Even Statistical Analysis Isn't Immune.
One last post before I go to bed.
There
are many things I'm unqualified to talk about. The gun control debate is
one such debate. Stats fly to and fro at each other until my head swims.
And even if I knew what I was talking about, I would be very hesitant to
jump in. In many cases the two sides have ossified in their stance and debate
won't ever proceed beyond a Crossfire level.
Anyway, one of the stats frequently cited are numbers compiled by John Lott, a Yale economist. wrote a book called More Guns, Less Crimes,
the definitive study in gun control. In his book, his numbers assert that
in locations where more citizens are armed, crime is lower. This is gospel
to gun-rights supporters.
Though here is where it get's interesting. It appears that one state is skewing the results in this study. If you remove this problem state, the analysis begins to break down.
I give regular readers of this journal one guess as to which state is farking the analysis.
There
are many things I'm unqualified to talk about. The gun control debate is
one such debate. Stats fly to and fro at each other until my head swims.
And even if I knew what I was talking about, I would be very hesitant to
jump in. In many cases the two sides have ossified in their stance and debate
won't ever proceed beyond a Crossfire level.
Anyway, one of the stats frequently cited are numbers compiled by John Lott, a Yale economist. wrote a book called More Guns, Less Crimes,
the definitive study in gun control. In his book, his numbers assert that
in locations where more citizens are armed, crime is lower. This is gospel
to gun-rights supporters.
Though here is where it get's interesting. It appears that one state is skewing the results in this study. If you remove this problem state, the analysis begins to break down.
I give regular readers of this journal one guess as to which state is farking the analysis.
ProfessorSo once again, as a public service, I must remind everyone here that Florida is just not right!
Daniel Nagin [Carnegie Mellon University] reviewed the numbers produced by
Lott and found that the "lion's share" of the benefit of the right-to-carry
laws were found in. He then re-ran the statistics eliminating
is important to a more accurate analysis: The large variations in state-specific
estimates of RTC impacts cause concern that the Lott and Mustard results
could be driven by a single state for which their model does a particularly
poor job of fitting the data. As it turns out, one such state is Florida.
With the Muriel boat lift of 1980 and South
passed several other gun-related measures, including background checks of
handgun buyers and a waiting period for handgun purchases.
Nagin and Black conclude that "without
in the sample, there is no detectable impact" for the two crimes that, according
to Lott, account for 80 percent of the social benefit of RTC laws.