I personally understand the consternation of people regarding guns
and gun use. Many people, never having had guns in their lives don't understand the benefits to people (of sound mind) and
wish to cast all gun owners as criminals or just 'unintelligent'.
I grew up with guns in the home. All of my
friends around the US have as well. I have never known any of these people
to have anything but the...
I personally understand the consternation of people regarding guns
and gun use. Many people, never having had guns in their lives don't understand the benefits to people (of sound mind) and
wish to cast all gun owners as criminals or just 'unintelligent'.
I grew up with guns in the home. All of my
friends around the US have as well. I have never known any of these people
to have anything but the highest respect for what guns can do and none of
them have ever had or been involved in a bad incident involving guns.
I read in the papers of many people in bar fights or fights at home that
resulted in death or injuries from knives. Should the anti gun crowd start
an anti knife crusade? It is my belief that if you do not like guns and
what they can do, stay away from them. That is your choice, but until you
call for the illimination of knives, ball bats, pipes, or even breathing as
it too can be hazardous to your health. Leave the guns alone!
The study of the effects of using a mobile phone while driving may
reveal
interesting socioeconomic and traffic data, and may be perfectly
worthwhile
as a scientific pursuit.[1] Using this data as a basis for legislation,
however, is a
bad idea. Common sense tells us that doing anything while driving, be it
talking on the phone, applying makeup, operating the radio, or carrying on
a
conversation wit...
The study of the effects of using a mobile phone while driving may
reveal
interesting socioeconomic and traffic data, and may be perfectly
worthwhile
as a scientific pursuit.[1] Using this data as a basis for legislation,
however, is a
bad idea. Common sense tells us that doing anything while driving, be it
talking on the phone, applying makeup, operating the radio, or carrying on
a
conversation with a passenger, will probably have a negative impact on the driver's ability to react quickly to traffic situations. Human beings have
the
right to choose their own driving habits, and they have the responsibility
to
bear the consequences. Laws that infringe on those rights or reject those
responsibilities are useless at best, draconian at worst. Shall we pass
laws
forbidding drivers to engage in any behavior that increases the
probability of
an accident? Shall we require automakers to install covert surveillance
cameras in all new vehicles so that the state can monitor drivers for such illegal behaviors? God forbid! Investigate and educate, but please do not
legislate.
Reference
A T McCartt and L L Geary. Longer term effects of New York State’s law on drivers’ handheld cell phone use. Inj Prev 2004; 10: 11-15.
Denton and Fabricius make a number of errors in their recent study,[1]
but perhaps the most sigificant error is their base assumption that
measuring any given phenomenon through newspaper reporting gives an
accurate measure of that phenomenon. What Denton and Fabricius have
actualy measured is coverage of gun use in the Tribune during a non-
randomly selected 103 days. Whether or not this has a correla...
Denton and Fabricius make a number of errors in their recent study,[1]
but perhaps the most sigificant error is their base assumption that
measuring any given phenomenon through newspaper reporting gives an
accurate measure of that phenomenon. What Denton and Fabricius have
actualy measured is coverage of gun use in the Tribune during a non-
randomly selected 103 days. Whether or not this has a correlation to
actual gun use in the Phoenix area is a matter of pure speculation.
Clearly, this same methodology could result in a great number of
mistaken conclusions, as newspaper coverage is neither consistent nor
scientific. One might conclude that the majority of dogs are vicious, the
majority of weather is severe, or that the majority of New Yorkers are
celebrities or politicians. If Denton and Fabricius had established a
baseline rate of DGUs, we might draw some conclusion as to the correlation
of press coverage to actual DGUs, but we don't have that luxury. As it
stands, we could just as easily draw the conclusion that the Tribune under
-reports DGUs based on Denton and Fabricius's results.
While I applaud Dr Fabricius on finding an activity he and his
teenage son can share, I worry that his son may have learned a lower
standard for scientific rigor than we should tolerate. If, indeed, Denton
and Fabricius are serious about studying this issue, I would encourage
them to simply replicate one of the many studies published on the issue.
Reference
1. J F Denton and W V Fabricius. Reality check: using newspapers, police reports, and court records to assess defensive gun use. Inj Prev 2004; 10: 96-98.
The main conclusion of Cook and Sheikh,[1] that a bicycle helmet
prevents 60% of head injuries, is incorrect due to a fundamental error in
the way they have treated their percentages. A correct analysis
demonstrates unequivocally that there must be major confounding factors in
their data set that they have failed to take into account, and therefore
any estimate of helmet effectiveness is purely speculat...
The main conclusion of Cook and Sheikh,[1] that a bicycle helmet
prevents 60% of head injuries, is incorrect due to a fundamental error in
the way they have treated their percentages. A correct analysis
demonstrates unequivocally that there must be major confounding factors in
their data set that they have failed to take into account, and therefore
any estimate of helmet effectiveness is purely speculative.
Assuming that their basic analysis of the data is correct (although
the numbers they quote in the text do not actually appear to match the
figure plotted), they arrive at a figure of a 3.6% for the reduction in
the head injury (HI) rate for cyclists, over and above the "background"
reduction that pedestrians have also seen. They assume that this drop in
HI is due to increased helmet-wearing. However, this reduction is
presented in terms of the number of percentage points, and relative to the
baseline value of 27.9% HI for cyclists in 1995-6 it actually represents a
3.6/27.9 = 13% drop in the HI rate.
The decrease in the number of helmetless cyclists over the same
interval is 5.8 percentage points from a baseline of 84% unhelmeted,
giving the percentage drop as 5.8/84 = 7%. Cook and Sheikh calculate
helmet effectiveness to be given by the ratio 3.6/5.8 = 60%. However the
correct expression to use is 13/7 = 186%. In other words, "helmet
effectiveness" is so high that each helmet does not just save its wearer,
but a non-wearer too. At this rate, head injuries would be eliminated
completely if just a little over half of all cyclists wore them! This is
clearly ludicrous.
A more reasonable conclusion to draw from this would be that there
are some other factors that are responsible for the large drop in HI rate,
and therefore any attempt to attribute some part of the total 30%
(8.49/27.9) change to the provably marginal impact of a very small number
of extra helmet wearers is at best highly speculative and fraught with
inaccuracy.
What makes this all the more poignant is the fact that the authors
have recently produced a book entitled "Basic skills in statistics"!
Reference
1. A Cook and A Sheikh
Trends in serious head injuries among English cyclists and pedestrians
Inj Prev 2003; 9: 266-267.
We were dismayed to read the recent article by Denton and Fabricius
in which they gleaned the magnitude of annual defensive gun use (DGU) from
local newspaper accounts.[1] We find the authors’ method of determining
DGUs, and their suggestion for a new way to use firearms for self-defense,
seriously flawed.
The authors used the Tribune (Tempe, AZ) as a "daily survey of
several million people...
We were dismayed to read the recent article by Denton and Fabricius
in which they gleaned the magnitude of annual defensive gun use (DGU) from
local newspaper accounts.[1] We find the authors’ method of determining
DGUs, and their suggestion for a new way to use firearms for self-defense,
seriously flawed.
The authors used the Tribune (Tempe, AZ) as a "daily survey of
several million people for cases of DGU." They acknowledge that newspapers
may not always report DGU incidents, but their explanation of why this
under-reporting does not affect their conclusion uses only statistics for
homicide data. We doubt that the same result would hold if statistics for
woundings and firings were also used. Woundings and firings are not as
newsworthy as homicides.
Although the authors discuss police and court records, and estimate
how many incidents the police should have known about, they never reveal
the actual police data.
Denton and Fabricius correctly acknowledge that merely brandishing a
gun is the most common type of DGU, and suggest, therefore, that an
unloaded firearm would serve the same purpose as a loaded one. This is an
astounding conclusion.
A firearm represents a credible deterrent only to the extent that it
is able to fire a projectile. It is this capability that causes felons to
fear being shot by an armed victim.[2] Were it common knowledge among
criminals that most ordinary citizens now use unloaded handguns—that some
would-be victims are armed but many only pretend to be—deterrence would
quickly evaporate.
Proficient professional poker players may be able to bluff
effectively in such a situation, but many ordinary citizens would not. Few
people would bet their lives, or those of their families, in what might
amount to a suicidal bluff.
Would police officers volunteer to carry unloaded weapons?
References
1. Denton JF, Fabricius WF. Reality check: using newspapers, police
reports, and court records to assess defensive gun use. Inj Prev 2004;
10:96-98.
2. Wright JD, Rossi PH, Daly K. Under the gun: weapons, crime, and
violence in America. Hawthorne, New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1983, chapter
7, 138-139.
Injury Prevention recently explored firearm issues,
introducing what might be called the “Fabricius Method”
of analysis. Invented by ASU professor William
Fabricius with his 12-year-old son John Denton, it
works simply enough. They counted gunfire stories in
one newspaper, and concluded guns are rarely used
for anything good. I imagine many heartily embrace this
conclusion.
Injury Prevention recently explored firearm issues,
introducing what might be called the “Fabricius Method”
of analysis. Invented by ASU professor William
Fabricius with his 12-year-old son John Denton, it
works simply enough. They counted gunfire stories in
one newspaper, and concluded guns are rarely used
for anything good. I imagine many heartily embrace this
conclusion.
Newspaper reports however are an easily impeachable
incomplete data set lacking any controls. They are
selective, commercially driven, an arbitrary batch of
anecdotes. Scientific, statistically valid conclusions
cannot be thus derived. Additionally, newspaper bias
on guns is demonstrably great.[1]
Fabricius-and-son “found” Maricopa County had two
defensive gun uses (DGUs), seven gunshot suicides
and 81 gunshot incidents in 103 days. However, police
precincts locally receive gunshot reports in the
thousands. Official Arizona mortality reports suggest
161 gunshot suicides [2] during the study period, not
seven. If Fabricius’ count is 23 times too low, as
suicides imply, two DGUs represent 46 lives
saved/crimes prevented. Similar factors are posted on
my website, gunlaws.com.
If the team had used USA Today instead of a
community newspaper, the Fabricius Method would
have found zero lives saved and zero crimes prevented
by gunfire, for the entire country, for an entire year
(2001).[3] That is not science.
It is as if they compared obituaries and births, and
concluded America is terminal. The Fabricius Method
would find a preponderance of Blacks are athletes,
entertainers or criminals.
Fabricius-and-son derived hurtful, anti-human-rights
conclusions without support. They denigrated 13
scholarly reports that uniformly conflict with their
ill-advised non-science.[4]
Injury Prevention injured itself by publishing such
unprofessional work. A retraction is warranted, with
support for this methodology and its spurious
conclusions disavowed.
Fabricius should make clear whether ASU endorses
his work, as he implies, or extricate that fine university
from this humiliating Bellesiles-like debacle.
I appeal to you: Do not let your personal desire to reach
"The Fabricius Conclusion" (guns are bad)
compromise your professional judgment about "The
Fabricius Method" (counting local news stories is a
valid measure of firearms activity).
Alan Korwin
Author: Gun Laws of America
References
1. Lott Jr. JR, The Bias Against Guns.
Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing Inc. 2003; Bovard
J, Lost Rights. New York, NY: Palgrave - St. Martins -
Griffin 2000; Goldberg B, Bias. Washington, DC:
Regnery Publishing Inc.; Kates Jr. DB, and Kleck G, The
Great American Gun Debate: Essays on Firearms and
Violence. San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute for
Public Policy 1991.
2. Arizona Dept. of Health Services Mortality Report,
Suicide Deaths by Gender, Means of Injury and Year,
Arizona Residents, 1992 - 2002.
3. Lott Jr. JR, The Bias Against Guns. Washington, DC:
Regnery Publishing Inc. 2003: 40.
4. Kleck G, Gertz M. “Armed Resistance to Crime: The
Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun”.
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 1995.
Conflict of Interest Statement
I have written/co-written seven books on gun laws in
America, including the unabridged guide to federal gun
law (“Gun Laws of America”), and belong to:
The Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence
The National Rifle Association
The American Civil Liberties Union
The Arizona Civil Liberties Union
Gun Owners of America
The Society of Professional Journalists
The Arizona Book Publishing Association
and numerous other groups.
The study by Denton and Fabricius [1] uses local newspaper accounts to discover
instances of defensive gun use in the Phoenix, Arizona area during a brief
period in 1998 and concludes that there are far fewer such occurrences
than reported by criminologists who performed nationwide telephone
surveys.
While telephone surveys are certainly vulnerable to some significant
sources of bias, including those re...
The study by Denton and Fabricius [1] uses local newspaper accounts to discover
instances of defensive gun use in the Phoenix, Arizona area during a brief
period in 1998 and concludes that there are far fewer such occurrences
than reported by criminologists who performed nationwide telephone
surveys.
While telephone surveys are certainly vulnerable to some significant
sources of bias, including those related to recall and self-reporting, it
is hard to imagine that anyone would consider the methods used by Denton
and Fabricius to be sound.
We belive that this work is fundamentally flawed for at least two reasons.
First, the findings of criminologists confirm the intuitively obvious fact
that most instances of defensive gun use are never reported to the police.
Those who successfully use their guns in self-defense often would just as
soon not involve the police. If a shooting does not result in a wounding
or death, the police might very well never learn of the occurrence. If an
individual wounded in such an incident did not seek medical attention
(which would be subject to mandatory reporting to authorities), the police
(again) would likely never learn of the incident. Finally,
criminologists' surveys cited by Denton and Fabricius indicate that in the
majority of defensive gun uses the firearm is not actually discharged.
Instead, mere brandishing of the weapon deters the intentions of a
criminal.
Second, the authors apparently assume that newspaper accounts are a
reliable means of counting incidents of defensive gun use reported to the
police. As sociologist John Lott documents in his recent book (The Bias
Against Guns), newspapers routinely run stories of the criminal use of
guns but rarely report defensive gun uses, which are considered much less
"newsworthy." This judgment of newsworthiness may simply be based on the
notion that an incident in which nobody actually got shot is less
interesting to readers, but it probably also reflects the well-documented
anti-gun bias of news reporters and editors.
Given that the data collection methods employed by Denton and Fabricius
are clearly inadequate to discover the actual number of defensive gun uses
in the area and during the time period they attempted to examine, it is
certainly impossible to use their data as the basis for drawing any valid
conclusions.
I must say that I am nothing short of astonished that a journal produced
by the elite BMJ Publishing Group would have accepted this manuscript for
publication.
Reference
1. J F Denton and W V Fabricius. Reality check: using newspapers, police reports, and court records to assess defensive gun use. Inj Prev 2004; 10: 96-98.
Our study had the specific, stated objective of determining whether
New York’s ban on drivers’ use of hand-held phones led to short-term and
long-term changes in the use rates of hand-held phones while driving. Our
intent was not to assess the relative safety effects of hands-free versus
handheld devices. In the discussion, we note that any subs...
Our study had the specific, stated objective of determining whether
New York’s ban on drivers’ use of hand-held phones led to short-term and
long-term changes in the use rates of hand-held phones while driving. Our
intent was not to assess the relative safety effects of hands-free versus
handheld devices. In the discussion, we note that any substitution of
hands-free phones for handheld phones may have diluted any potential crash
effects of the law, but that we were not able to assess the extent to
which such substitution took place.
There is a growing body of experimental research on the effects of
drivers’ phone use on driver performance. As we state in the introduction
to our study, there are experimental studies that suggest that performance
degradations are similar for conversations with hand-held or hands-free
devices. There also are studies that show impairments associated with the
manual aspects of using phones that are not fully hands-free. It is
unknown whether the findings of experimental studies apply to real-world
driving, and the association between phone use and crash risk is not
addressed with these methods. Thus, we do not agree with you that “there
is a large body of evidence showing that there is no safety benefit to be
gained from hands free devices.” Rather we believe it is an unsettled
issue. We also are not aware of evidence from real-world studies of
drivers to support the assertion that bans on drivers’ use of hand-held
phones produce more frequent and longer calls on hands-free devices with
more negative consequences. This also remains an unsettled issue.
Reference
1. Hockey. Handheld vs Handsfree [electronic response to A T McCartt and LL Geary; Longer term effects of New York State’s law on drivers’ handheld cell phone use] injuryprevention.com 2004http://ip.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/10/1/11#42
McCartt and Geary in their recent article in IP [1] have glossed over
the problem with banning hand held phones in that there is now a large
body of evidence showing that there is no safety benefit to be gained from
hands free devices ie they are both dangerous. The problem with outlawing
handheld but allowing handsfree phones is the implicit message that
handsfree is somehow safer. The problem was rec...
McCartt and Geary in their recent article in IP [1] have glossed over
the problem with banning hand held phones in that there is now a large
body of evidence showing that there is no safety benefit to be gained from
hands free devices ie they are both dangerous. The problem with outlawing
handheld but allowing handsfree phones is the implicit message that
handsfree is somehow safer. The problem was recognised by NHTSA several
years ago and resulted in them not recommending outlawing handheld phones
only, the reason being that it would increae the frequency and duration
of hands free use with negative consequences. Both New Zealand and Sweden
have recently recommended not outlawing handheld phones for the same
reasons.
References
(1) A T McCartt and L L Geary. Longer term effects of New York State’s law on drivers’ handheld cell phone use. Inj Prev 2004; 10: 11-15
We are responding to the inquiry of Mr Freedman about whether we had
conveyed our findings to OSHA.[1] The data reported in our article 'Nail
gun injuries in residential carpentry: lessons from active injury
surveillance'[2] were collected
over a three year period. We presented results on several occasions in
national meetings where OSHA representatives were in attendance including:
the following:...
We are responding to the inquiry of Mr Freedman about whether we had
conveyed our findings to OSHA.[1] The data reported in our article 'Nail
gun injuries in residential carpentry: lessons from active injury
surveillance'[2] were collected
over a three year period. We presented results on several occasions in
national meetings where OSHA representatives were in attendance including:
the following:
Nail gun injuries in construction: Needs for gun control measures?
National Occupational Injury Research Symposium, National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health, Pittsburgh, Pa. October 2000.
Nail gun injuries in residential carpentry. Making Science Work for
You: A Symposium for Safety Practitioners. National Safety Council
Congress and Expo. Atlanta, Georgia. September 2001.
Understanding and preventing injuries from pneumatic nail guns.
Roundtable presentation: 12th Annual Construction Safety and Health
Conference and Exposition, May 2002.
Active injury surveillance in residential construction. National
Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) Symposium 2003: Working Partnerships-
Research to Practice. National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health. Washington, D.C. June 2003.
While the reports varied somewhat as you might expect in an active
surveillance project, the findings were quite stable over the three year
period.
We would like to point out that OSHA can require that employers
provide tools that meet certain standards or specifications, but it does
not have regulatory authority over the manufacturing industry as Mr Freedman implies.
References
(1) Freedman N. Impact of injuries attributed to lack of sequential triggers on nail guns on madatory legislation [electronic response to Lipscomb et al. Nail gun injuries in residential carpentry: lessons from active injury surveillance] injuryprevention.com 2003http://ip.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/9/1/20#31
(2) H J Lipscomb, J M Dement, J Nolan, D Patterson, and L Li. Nail gun injuries in residential carpentry: lessons from active injury surveillance. Inj Prev 2003; 9: 20-24.
Dear Editor
I personally understand the consternation of people regarding guns and gun use. Many people, never having had guns in their lives don't understand the benefits to people (of sound mind) and wish to cast all gun owners as criminals or just 'unintelligent'.
I grew up with guns in the home. All of my friends around the US have as well. I have never known any of these people to have anything but the...
Dear Editor
The study of the effects of using a mobile phone while driving may reveal interesting socioeconomic and traffic data, and may be perfectly worthwhile as a scientific pursuit.[1] Using this data as a basis for legislation, however, is a bad idea. Common sense tells us that doing anything while driving, be it talking on the phone, applying makeup, operating the radio, or carrying on a conversation wit...
Dear Editor
Denton and Fabricius make a number of errors in their recent study,[1] but perhaps the most sigificant error is their base assumption that measuring any given phenomenon through newspaper reporting gives an accurate measure of that phenomenon. What Denton and Fabricius have actualy measured is coverage of gun use in the Tribune during a non- randomly selected 103 days. Whether or not this has a correla...
Dear Editor
The main conclusion of Cook and Sheikh,[1] that a bicycle helmet prevents 60% of head injuries, is incorrect due to a fundamental error in the way they have treated their percentages. A correct analysis demonstrates unequivocally that there must be major confounding factors in their data set that they have failed to take into account, and therefore any estimate of helmet effectiveness is purely speculat...
Dear Editor
We were dismayed to read the recent article by Denton and Fabricius in which they gleaned the magnitude of annual defensive gun use (DGU) from local newspaper accounts.[1] We find the authors’ method of determining DGUs, and their suggestion for a new way to use firearms for self-defense, seriously flawed.
The authors used the Tribune (Tempe, AZ) as a "daily survey of several million people...
Dear Editor
Injury Prevention recently explored firearm issues, introducing what might be called the “Fabricius Method” of analysis. Invented by ASU professor William Fabricius with his 12-year-old son John Denton, it works simply enough. They counted gunfire stories in one newspaper, and concluded guns are rarely used for anything good. I imagine many heartily embrace this conclusion.
Newspaper rep...
Dear Editor
The study by Denton and Fabricius [1] uses local newspaper accounts to discover instances of defensive gun use in the Phoenix, Arizona area during a brief period in 1998 and concludes that there are far fewer such occurrences than reported by criminologists who performed nationwide telephone surveys. While telephone surveys are certainly vulnerable to some significant sources of bias, including those re...
Dear Editor
Regarding the eLetter by McCartt and Geary.[1]
Our study had the specific, stated objective of determining whether New York’s ban on drivers’ use of hand-held phones led to short-term and long-term changes in the use rates of hand-held phones while driving. Our intent was not to assess the relative safety effects of hands-free versus handheld devices. In the discussion, we note that any subs...
Dear Editor
McCartt and Geary in their recent article in IP [1] have glossed over the problem with banning hand held phones in that there is now a large body of evidence showing that there is no safety benefit to be gained from hands free devices ie they are both dangerous. The problem with outlawing handheld but allowing handsfree phones is the implicit message that handsfree is somehow safer. The problem was rec...
Dear Editor
We are responding to the inquiry of Mr Freedman about whether we had conveyed our findings to OSHA.[1] The data reported in our article 'Nail gun injuries in residential carpentry: lessons from active injury surveillance'[2] were collected over a three year period. We presented results on several occasions in national meetings where OSHA representatives were in attendance including: the following:...
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