Sharp as a Marble - Not accidental, either

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Not accidental, either

Howard Nemerov points to this interesting statistic

Since 1984 there have been over 122,000,000 firearms purchased by civilians, and yet somehow the accidental firearms death rate has plummeted 71.4%.

How can that be? The Brady Campaign and their ilk constantly tell us that more firearms means more accidental deaths. They fight at every turn to prevent programs like Eddie Eagle from being taught in schools. Which makes sense in a way. People like Dennis Henigan and Paul Hemlke can't really get their message across unless they have plenty of dead children to parade around so it doesn't surprise me they're against safety programs like Eddie Eagle. Helps them in the long run.

Man, it must suck to be on the wrong side of logic and reason like the Brady Campaign is all the time.

posted @ 10/29/2009 1:37:29 PM

Incoming Links

GunPundit » Blog Archive » Accidental Firearm Death Rate Continues to Plummet on 10/30/2009 10:00:50 AM

The Four Rules in action at A Dixie Carpetbagger on 11/2/2009 12:08:48 PM

Comments

B Woodman says:

on 10/29/2009 4:47:30 PM

Brady Bunch? Logic and reason? These are logic XOR, mutually exclusive of each other.

markus baur says:

on 10/30/2009 9:18:04 AM

warning - rant ahead:

this statistic - as posted - is utterly and completely useless .. it is a waste of paper and/or electrons .. it only serves as a demonstration case on how not to do it

1. it makes NO mention of:

whats the sample size? sample location? how was the sample selected and the data gathered?

it does not define "accidental death" .. it does not tell if that defintion stayed the same for the selected data over time

the grapic even neglects to define the vertical axis ... what IS it?

megadeaths per earth population and year? number of neccessary bandaids per adult and month? children younger then three months killed per year?

the only comment my old statistics teacher would have made in this regards would be a big, red "F"

2. the attempt of analysis (even if the statistics themselves would be valid) is also laughable ..

for instance - what IS the proposed explanation for the dropping number of deaths?

improvement of the gene pool (all the stupid ones are already dead - we are now working on the not so stupid)? improvement in fire arm quality (modern guns are less likely to go off by themselves)? improved gun safety training? or perhaps changes in the legal requirement for gun storage which are the result of - among others - the (boooo, hissss) Brady Campaign?

-------------------------------

i do not have a opinion about gun control (at least not one that would be useful and workable in the USA)

and i am actively prevented from forming one from the data as presented by the way it is presented

if you try to start a serious discussion then you should give a lot more information on that nice, squiggely line then you present here

"the only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself"
Winston Churchill

servus

markus

Robb Allen says:

on 10/30/2009 9:54:20 AM

Markus,

I'm not the author of said graph. That is at the link provided. Howard indicates where his data comes from. Like I do, he uses the CDC's data, so if you'd like to rant against someone's methodologies, you should direct it to them instead of a blog who links to another blog who then uses the data.

If you'd like to start a serious discussion, I suggest better punctuation and proper capitalization as well as giving me a clue that you at least followed the links I presented. I've had to reread your comment several times just trying to figure out what point you were trying to make.

The facts are, though, that the number of accidental gun deaths in the US have declined sharply over the years and that the number of guns in the hands of civilians has increased. This disproves the theory that more guns = more accidental deaths that is constantly put out by gun banners as a reasoning to restrict ownership. That is the main thrust of my reasoning behind posting this.

Sendarius says:

on 10/30/2009 10:48:06 AM

Rob, are you sure that "markus" is Euro-weenie code for Kevin Baker's favourite punching bag - Markadelphia?

The seagull methodology - fly in, crap on everyone, then fly out - without ever, you know, actually READING the post (and links) is eerily reminiscent.

markus baur says:

on 10/30/2009 10:51:22 AM

hello robb ..

"I'm not the author of said graph. .." snipped for brevitiy ..

.. so you linked to a post - either not knowing that the data presentation is flawed .. or knowing it and using the data anyway to make a rethoric point?

"If you'd like to start a serious discussion, I suggest better punctuation and proper capitalization as well as giving me a clue that you at least followed the links I presented. I've had to reread your comment several times just trying to figure out what point you were trying to make."

strangely enough other english native speakers who saw the contests of my post before you did, had no problems parsing it ..

in regards to punctuation and capitalisation: "Wenn Sie so gut Deutsch schreiben, wie ich Englisch, dann bin ich gerne bereit, diesen Diskussionspunkt bis zum bitteren Ende zu führen"

hint: look at the email address

as for your last point: correlation does not mean causation - or its negative

Robb Allen says:

on 10/30/2009 11:17:40 AM

Oh please, Marcus. Nobody responded to you, so how can you make the claim

strangely enough other english native speakers who saw the contests of my post before you did, had no problems parsing it ..

This illustrates your grasp of logical thinking is as flawed as you are trying to make this out to be.

I linked to the post which uses the CDC's numbers. No, I don't go through their raw data line by line assuring myself that the data is 100% accurate, cross referencing it with every last known permutation, etc.

Thank you for the lesson in causality, I understand how that works. Would you like to refute the data or are you simply going to bring up cliches in a vain attempt to look intelligent?

Christina LMT says:

on 10/30/2009 12:35:59 PM

Lieber Markus,
was interessiert Sie diese Diskussion ueberhaupt?
In Deutschland ist es inszwischen fast unmoeglich, Waffen ueberhaupt zu besitzen.
In den USA sind wir noch (relativ) frei.

Gottseidank.

Weer'd Beard says:

on 10/30/2009 12:50:07 PM

I dunno what she said, but Christina sounds pretty when she says it! ; ]

Ryan says:

on 10/30/2009 1:56:56 PM

Troll that he is, Marcus does bring up one nit pick that always annoys me. You need to label your axis with units. I figure out the x but the y is a bit more nebulous. Sorry for being a plot-zi.

markus baur says:

on 10/30/2009 2:40:49 PM

@ robb:

i was pointed to your blog by a post in a mailing list with a few hundred english native speakers as members .. where i wrote a mail that was a slightly expanded version of my first post

which is why a number of english speakers could read, parse and comment on it before you read it here - i did never claim that it was read and responded to here.

@ christina:

please let me first compliment on your german

to answer your question: the nominal subject of the discussion (weapons and such) does not interest me in the slightest (the german expression would be "einen Dreck").. any opinion i might have is not applicable to the USA

but i hate to see statistics abused in such a blabant manner .. this example is some ways even worse then the AGW hockeystick

@ ryan: applause .. and its Markus with a k 8-)

Scott says:

on 10/30/2009 3:54:34 PM

The vertical axis is accidental firearms deaths per 100,000 population. The link states that clearly. Took less time than slogging through the first point of markus' first comment.
Jeez.

Roberta X says:

on 10/31/2009 2:15:10 PM

...Geesh, the header tells us the graph is about death rate and since the horizontal axis is clearly in years, the other must be some scaled deaths-per-n population number; how difficult is that?

Than, we see it shows a downward trend (and I must point out that the degree of granularity is unclear: how many points are we plotting per year? This doesn't affect the overall trend, though). The graph shows that fewer people are dying and there are way more guns out there. Again, not particularly abstruse info; pretty much at the USA Today graphics level, sans fancy presentation. How blamed much purist egg did you want in your beer, anyway?

Yeah, it's "just" a correlation, but it is opposite to the one most of often thrown in our faces by antis.

So, stats-dude, do you know how to perform a probablistic analysis of correlation? The CDC website's just infested with raw data, why'n't you go for it and show us gauche gunnies how it is done? If I remember right (I'm old and stupid, after all, having wasted all those years working the SHIFT key), the output of that process is a number between one and zero -- load 'er up and turn the crank, fellow! Show us all up!

TJP says:

on 11/1/2009 3:41:28 PM

It is the assertion of the disarmers that a higher rate of gun ownership will result in more people "accidentally" (negligently) killed due to gun shot wounds, allegedly creating a level of risk that would be a concern to every inhabitant of this country.

Since Mr. Nemerov is not making this assertion, he is not required to labor under the burden of proof. Whether or not comparing firearms sales statistics and CDC mortality data is statistically valid is not required, since non-correlation and an apparent negative influence both suggest that ownership rates and negligence are not directly related.

Furthermore, the CDC's mortality data--flawed as it may be since it depends on voluntary reporting--lists 789 lethal accidents with firearms from NVSR 56-10 (2005), which, when compared with the approximately 290 million people in the United States, describes for the reader a more accurate picture of the actual risk.

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