, the gun has been or will be used to threaten or assault the wife?

Your problem here is that threatening or battery with a gun is per se assault or battery. So any such posited instance of such a threat or assault in your “general population” automatically places that instance in the more limited group of “households with battered wives” (or such similar situation). By definition, you won’t have any such instances in households with non-battered wives, whether or not they have guns. How can such a group be an adequate (much less a necessary) “control”?

But I’d note that no one as claimed any such “SAME fraction”. That’s just you making facts up.

Cheers,

As I said before, 0% of non-abusive husbands have threatened to shoot their wives.

As I said before, threatening to shoot your wife is per se abusive, so this “statistic” is irrelevant; a statistical tautology.

As to your gender, I’m serious: The gravatar hardly does you justice, had I even bothered to look at it. This may not be your fault; the resolution is horrible. And also: my hair was until very recently almost as long.

Cheers,

Apply this to households with battered wives. Of those, look at the households containing guns. In some fraction of those households, the gun was used to threaten or assault the wife. Can we conclude therefrom that in the SAME fraction (or any remotely similar fraction) of gun-containing households in the general population, the gun has been or will be used to threaten or assault the wife? No. The statistical sample was selected precisely on the basis of there being violent abuse. It is not a statistically representative sample in that respect. For all I know, it might be a statistically representative sample with respect to the number of different brands of cars they drive or coffee they drink, but that’s not what we are talking about. More generally, a statistical sample that is selected in such a way as to include a disproportionate number of violent sociopaths is unlikely to be representative of the general population with respect to gun use or abuse or victimization. Or at least, there is no reason to believe that it would be representative in that respect.

That’s the best I can do. The fact that you don’t understand what is meant by “statistically representative” indicates that you are not prepared at this point to engage in a substantive discussion of the interpretation of statistical studies.

As for the actual substance of this discussion: my point was simply that the statistic itself is meaningless – partly because there is no control group and more so because it’s more about scaring people than about investigating the relationship between guns and domestic violence. As I said before, 0% of non-abusive husbands have threatened to shoot their wives. 100% of gun-owning, non-abusive husbands and boyfriends have firearms in their homes and do not threaten women with them.

You have a very strange idea of what “statistically representative” is, then. It does not correspond to what statisticians (as opposed to polemicists, for instance) would say.

I’d note that the database of those that were not assaulted that were also not assaulted with a gun is a slim one indeed. This is a concept that seems to escape you here. There’s no point in asking what percentage of those that were not assaulted (your “general polulation”) were not assaulted with a gun. Why you seem to lament this missing piece of data is beyond me. Capece?

Cheers,

It’s quite possible that people who get in car accidents are a reasonably fair cross-section of drivers. It’s not reasonable to take wife-batterers as a cross-section of men,…

Both these statements are … at the very least, unsupported. Some might say suspect.

Cheers.

Don’t you think it’s a safe assumption that very few of the people who get in traffic accidents actually intended to do so, actually intended to cause damage and injury? The opposite is true with assaults. A salient difference, no?…

Not in this case. My point was that the relative infrequency of an act (such as threatening or battery in households with guns) doesn’t make statistics concerning such relatively rare acts bogus…

Nor did I say, Zuch, that the relative infrequency of an act makes statistics concerning such relatively rare acts bogus. My point is about the limited conclusions you can draw relative to the overall population from a highly skewed sample. It’s quite possible that people who get in car accidents are a reasonably fair cross-section of drivers. It’s not reasonable to take wife-batterers as a cross-section of men, nor households with wife-battering as a cross-section of households.

Nor am I saying that statistics, such as those under discussion regarding battered women and how many were threatened with guns etc, are bogus per se…

Who said it did?

That’s how I took your reference to car accidents, with your apparently sarcastic statement that “all traffic stats are bogus” as analogous to my criticism of the misuse of crime statistics. Sorry if I misinterpreted.

What I’m pointing out is that a database that starts with assaults is a database highly unrepresentative of the general population in salient respects….

A general population that doesn’t have sociopaths (or jealous husbands, or first-class jerks, or …. well, you get the idea). Of course, it is representative of a general population that does have a small share of such….

Surely not statistically representative. But yes, if 75% of sociopaths have guns and 1% of the population is sociopaths (just making up numbers to illustrate), then 0.75% of the population is sociopaths with guns. You can draw statistical conclusions or at least estimates or bounds of that sort. Yes, the violent sociopaths are part of the overall population. If that’s your point, then the point is taken and was never in dispute. But if they are a small part, the statistics relating to them do not necessarily characterize the overall statistics.

More importantly, anti-gun propagandists often take the statistics from these skewed samples and use them to try to convince the rest of us that they apply to us. So, we are told that guns are a risk factor, that their possession increases the risk of injury and death, that WE put ourselves in danger by owning guns. (And I take it they are appealing to the thoughtful conscientious law-abiding among us, as well as policy-makers, when they do that, rather than somehow thinking that violent sociopaths will be persuaded lay down their arms.) But the statistics they appeal to show no such thing. No statistical connection between gun-possession and violence by violent sociopaths demonstrates that the rest of us put ourselves and loved ones at risk by possessing guns.

I think that the abused wife might beg to differ. While the vast majority of wives aren’t battered, the increased risk for the few that are is rather significant in their eyes. It may be that you are of the opinion that society ought to say, “there’s not too many; screw them, I have to have mine”. But opinions vary on such things.

Cheers,

Compared to the total number of guns… yes.

I’d say that it’s cold comfort to you to know that even a thousand well-mannered and law-abiding gun owners out there are no threat to you … when your abusive hubby can easily go out and get a gun. If they were allowed to go out and get an absentee ballot or a constitutionally protected blue movie DVD, there wouldn’t be quite the concern. But you’ll have to admit there’s something inherent in guns that makes them just a tad different.

Cheers,

Who said it did? But if it were to — say — double a very small risk, wouldn’t that be significant?

That depends on what you mean by significant. If one uses ‘significant’ to mean ‘this is an area on which society should focus its attention’, then no.

Let’s say you face a risk A of 10 in 100, and you can spend effort X to reduce it a tiny bit – to 9 in 100, or you can spend effort X to halve risk B, from 2 in 100000 to 1 in 100000. Spending the effort on risk B is a very non optimal choice.

Should we spend our limited resources on better guardrails, increasing the immunization rate, more community policing, banning private sales of guns, or arresting streakers wearing pumpkins as hats? You can’t do everything, so you have to pick what matters most. Merely knowing some proposed policy results in benefits isn’t enough – you need to compare it to the possible benefits of alternative policies.

Strict: ” Strict:I don’t know how many people got shot in 2008.I would guess around 100,000.Assuming that’s close to the actual number, would you really think that is “so few”?Gentleman, may I direct you to the National Institute of Health’s WISQARS tool?Total deaths by firearm (suicide, homicide, police intervention, and accidental) in the year 2006 were 30896.The number is much less than 100000. ”lol.1. That’s DEATHS by firearm. We we talking about PEOPLE GETTING SHOT. People shot includes the 30896 killed AND those injured (maybe 70,000?).2. That’s 2006.3. Still the question goes unanswered: is the number of people shot really “so few”?

Compared to the total number of guns… yes. Which was the point the original poster made and which you are ignoring over several posts.

Don’t you think it’s a safe assumption that very few of the people who get in traffic accidents actually intended to do so, actually intended to cause damage and injury? The opposite is true with assaults. A salient difference, no?…

Not in this case. My point was that the relative infrequency of an act (such as threatening or battery in households with guns) doesn’t make statistics concerning such relatively rare acts bogus (nor the acts themselves less serious). Nor does does the infrequency undermine any causal relationships (if any) that might be in play.

Nor am I saying that statistics, such as those under discussion regarding battered women and how many were threatened with guns etc, are bogus per se. I’m saying that they can very easily be misinterpreted as demonstrating a high general risk from legal gun ownership in society at large.

Who said it did? But if it were to — say — double a very small risk, wouldn’t that be significant?

What I’m pointing out is that a database that starts with assaults is a database highly unrepresentative of the general population in salient respects….

A general population that doesn’t have sociopaths (or jealous husbands, or first-class jerks, or …. well, you get the idea). Of course, it is representative of a general population that does have a small share of such….

FWIW, we are not a very adept society at assessing relative risks and costs. That doesn’t mean, however, that we shouldn’t actually try….

Cheers,

An amazing 99.9% of all drivers manage to make it though the day without hitting something. Therefore all accident statistics are based on a minuscule and irrelevant number of very rare cases, and all traffic stats are bogus.

Don’t you think it’s a safe assumption that very few of the people who get in traffic accidents actually intended to do so, actually intended to cause damage and injury? The opposite is true with assaults. A salient difference, no? Nor am I saying that statistics, such as those under discussion regarding battered women and how many were threatened with guns etc, are bogus per se. I’m saying that they can very easily be misinterpreted as demonstrating a high general risk from legal gun ownership in society at large. In fact, the authors of the study under discussion themselves so misinterpreted the results of an earlier published study (as I discussed above).

Has it occurred to you that the number of women threatened or shot with a gun in homes that don’t have a gun is rather small? Why is this? Could it be that gun possession is the sine qua non for threatening or shooting? Do you dispute this “casual connection” of gun ownership and use of a gun for such purposes?

No one is disputing that guns are weapons that can hurt or kill. They can be used for assault by sociopaths, and they can be used for self-defense by others. What I’m pointing out is that a database that starts with assaults is a database highly unrepresentative of the general population in salient respects. The conclusions you might draw therefrom, regarding the general population, are limited in essential ways.

It may be that sociopaths are just as likely to threaten or batter their spouse whether they have the gun or not (or it may be that gun possession makes it more or less likely). This is your assumption here. Feel free to prove it (and also prove your underlying assumption that such threatening or battery is done only by sociopaths)…

…This is indeed a “suggestion”, and is amenable to statistical analysis. Go for it.

Zuch, imputing assumptions to others and attempting to shift the burden of demonstration are rhetorical motifs that wear thin quickly. What I’ve pointed out is how statistics that start with violent crime can, and are, misinterpreted with regard to the risks or benefits of firearms possession generally. When, decade after decade, statistical studies are published that lend themselves to such misinterpretation, and are regularly picked up by the media and so used, it does frankly get rather annoying. As far as the more general discussion of guns is concerned, that keeps coming around but this particular thread is about done.

The original assertion with which I disagreed was “Most battered women who are murdered are beaten to death.” THE SHR data presented in my citation clearly demonstrate that this is false. The SHR — precisely because of the seriousness of homicide — is a fairly reliable and complete set of data on homicides in the US. There’s no reason to doubt the essential correctness of data from this sourcer.

The NIBRS data you present just show that most women who are badly hurt by their sexual partners are beaten. This doesn’t contradict the SHR data. It’s also worth noting that there are still serious issues with NBRS reporting. There’s an extensive literature on this. It essentially boils down to the fact that NIBRS reporting requirements are so onerous that most police agencies opt out of the system.

Zuch, it is sufficient to reply, in response to both your recent comments, by pointing out once again that a database built on crime cases automatically contains a highly skewed sample in relation to the population at large. ….

An amazing 99.9% of all drivers manage to make it though the day without hitting something. Therefore all accident statistics are based on a minuscule and irrelevant number of very rare cases, and all traffic stats are bogus. Granted that this small number is perhaps highly skewed in favour of drunk drivers. Which explains everything, right?

So for example, if you start with a database of abused women, and then find that a certain fraction of the ones from homes with guns were threatened or attacked with guns, it can give the misleading impression that there’s a causal connection between gun ownership and violent crime, or that guns are more likely in general to victimize the innocent than to deter or be useful in self-defense.

Has it occurred to you that the number of women threatened or shot with a gun in homes that don’t have a gun is rather small? Why is this? Could it be that gun possession is the sine qua non for threatening or shooting? Do you dispute this “casual connection” of gun ownership and use of a gun for such purposes?

The question-begging is being done by those who cite such studies to make claims about “guns as a risk factor.” Is it the gun that is the risk factor, or is it the sociopath? Start with sociopaths, draw conclusions about sociopaths. If sociopaths engage in violence, and if sociopaths have guns, the statistical correlation between guns and violence among sociopaths is simply a common-cause correlation where the common underlying variable is the sociopath….

It may be that sociopaths are just as likely to threaten or batter their spouse whether they have the gun or not (or it may be that gun possession makes it more or less likely). This is your assumption here. Feel free to prove it (and also prove your underlying assumption that such threatening or battery is done only by sociopaths). But what’s fairly easy to figure out is that such threats and battery are generally more serious when a gun is involved, because of the intrinsic lethal nature of firearms.

Yet anti-gun propagandists point to such studies to suggest that guns are a “risk factor” for everyone, that people in general increase their risk of harm by possessing guns.

This is indeed a “suggestion”, and is amenable to statistical analysis. Go for it.

By the way, I do find it rather comforting to know that I’m in a home where there is no one who is going to up and kill me, and where an outsider who entered with that purpose would encounter people prepared to defend themselves.

I’m glad you “know” this. It’s warm comfort to all those in similar situations too. Problem solved, eh?

Cheers,

Yes, Zuch and Strict missed my point. It happens.

Let’s review:

theobromophile says:

Nothing against EV’s analysis, but it seems to miss the main problem with this statistic: it’s terribly circular. There is no control group (e.g. fire-arm owning households that don’t involve battered women). I suspect that something like 0% of non-abusive husbands in gun-owning households will have used them to threaten or shoot at their wives…

It would seem that you miss the point that such threatening or shooting is arguably per se abuse (unless you’re of the curious opinion that sometimes it’s just sport). Kind of like saying that we find it highly significant that an astonishing 0 percent of watermelons are oranges.

To put it another way, hard to have a “control group” that (even by your guess) doesn’t even exist. I explained one reason why it doesn’t exist. We could also lament the fact that the statistics are also not present for those households where the abuser threatened the spouse with a gun but where there wasn’t actually any such gun present (a similar situation). Then we could see whether the presence of the gun makes a difference as to when gun violence was threatened or committed. Needless to say, though, this latter “control group” is also a sparse one. Do you similarly think that this statistic should have been collected? If so, why? If not, why not? Then think about what I said in my first reply.

Cheers,

theobromophile: Batterers, by definition, threaten to harm or actually harm their victims; that a batterer acted like a batterer isn’t really news. If his weapon of choice weren’t a gun, it would be a baseball bat, a knife, or a tire iron.So all this really seems to be saying is that battered women are battered women.(Maybe that’s more tautological than circular; I’ll let y’all decide.)

I suppose it is news of some sort that batterers who have guns in the house often use them to threaten their victims. Not that this is a surprise, but research that confirms what you’d expect to find can still be important.

Of course, the Brady Campaign’s use of this statistic to imply that something is wrong with gun ownership makes very little sense.

If you can’t even look at the avatar to figure out my sex, it’s hard to believe you when you say that you’ve read my comment with any real sense of understanding. Really hard. Like impossibly hard, in fact.

Oh, really. So what’s my gender, looking at my gravatar? Sorry if I misstated your gender, but it’s not that important. Using a strained sentence construction that allows use of the gender neutral “their” isn’t worth the bother. But just a note: Looking at your gravatar, it’s still not obvious that the person there is female. But that’s what you get with 32X32 or whatever it is, too…. BTW, your nick might have been a better clue … even if I’m the one that loves chocolate in our household.

Cheers,

I did. I still have the same complaint as to his reasoning. I’m just a tad surprised that you are missing our point after having read it twice.

Just saw this. Zuch, don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s pretty clear (like 100% clear) that I’m a woman. If you can’t even look at the avatar to figure out my sex, it’s hard to believe you when you say that you’ve read my comment with any real sense of understanding. Really hard. Like impossibly hard, in fact.

Just saying.

You know, the typical ones, those who’re okay with being beaten in their own homes and generally feel safe except for the occasional slapping around. The shelter battered women, well, they might have it bad but that’s not typical.

I’ll add this to my file of tin-eared Volokhisms that I will pull out only if anyone ever nominates EV for a judgeship.

uh_clem: Did you know that 84.3 percent of statistics are just made up on the spot?

Do you have a study to cite in support of that?

I still don’t see what war time casualty rates have to do with battered women or private gun ownership.

Why don’t you scroll up and read the comment he was responding to?

The database contains 13,279 reports that meet those criteria. Of those, the type of weapon reported at the scene was:

Firearm: 1004
Knife: 2930
Blunt Object: 1598
Personal (Hands, Fists, Feet): 5551

I am curious about the 7,728 crime scenes at which hands and feet were not present.

I’m also curious about the over-all point of the study. Yes, abusive husbands do make violent threats but fortunately, usually don’t carry them out.

Allan Walstad: The interesting question would be what happened to women who armed THEMSELVES in [response] to violence and/or threats.

My guess: those women are not in shelters. They’re home enjoying the peace and quiet, while their quondam batters are in a shelter, the hospital, or the morgue.

(as a side note, I appreciate the posts of the people who confined their comments to the shoddy statistics. Every post that happens to deal with guns is not just a wonderful opportunity to talk about the relative merits of guns for self defense vs. overthrowing tyranny.)

Gentleman, may I direct you to the National Institute of Health’s WISQARS tool?

Total deaths by firearm (suicide, homicide, police intervention, and accidental) in the year 2006 were 30896.

The number is much less than 100000. ”

lol.

1. That’s DEATHS by firearm. We we talking about PEOPLE GETTING SHOT. People shot includes the 30896 killed AND those injured (maybe 70,000?).
2. That’s 2006.
3. Still the question goes unanswered: is the number of people shot really “so few”?

Now it may be that the authors of the study were careful not to make such claims themselves. Yet how interesting that they do claim an increased general risk from firearms possession, citing another study, which in fact demonstrates no such thing.

The question-begging is being done by those who cite such studies to make claims about “guns as a risk factor.” Is it the gun that is the risk factor, or is it the sociopath? Start with sociopaths, draw conclusions about sociopaths. If sociopaths engage in violence, and if sociopaths have guns, the statistical correlation between guns and violence among sociopaths is simply a common-cause correlation where the common underlying variable is the sociopath. Yet anti-gun propagandists point to such studies to suggest that guns are a “risk factor” for everyone, that people in general increase their risk of harm by possessing guns.

By the way, I do find it rather comforting to know that I’m in a home where there is no one who is going to up and kill me, and where an outsider who entered with that purpose would encounter people prepared to defend themselves.