{"id":57501,"date":"2020-07-29T23:32:44","date_gmt":"2020-07-30T04:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=57501"},"modified":"2020-07-29T23:32:44","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T04:32:44","slug":"57501","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=57501","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Fun With Data: More \u2018Research\u2019 Blames Mass Shootings On Those Who Didn\u2019t Do It<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to play \u201cspot the lousy gun research\u201d again! There\u2019s yet a new \u201cstudy\u201d out that purports to link high rates of firearm ownership to higher rates of mass shootings. It\u2019s economically entitled\u00a0Comparing the Impact of Household Gun Ownership and Concealed Carry Legislation on the Frequency of Mass Shootings and Firearms Homicide<\/a>, by Emma E. Fridel.<\/p>\n

I had to read this paper because the pseudo-news reports included a remarkable factoid.<\/p>\n

In order to address these challenges, a unique dataset of all mass murders in the United States from 1991 to 2016 was created. \u2026<\/p>\n

To date, this represents the most comprehensive and accurate database available on mass shooting incidents in the United States, with a\u00a0total sample size of 592<\/b>\u00a0mass shootings during the study period.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Five hundred, ninety-two<\/b>\u00a0mass shootings?\u00a0Gun Facts<\/a>\u00a0only found 94 from 1982 to 2019.\u00a0The Violence Project\u00a0<\/a>lists 174 from 1966 to 2020. The\u00a0Rockefeller Institute of Government<\/a>\u00a0identified 318 from 1966 to 2017.<\/p>\n

Where did Fridel find hundreds more than any other researcher over a shorter time frame? The devil is in the definitions.<\/p>\n

Rockefeller\u2019s Capellan and Jiao defined \u201cmass\u00a0public<\/i>\u00a0shooting\u201d as \u201cthe killing of four or more individuals in one or more closely related locations within a 24-hour period.\u201d That\u2019s representative of the definition usually used. It excludes\u00a0targeted<\/i>\u00a0killings like gangbangers fighting over turf, or domestic disputes gone massively wrong.<\/p>\n

It excludes\u00a0serial<\/i>\u00a0shootings that don\u2019t occur in a single incident. Fridel went with something a little different.<\/p>\n

Defined as the killing of four or more individuals (excluding the offender) with a firearm within 24\u2009hours\u2026 \u2026<\/p>\n

As WISQARS does not provide linkage information, firearms homicide was measured as a count of victims rather than incidents.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Four or more within 24 hours.<\/p>\n

No gang or family exclusions. It doesn\u2019t even necessarily specify that the four victims be shot for related reasons or even\u00a0by the same shooter<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure she dinked around with that highly questionable definition until she got one that generated clusters in all the wrong states. Since she\u2019s using WISQARS in part, I\u2019m not even sure the \u201cmass shooting\u201d victims had to be in the\u00a0same city or state<\/i>, just the same 24 hour period.<\/p>\n

Then I hit this.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Household gun ownership was measured using a common proxy, the proportion of suicides committed with a firearm.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cGun ownership\u201d is estimated from\u00a0suicides by firearm<\/i>. Never mind that a goodly percentage of suicides are committed with\u00a0firearms not owned by the subject<\/a>. Never mind that better proxies, such as\u00a0firearm hunting licenses<\/a>,\u00a0concealed carry licenses<\/a>\u00a0or in states like Illinois and Massachusetts, firearm owner licenses, exist.<\/p>\n

Fridel gets to generate bogus data\u00a0and<\/i>\u00a0reinforce the gun-ownership-equals-suicide\u00a0canard,<\/a>\u00a0a twofer.<\/p>\n

I should have quit there, but I was gripped by morbid curiosity.<\/p>\n

She controlled her data for various socioeconomic and demographic factors. She included firearm homicide rates. But she specifically excluded non-firearm homicides, and violent crimes and property crimes.<\/p>\n

It turns out she had\u00a0per capita<\/i>\u00a0hunting license data, but decided\u00a0not<\/i>\u00a0to use it; she just threw it out.<\/p>\n

What this really is, then, is a study in how to manipulate and misuse data to further an agenda. Fridel could probably teach\u00a0Garen Wintemute<\/a>\u00a0a few new tricks. Her data is so bad she probably wears an isolation suit to massage it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fun With Data: More \u2018Research\u2019 Blames Mass Shootings On Those Who Didn\u2019t Do It It\u2019s time to play \u201cspot the lousy gun research\u201d again! There\u2019s yet a new \u201cstudy\u201d out that purports to link high rates of firearm ownership to higher rates of mass shootings. It\u2019s economically entitled\u00a0Comparing the Impact of Household Gun Ownership and … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,8,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fraud","category-rkba","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57502,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57501\/revisions\/57502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}