Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
Daniel D. Polsby writes:
Unless I am seriously mistaken, one would find that crack cocaine dealers and other persistent criminals are disproportionately likely to possess firearms and to be murdered by others using firearms. To place firearms at the heart of this story is at best tendentious.
The study controlled for literally dozens of other factors, including criminality and illicit drugs. Furthermore the extra homicide risk associated with firearm ownership was not from shootouts between drug dealers or gangs, but domestic homicides.
Absent a controlled experiment (which is impossible) it is of course always possible for those who don't like the results to come up with some explanation other than the straightforward one.
Dr. Kellermann's published work is more diffidently worded than the representations he makes to reporters in subsequent interviews. Moreover, he has in fact made a causal claim for his research at least once in writing, in the July, 1994 Atlantic Monthly correspondence column. He has never made his underlying data public. I respectfully suggest that these are issues that ought to trouble even one who finds his conclusions congenial.
Dr Kellermann is entitled to believe that gun ownership most probably increases the risk of homicide and to offer this study as evidence for this.
I don't find the conclusions congenial at all. My taxes will go up by $100 next year to pay for this stupid ban on semi-automatic long guns. It would be nice if I could argue that firearms aren't associated with costs in terms of homicides and suicides.
