Let's hoist a few

Gun owners who carry concealed weapons or have confronted another person with a gun are more than twice as likely to drink heavily as people who do not own guns, according to a study by UC Davis researchers.

So now we are a bunch of alcoholics?

Read the propaganda press release here of the study published by "one of the world's foremost experts on gun-related violence." A study which used 15 year-old data with a phone survey in which some respondents were not asked all the questions. And "more study is needed" line which means another grant will be coming his way.

I'm sure the study is not biased or flawed in any way.

Crime statistics and the "right" to ban weapons

In a released study on crime in Dubuque, citizens fear to be downtown at night. Nearly 71% of respondents did not feel safe in the downtown area according to a study conducted by the Northern Illinois University's Center for Governmental Studies in DeKalb.

The Mason City Globe-Gazette editorial board seems to be a little confused about our republic. Statements like, "...the Second Amendment gives people the right to bear arms...", is a good indication of where they stand on all of the Bill of Rights. It also lends to the opinion that they need a civics refresher.

The title is a bit confusing to me as well. Globe Gazette Editorial: Counties, cities and businesses have right to restrict gun carry

I may just be parsing their words here but government, at any level, does not have "rights", they have powers. They have no more right to push a citizen around as your neighbor down the street. They don't have have a right to snoop into your emails, phone calls or bank accounts but they do have the power to do so.

There's a big difference between power and rights. Semantics means something to me and I tend to take it seriously.

Government only has powers delegated to it by the people. We have acquiescently given up many of our individual powers to the state. By neglect or design, we have done so.

And they bring up another thing I tend to take seriously, "studies". The editorial board seems to have never heard of Kleck:

Also, the idea that a gun is a great source of self-protection is largely illusionary. A 2009 study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine estimated that people in possession of a gun at the time of an assault were 4.5 times more likely to be shot during the assault than someone in a comparable situation without a gun.

Although there are certainly examples where people were able to successfully defend themselves with a gun, the study shows that is the exception rather than the rule.

Sorry, but I call this hogwash. If no weapon is present by either party in an assault, then the gun is not present to make a valid comparison to when it is present. What this "study" is saying is that if I'm assaulted by 50 different assailants, my gun will be used against me about 9 times. It's possible, but only if I'm carrying.

If I wasn't carrying, how can the gun be taken away from me if it isn't in my possession. At those times, the N is zero. If I'm not carrying, my gun can never be taken away from me. N = zero.

If I am carrying, it's possible that it might be taken from me. It's possible because I would have a weapon in my possession. N > zero. It will always be X number of times greater because one of the comparative variables will always be zero while the other is always greater than zero.

It's like dividing by zero, it doesn't work.

I will agree with one thing, private businesses have the right to ban whatever they wish. That's because private businesses are owned by private individuals. Except when the state deems them a public place, like during the Great Smoking Ban. A power that the state exercised against a private business.

I also have the right not to engage with a private business that does not cater to my tastes. If a business put up a sign that stated only tall, good-looking gentlemen with a full head of hair were welcomed and all others were banned, that is their right. I'll take my business elsewhere.

You can't always do that with a government agency. If you have business at the courthouse, you can't take your business elsewhere.

If the state law against gun prohibition by local governmental entities can be ignored by those county and city boards, then where is the rule of law? Tom Miller's opinion notwithstanding. And how about a resolution is okay while the law uses the word ordinance, then that's okay?

And one other thought, if a county bans firearms on county property, where will some of the gun shows be held? Marshalltown holds theirs at the county fairgrounds and I'm sure other gun shows are held on city and county properties throughout the state.

A gun in someone's possession doesn't make them a raging lunatic. And a sign isn't a magic shield against all evil.

Risk Factors - Suicide prevention

Apparently being male, having guns and being unemployed makes one a threat to yourself and others. At least from this story:

The average number of suicides in a given year in the U.S. is 1,000 to 1,500 according to the Violence Policy Center. Because they have been so rare in the past, the numbers of whole family murder-suicides (familicides) have not been counted and therefore are unknown. Ninety-five percent of all murder-suicides are male-on-female crimes; the majority take place following a threatened break-up by the female wife or partner. According to Jacqueline Campbell who has conducted extensive interviews with the families of victims of domestic homicide, access to guns and male unemployment are key risk factors involved. If suicidal ideation is present, the result likely will be a murder-suicide.

The Economic Factor in the Rash of Murder-Suicides

I at no time minimize the tragedy of suicide or murder-suicide, but using the VPC and then Google as in "Today we have a rash of murder-suicides, as a google search of this topic instantly reveals." makes me wonder if this is a valid study.

You be the judge.

Fun with Brady's statistics

A new (to me) blog, South Dakota Politics cites a work by a third year law student at the University of Miami Law School. This student's work suggests there is no relationship between Brady's state rankings of how good their gun laws are and homicide rates of that state.

Does Strict Gun Control Reduce Gun Homicides? No.

Waterloo liquor store shooting

As a followup to Waterloo clerk defends self the Waterloo Courier article refers to national statistics covering late-night convenience store shootings across the country and locally.

In 2007, 167 people were killed working retail, according to a study by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Of those, 39 of the slayings were at convenience stores, 32 were at gas stations and seven were at liquor stores.

Police said a Waterloo clerk may have avoided adding to those statistics Wednesday morning when he opened fire, killing two would-be robbers who were carrying guns. Officers said the employee, who worked at East Fourth Street Liquor, appears to be justified. The investigation continues.

Working late-night retail dangerous job

In the middle of the article we find this nugget:

According to 2008 statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, homicide was the leading cause of death for retail sales workers who died on the job, accounting for 58 percent of the deaths.

In comparison, homicide was responsible for 33 percent of on-the-job fatalities for law enforcement workers that same year. Traffic-related deaths accounted for 38 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers.

According to a government study, can we take from it that a night-time clerk's job is more dangerous than a law enforcement officer? Hardly. But it is worth looking at the numbers more closely.

As we see from this week, being armed provides clerks a better chance for survival and at least one clerk at a liquor could be glad not to be a statistic.

Rural areas in Iowa have higher risk of suicide

While suicide affects all parts of the state, features unique to rural Iowa put those living there at a higher risk.

Should I be concerned?

I don't mean to minimize the seriousness and tragedy of suicide. It leaves a wake of devastation for years for loved ones they left behind. I'm looking at how number-skewing affects reporting.

The quote above comes from the article: Suicide numbers up in rural Iowa, the newspaper of the University of Iowa, The Daily Iowan, reports that suicide rates are rising in the state, especially in our less populated counties.

I posted earlier that one "study" wrote off the whole state as urban based on the idea that any county with a population over 2500 people was high: Every county in Iowa is urban, while in the Daily Iowan article, it's reported that 89 of Iowa counties are rural. Adding more to the mix, Iowa's Wiki page reports that 61% of Iowa's population is urban by citing Census Bureau figures:

Urban counties in Iowa grew 8.5% from 2000 to 2008, while rural counties declined by 4.2%

All of this is a backdrop to the reported suicide rates:

• From 2000 to 2008, 1,568 people committed suicide in rural counties of Iowa, versus 1,382 in the state’s urban parts.

• The suicide rate of from 2000 to 2008 in rural counties was 11.36 per 100,000 population; it was 10.82 in urban counties.

• In 2008 alone, the rate for rural counties was 13.55 — the highest the average in Iowa has been since 2000 — and it was 11.46 in urban counties.

The article did not cite a source, but I will use the Iowa Department of Health, Vital Statistics and the closest population numbers I found were at Iowa population by County, 2006 One problem with statistics is when you use a roaming number "N" and going county by county you will skew the "per 100,000" number and inflate it, and that's exactly what happens. With counties having small population, one death will produce a high rate.

In 2008, Monona county (pop. < 10,000) there were 4 suicides which placed it with the highest rate in the state, while Polk county (pop. 400,000+) had 70 which placed it in the middle. By using the rate of 13.55 per 100,000, in my county (Iowa, pol. 16,000+) we should have had 85 suicides in 2008. According to the state, there were three. I'm going to make a leap here and guess that they added the percentages up and divided by 89 in order to get the 13.55 rate. Without some concrete numbers, there's no way to tell.

The arbitrary lines that were drawn up in the 1840's cannot be used in statistics any more than an arbitrary definition of "urban" or "rural". Another thing to consider is that emergency response times are generally much better in cities than in the back gravel roads where it could take an ambulance 30 minutes just to get there after receiving the call. The suicide attempt/success ratio in urban vs. rural areas is not looked at.

The article also throws out this bone to the anti-gun crowd:

The problem may be compounded by the prevalence of guns in rural areas.

Of the 1,568 deaths in rural counties since 2000, 846 were by firearms. In urban areas, 580 have killed themselves with guns. In Johnson County, firearms also accounted for the largest number of suicides — 59 out of 139.

No other methods were mentioned. In the last 22 years I personally know of two men who took their lives, one by hanging and the other man used his car in his garage. (And I know anecdotes do not make good science.)

Statistics can be used to push any sort of agenda and my impression is that the author is advocating more funding for rural mental health services. Which may not be a bad thing, especially with the economic climate we face. I would like a more honest and open analysis in the urban/rural numbers that are tossed like bread crumbs to the public.

One suicide is bad enough. Ask some of us left behind.