tlambert | April 20, 1994
Method of % Completed % Attacked % Injured Num Times
Self Protection Used(a)
Used gun 30.9 25.2 17.4 89,009
Used Knife 35.2 55.6 40.3 59,813
Used other weapon 28.9 41.5 22.0 104,700
Used physical force 50.1 75.6 50.8 1,653,880
Tried to get help
or frighten offender 63.9 73.5 48.9 1,516,141
Threatened or reasoned
with offender 53.7…
tlambert | March 17, 1994R Bryner said:
Changing what is continuous data(numbers) to ranks to do an analysis on
them is throwing information away. Why is it done, I will tell you why,
someone did not like the information and decided to remove it. The funny
thing is it even has a legitimate sounding name.
Yeah, "non-parametric statistics". Why don't you at least try to
learn a tiny amount about it before you post nonsense again?
Brandon Ray writes:
Since you mention it, may I point out that non-parametric statistics are
rather weaker than parametric statistics? Since Pim (or the original author
of the study, if…
tlambert | March 14, 1994Pim van Meurs wrote:
Spearman Rank Correlations between % of households
owning guns and r value p value
________________________
Proportions of homicides with a gun 0.608 Homi writes:
You have not explained the significance of the "spearman rank correlation"
or how these numbers were arrived at. For all I know, they could've had 5
monkeys hitting a keyboard and entered these numbers. What is the
correlation coefficient and how did they arrive at this result? How did
they get a "P"…
tlambert | February 14, 1994Frank Crary said:
The correlation with gun ownership is equally easy to explain. In
the neighborhoods studied, a large fraction of the gun owners are
either criminals (confirmed by the study's correlation previous
convictions)
The study found a correlation between criminal record and homicide,
not between criminal record and gun ownership. In any event there was
a higher risk of homicide associated with gun ownership even after
controlling for criminality.
or purchased a gun in reaction to threats of crime
and violence.
This is unproven.
Both criminals and people threatened by criminals…
tlambert | February 9, 1994pim writes:
Are you arguing that the increase in D.C.'s suicide and homicide rates is
related to a law passed 12 years earlier ?
Thomas Grant Edwards said:
I don't see why this is difficult to imagine. It might have taken 12 years
for most of the legal grandfathered guns in the hands of average citizens
to filter into the hands of criminals, seeing as how it is impossible
for a D.C. resident to legally sell his gun.
Is it? Why can't they sell it outside DC?
Are you saying that it takes 12 years to illegally sell a gun?? If
you are saying that this supposed transfer happened gradually…
tlambert | February 8, 1994Joe B. Simpson said:
The New England Journal of Medicine. 1991 Dec 5. 325 (23). pp
1615-1620. Special Article: Effects Of Restrictive Licensing Of
Handguns On Homicide And Suicide In The District Of Columbia.
Loftin-Colin. McDowall-David. Wiersema-Brian. Cottey-Talbert-J.
Note that the study showed an immediate decline in homicide and
suicide rates after enacting the ban.
Which is a LIE, because the suicide RATE in DC was the same after
the ban as it was before the ban, though the rate in surrounding
areas not affected by the ban fell 10%. The GUN suicide rate in DC
fell more than the…
tlambert | February 6, 1994Nate Lund said:
Point Blank, by Gary Kleck, page 134:
"From October 1966 to March 1967, the Orlando Police Department trained
more that 2500 women to use guns. Organized in response to demands from
citizens worried about a sharp increase in rape, this was an unusually
large and highly publicized program.
"An interrupted time series analysis of Orlando crime trends showed
The reference cited by Kleck does not contain an interrupted time
series analysis. McDowall et al (Criminology 29:4 p541-559) did an
interrupted time series analysis. They did find a reduction by 11
rapes in 67, but this…
tlambert | February 5, 1994Michael J. Phelps writes:
Wright (1983) compare handgun attacks with long bladed knife attacks;
as do Wilson & Sherman (1961 p 643) with findings of:
mortality rate for handguns: 16.8%
ice picks: 14.3
butcher knives: 13.3
Kleck has made a dishonest selection of data from Wilson & Sherman:
from the same table that the figures above were plucked from:
rifles: 7.7
Unless you think that handguns are twice as deadly as rifles, this should be a clue that something is very wrong. (Another clue, free of charge: 2/15=13.3% and 2/14=14.3…
tlambert | February 5, 1994Nosy wrote:
Saying all firearms are phallic symbols is stupid and a lie.
Bizarre. Nosy is apparently unaware of the difference between a
phallus and a phallic symbol.
No, the whole concept of a "phallic symbol" is discredited and
worthless concept. I'm not aware of any respectable schools of
psychology that still teach it, except as an example of bogus
methodology. The concept seems to survive only in non-scientific
circles such as feminist literary criticism. To apply a term
that is known to be meaningless is "stupid and a lie."
Let me get this straight: You claim
The term "phallic…
tlambert | December 17, 1993(C. D. Tavares) writes:
Report to the Nation on Crime and Justice, Second Edition, U.S.
Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ-105506,
March 1988.
For 1985, for robbery and assaults, the following is how
many incidents involved a firearm and how many involved a knife.
Robbery Assault
------- -------
Firearm 23% 12%
Knife 21% 10%
In both robbery and assault, a gun was actually fired and hit the victim
only 4% of the time in all incidents in 1985. Victims were actually
stabbed in 10% in the incidents involving knives.
Gun and knife…
tlambert | December 1, 1993Dean Payne writes:
"For example, in 1974 Massachusetts passes the Bartley-Fox
Law, which requires a special license to carry a handgun outside the
home or business. The law is supported by a mandatory prison sentence.
Studies by Glenn Pierce and William Bowers of Northeastern University
documented that after the law was passed handgun homicides in
Massachusetts fell 50% and the number of armed robberies dropped 35%."
Actually Pierce and Bowers found that the number of GUN robberies
dropped 35%. The number of armed robberies only fell by 15%.
According to Kleck ("Point Blank..."), many…
tlambert | October 25, 1993Steve Kao said:
RKBA.016 - Is the United States the most violent nation?
Version 1.2 (last changed on 91/03/22 at 13:05:06)
In homicide, the US is number 11, with a murder rate of 9.60 per 100,000.
The nearest European country in the Netherlands, with a homicide rate of
7.15 per 100,000. However, elimination of high crime inner city rates
pushes the per capita down to 3.77, below such countries as Luxemburg
(5.25), Finland (4.88), West Germany (4.47), Scotland (3.82), and somewhat
barely above Sweden (3.36).
The source for those figures would appear to have been "Book of
World Rankings" by…
tlambert | October 15, 1993Greg Booth said:
A 1976 study put guns in 40% of Canadian households.
An Angus Reid poll in 1991 put the number at 23%.
The 1989 International Crime Survey gave 29%
From Phil Ronzone's rkba.002 (US rates converted to rate per 100,000)
from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United
States: 1989 (109th edition.) Washington, DC, 1989.
and Canadian rates from the Canadian Centre for Health Information.
Year US accident rate Canadian accidental rate.
1969 1.139 0.63
1970 1.174 0.61
1971 1.136 0.66
1972 1.163 0.47
1973 1.235 0…
tlambert | October 5, 1993Point Blank, by Gary Kleck, pg 165, citing a study by Wilson and Sherman, 1961:
"At least one medical study compared very similar sets of wounds ('all were
penetrating wounds of the abdomen'), and found that the mortality rate in
pistol wounds was 16.8%, while the rate was 14.3% for ice pick wounds and
13.3% for butcher knife wounds.
The study is in Annals of Surgery Vol 153 pp 639-649 "Civilian
Penetrating Wounds of the Abdomen" by Wilson and Sherman. It covers stab
(5% mortality) and gun shot wounds (17% mortality) to the abdomen.
The numbers Kleck quotes above come from Table 7 of the…
tlambert | October 5, 1993Alfred A. Hambidge, Jr. said:
For the benefit of those trying to follow this thread, could you post
the NCS questions in question?
There are 20 screening questions. I'm not going to type them all in
-- the following are just the ones that relate to to assault and
robbery.
(37) Did anyone take something directly from you by using force, such
as by a stickup, mugging or threat?
(38) Did anyone TRY to rob you by using force or threatening to harm
you?
(39) Did anyone beat you up, attack you or hit you with something, such
as a rock or a bottle?
(40) Were you knifed, shot at, or attacked with…
tlambert | September 30, 1993Canada. Gun law in 78.
Homicide rate (per 100,000 population)
74-78 2.7 3.1 2.9 3.0 2.8 average 2.9
79-83 2.7 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.7 average 2.6
(a t test on the statistical significance of the difference of the means gives p=.01)
Thomas Grant Edwards said:
From "Gun Control and Rates of Firearm Violence
in Canada and the United States" by R.J. Mundt, in Canadian
Journal of Criminology, Jan. 1990, p. 137:
"The mean rate [of homicide] for Canada from 1974-1978 was 2.7,
compared to a post-1978 rate (through 1988) of 2.6. One could
admit the possibility that this decline resulted from the 1977…
tlambert | September 26, 1993Look in "Experiences of Crime across the World" van Dijk, Mayhew
and Killias (1991). This reports the result of an international
victimisation survey in the US, Canada, Australia and 11 European
countries.
Danny Low said:
The last time I looked at an atlas, the world included places like
Mexico and other Latin American countries. The book has a rather
grandiose title "across the World" but seems to exclude most of
the world. Are the countries you listed the only ones in the
book? If it is so I would consider the sample to be very biased.
The only countries. They also surveyed Warsaw and…
tlambert | September 23, 1993Steve Kao said:
Perhaps someone from Switzerland can enlighten us. Are not all males
between the ages of 18 and 55 issued rifles?
No. All male Swiss citizens between 20 and 50 who are in the army are
issued rifles. Roughly 15% of Swiss residents are not citizens, and
20% of the citizens called up do not serve in the army. So, very
roughly, that's (50-20)/70x0.8x0.85 = 15% of the population.
I would guess that >90% of
the households in Switzerland have males between the ages of 18 and 55
in them, implying that >90% of the households have a gun in them.
In the Encyclopedia of the…
tlambert | September 22, 1993Jon Buck said:
NCS didn't do a very good job of asking; they only asked about
defensive weapon use after the respondent answered positively to
having been a victim of a crime.
Right, so cases where someone whipped out a gun without being
threatened with violence weren't counted.
Kleck makes this criticism of the NCS (in "Point Blank", if I
remember correctly). This leaves out the case of successful
self-defense, in which the intended victim was not victimized
because they used a gun in self-defense;
No it doesn't. Such a person is still a victim of the crime of
attempted robbery, or…
tlambert | September 22, 1993C. D. Tavares said:
Hey, Tim --- perhaps you can compare the ten largest US cities ---
the places where the vast majority of US violent crime occurs --- with
third world nations, and then enumerate for us the sociological factors
for which there is a tinker's damn worth of difference between the two.
If you want to claim that the ten largest US cities are similar to
third world nations then it is up to you to do the research.
If you want something easier, you could trying looking up some crime
figures and tell us what percentage of US violent crime occurs in the
ten largest cities. Bet you…