{"id":78601,"date":"2022-03-12T01:01:29","date_gmt":"2022-03-12T07:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=78601"},"modified":"2022-03-12T01:01:29","modified_gmt":"2022-03-12T07:01:29","slug":"78601","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=78601","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Permitless Carry Homicide Increase Claim Refuted by Cited Study<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cA Republican permitless carry gun law will bring Ohio more death,\u201d writer Craig Calcaterra asserts in\u00a0a Tuesday\u00a0Columbus Alive<\/em>\u00a0article<\/a>. \u201cResearchers have found that states with permitless carry laws have experienced an 11 percent increase in handgun homicide rates after enactment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The topic could not be timelier. At this writing, the legislature has passed Senate Bill 215 up to Governor Mike DeWine and it is awaiting his signature, his veto, or his silence, in which case it becomes law after 10 days without his participation.<\/p>\n

DeWine has been a mixed bag<\/a>\u00a0for gun owners. At one time was called \u201ca principled statesman\u201d by the Brady Campaign, until he decided NRA\u2019s endorsement worked better for his political ambitions. But recently he\u2019s been making noises about distancing himself from that and\u00a0going back to supporting gun laws<\/a>\u00a0like the so-called STRONG Act.<\/p>\n

As expected, he\u2019s being hammered by both sides, with the major, well-funded gun-grab groups and influential lobbyists like the Fraternal Order of Police getting the lion\u2019s share of\u00a0sympathetic headlines<\/a>. Prominent among those is the aforementioned\u00a0Columbus Alive<\/em>\u00a0article, especially influential because the outlet is part of the powerful Gannett Publications empire with its far-reaching\u00a0USA Today<\/em>\u00a0network, and because Columbus is Ohio\u2019s state capital, and politicians take note of what\u2019s being said about them in the media.<\/p>\n

An 11 percent increase in handgun homicides attributable to permitless carry is significant enough to make anyone sit up and take notice. If the figures bear out, gun owners can expect a governor (who at times appears to be working up the guts to chicken out) to set his speechwriters to work on excuses. And making that claim, right under the headline, is certainly an attention grabber.<\/p>\n

\u201c[P]ublic health researchers have found that states with permitless carry laws have experienced an 11 percent increase in handgun homicide rates after their enactment,\u201d the article elaborates,\u00a0providing a link<\/a>\u00a0to an August 2017 American Journal of Public Health abstract titled \u201cEasiness of Legal Access to Concealed Firearm Permits and Homicide Rates in the United States.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The curious thing is, I couldn\u2019t find their subhead-\u201cworthy\u201d assertion substantiated. Perhaps readers here can check my work by following my methodology and see if they get different results.<\/p>\n

First, I read the abstract. Nothing.<\/p>\n

Then I decided to do a word search, starting with (since it\u2019s the percentage quoted) the number \u201c11.\u201d That returned 18 results, for dates, footnotes, and stuff, with the only one coming close to relevancy being a claim that \u201cfirearm homicide rates \u2026 were 11.7% higher in \u2018shall issue\u2019 states.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s very different from permitless carry. It also recalls a noteworthy deceptiveness of relying exclusively on\u00a0rates over numbers<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, in 1880 Dodge City, one person out of 996 was killed. However, 100 years later in Miami, 515 people out of 1.5 million were killed. Although more people were murdered in Miami, statistically speaking the city has a lower homicide rate \u2014 just 32.7, compared to the 100.4 of Dodge City in the 1880s.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Relying on that abstract observation also neglects a significant and fundamental admission that it makes:<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least 10 national studies have examined the relationship between shall-issue concealed-carry laws and firearm-related or total homicide rates at the state level. In 2 studies, shall-issue laws were found to decrease homicide rates. In 2 studies, these laws were found to increase homicide rates. Six studies reported no clear impact of shall-issue laws on homicide rates.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s hardly \u201csettled science,\u201d and note it (unsurprisingly) makes no mention of the other side of the coin, lives\u00a0saved<\/em>\u00a0by armed citizens.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Since \u201c11\u201d didn\u2019t work to substantiate\u00a0Columbus Alive\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0claims, the next logical search to perform would be for the word \u201cpermitless.\u201d Here we hit paydirt:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe examined the potential impact of shall-issue laws, comparing them to may-issue laws. In other words, using the may-issue states as the reference group, we estimated the impact of shall-issue laws on homicide rates. Because only 4 states had permitless-carry laws in place during the study period, there were not enough observations to allow any meaningful analyses of these laws. Therefore, we deleted state\u2013year observations in which a permitless-carry law was in effect \u2026 The number of states that had permitless-carry laws in effect at all during the study period was small \u2026 as was the number of observations \u00a0\u2026 limiting our ability to analyze the impact of these laws \u2026 Finally, we were unable to analyze the impact of permitless-carry laws because of the small number of observations. Only 4 states had permitless-carry laws in place during the study period. However, in the past 2 years, an additional 5 states have enacted such laws. Elucidating the impact of permitless-carry laws will require follow-up for the 9 states that now have such laws in effect.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what does that make of the claim that \u201cResearchers have found that states with permitless carry laws have experienced an 11 percent increase in handgun homicide rates after enactment\u201d? Their website does not provide for reader comments to correct the record and get the real information out, so wanting to give the benefit of the doubt, I approached both\u00a0Columbus Alive<\/em>\u00a0and writer Craig Calcaterra\u00a0on Twitter<\/a>\u00a0(politely, even):<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease explain why the study you link to on that claim says: \u2018Finally, we were unable to analyze the impact of permitless-carry laws because of the small number of observations.\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That was three days ago. I have not received a response nor seen a correction published. You know they\u2019re aware of it, the writer and the editor. And that seems at odds with another feature at their website,\u00a0a pledge to readers, really<\/a>, \u201cUSA TODAY<\/em>\u00a0Network\u2019s Principles of Ethical Conduct for Newsrooms\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cWE ARE COMMITTED TO \u2026 Seeking and reporting the truth in a truthful way \u2026 Serving the public interest \u2026 Exercising fair play \u2026 Maintaining independence \u2026 Acting with integrity\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019d escalate that to management,\u00a0but last time<\/a>\u00a0(2013) I brought ethics concerns to their attention, after their\u00a0The Journal News<\/em>\u00a0holding\u00a0published gun permit holders\u2019<\/a>\u00a0names and addresses, and their\u00a0Des Moines Register<\/em>\u00a0holding published a\u00a0call for gun owners to be killed<\/a>, they just ignored me. Seeing the way they\u00a0use interns to censor<\/a>\u00a0that which they disagree with, and that my reaching out this time has been ignored, I\u2019m not seeing much point in trying again.<\/p>\n

If they were truly interested in living up to the ethical standards they claim, they\u2019d realize a small correction, now that people have read their article and moved on, would be way too little way too late. Nothing less than another headline article, retracting and apologizing for their unsubstantiated claim, one explaining in detail what they got wrong, how it happened, and what steps they\u2019ll take to ensure it never happens again, will suffice\u2014 and that\u2019s provided it\u2019s published before Gov. DeWine makes up his mind.<\/p>\n

If they don\u2019t have time to write one, I\u2019ll let them post this one gratis as long as they credit\u00a0AmmoLand<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Holding breath in 3\u20262\u20261\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Permitless Carry Homicide Increase Claim Refuted by Cited Study \u201cA Republican permitless carry gun law will bring Ohio more death,\u201d writer Craig Calcaterra asserts in\u00a0a Tuesday\u00a0Columbus Alive\u00a0article. \u201cResearchers have found that states with permitless carry laws have experienced an 11 percent increase in handgun homicide rates after enactment.\u201d The topic could not be timelier. At … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rkba","category-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78601","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=78601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78602,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78601\/revisions\/78602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}