Gun research ban
Toby lays out the problems with the bans on “gun research”, which isn’t gun research at all, typically. It’s a good read from two aspects, the first being science discussed by lawyers isn’t science. I can buy that. And the second take away that I got is that of confounding guns with diseases isn’t science either. He doesn’t say the latter but that’s what it is.
I’ll go ahead and save all you social scientists the trouble and state the really real about gun violence in the US: A lot of black males shoot a lot of other black males and occasionally shoot a white person. Mostly, the news only cares about that latter.
That said, banning studying research on gun violence is, to me, going too far. Sure, they pulled the funding to prove that a lot of “gun research” is bullshit and also to prove our lobbyists are better than theirs. But it doesn’t sit well from a PR standpoint. Mind you, the law came about based on a CDC study that concluded something to the effect of “we can’t find evidence that bans on some guns matter, so we need to study it more until it does”.
And that’s the problem with current science. Sure, they have methods (that are bullshit) but it’s sometimes about money. They need to study it more.
But this is key:
Anyhow, my money would be on a mixed set of outcomes that actually support some pro-gun positions, but also support anti-gun to a degree as well.
Absolutely. Most would support pro-gun positions which is why I’m not a fan of NRA’s lobbying on this, presuming that more anti-gunners did not get federal dollars but with the current administration, ha ha fucking ha. That’s exactly what would happen. As I’ve said before, NRA used a shotgun to kill gnat. But it’s pretty easy to expose that bullshit.
June 20th, 2013 at 9:14 pm
All you have to do is look at Climate Research to see how this would play out.
Researchers that find guns are bad would get further studies funded.
Researchers that found otherwise would not.
Researchers have to eat.
June 20th, 2013 at 9:28 pm
OK. First with the climate research thing. I am a PhD trained geographer. Part of my training included qualifying in a physical part of the discipline (climatology) and I have had scads of graduate level statistics. (I also like cheap bourbon and worked on a freight dock to keep from starving as a young man). You’ve got a lot of work to do, wizardpc. Anyhow, I address the foolishness that is anthropogenic global warming denial in my post. It is settled and pointing to an article or two that you think “refutes” the science isn’t going to cut it. As a matter of fact, the NAS has shifted the burden of proof from climate scientists to the skeptics and, interestingly, this opens up plenty of funding if you know any young grad school bound person who wants to do research in climate studies with a bent to falsify rock-solid AGW research, I will be glad to be his or her committee member. This person won’t be able to do it, but I would admire the attempt.
Back on topic: I really don’t agree with the notion that all of the research would show that GUNS ARE BAD AND ARE VECTORS FOR VIOLENCE as part of the researchers bias. It is an equally valid hypothesis to say that guns are not that thing. In fact, the ban on gun research hurts gun advocates as much as it helps. A debate around the science is healthier than the bullshit poo flinging between people who are so blind in their passions they can’t speak at all.
As for Chance’s mention of the racial bias in gun related deaths (which is controversial and not necessarily the case. It depends on the metrics) my hypothesis would be that it isn’t the ready availability of guns that is the driver of these deaths, but a mixture of factors that would include in some degree that availability, but not as a primary factor. The world is very complicated especially when you have to see it as a social scientist.
June 20th, 2013 at 9:53 pm
Actually, I think it hurts. Getting rid of the ban would probably help us.
As for AGW, Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. A topic for another day.
June 20th, 2013 at 10:12 pm
Metulj:
Your comment is a mess of poor logic.
“falsify rock-solid AGW research” – you can’t falsify the unfalsifiable and/or unrepeatable.
If it is settled, why were there no predictions for the flatlining of temps over the last 10-15 years?
“Of course, it is settled but our models were wrong” = we were wrong = it isn’t settled.
Finally – thanks for the laugh – “it depends on the metrics”.
That’s going to keep me chuckling all night especially in light of your previous claim that the science is settled.
June 20th, 2013 at 10:16 pm
Yawn. Keep trying.
June 20th, 2013 at 10:32 pm
Rock solid science really benefits from repeatable experiments. Climatology has the huge problem of no experimentation being possible and only one data set.
At least Astronomy has a wide set of stars that can be observed. Where with Climatology we only have one data set on earth.
That in and of itself doesn’t mean Climage science is garbage, it just makes it harder to work with.
You can’t just call up McMaster and order a crate of earths to test.
Even Social Sciences have multiple population sets to examine and ways you can track and test people.
Climate science is limited in how its calibration of models can work. It’s quite hard to get multi-variable matching when you have one data set.
For any scientific theory to work it has to be falsifiable and then be able to predict natural phenomena.
Sadly it’s less easy to match global climate behavior than it is to know how far a given iron rod will bend when subjected to a given impact.
From a thermals science standpoint and a model matching standpoint much of the AGW modeling seems… let’s say lacking in rigor.
June 21st, 2013 at 2:42 am
Here is what is wrong with public health folks studying gun violence: A gun in the home is 43 times more likely to be used to shoot a resident than a criminal invader.
I paraphrase Kellerman, et al., circa 1993.
That crap line has been around since 1993 and still gets tossed out today, despite being refuted from sunup to sundown and overnight on Fridays.
That renting an apartment was 6 times more likely to result in the renter getting shot than having a gun in the home was not emphasized in the reporting of the study.
June 21st, 2013 at 7:28 am
That, and the fact that many of the studies will be done at colleges and universities, which are not known as paragons of pro gun thought.
June 21st, 2013 at 7:45 am
Just another crack in the “scientific worldview” (which has next to nothing to do with science) under which we were raised. Research by government departments is a little like the philosophy squad at the Vatican, and that’s a little unfair to the Vatican. “Independent” research is all at universities, which are funded by…
Two models for this, both pretty scary. First was the “hewers of wood, carriers of water” school of anthropology that so effectively countered abolition. Then, the Dixiecrats challenged the Kennedys in 1948, and the northern Dem machine didn’t get mad, it got even by destroying the Southern Dem economic base: tobacco. It worked, and we were all a party to it too.
I am proud to point out to sciency screaming-meemies that the research journals of mid-19th-cent.Europe were choc-a-bloc with reasoned discourse on Why the Jews Had to Go. The science, you see, was settled.
June 21st, 2013 at 8:37 am
Research, is that what they call it?
If I pay someone to support my belief – and make no mistake, that’s what we are discussing – that isn’t research. It’s an ad buy. If the government pays someone to reach a previously determined conclusion, it’s propaganda. The .gov isn’t going to call it that, of course.
June 21st, 2013 at 10:46 am
Given the effectively UNIVERSAL antigun bias of CDC funded “gun safety” studies (which , agian, have UNIVERSAL errors – bad scholastic integrity, poor methodology, methododligies mismatched to study type and data sets, etc.) and “professional medical journal” published (same problems), I have no problem with banning the use of federal tax revenues to fund these “studies”.
CDC has no more credibility on “gun safety” research than the Aryan Nation has on Holocaust history or race relations.
June 21st, 2013 at 12:23 pm
I betcha there’s no “ban on research” but rather a ban on using taxpayer money or taxpayer credit to fund it.
So how about we clarify the language or just STFU, OK?
“I really don’t agree with the notion that all of the research would show that GUNS ARE BAD AND ARE VECTORS FOR VIOLENCE as part of the researchers bias.”
Except it is. If they don’t start with that assumption — and come to a conclusion that supports it — then they don’t get money.
June 21st, 2013 at 12:24 pm
“a bent to falsify rock-solid AGW research”
Already falsified.
June 21st, 2013 at 12:27 pm
The CDC simply isn’t the appropriate agency as them doing gun research presupposes guns are part of an epidemiological problem. Question begging by definition. The appropriate place for gov’t funding to be applied to criminological research is the NIJ only.
But stating research needs to be gov’t funded also involves an a set of assumptions. All the relevant data is public, Joyce has millions, Bomber billions, if those groups truly thought independent sound, journal published and peer-reviewed research would support their position they’d be doing it.
June 21st, 2013 at 1:23 pm
Matthew Carberry: Spot on. Though I think you could expand that to the NSF, NAS, AAS and others. The disease-vector analogy is bad. That doesn’t mean that other avenues to knowledge about the relationship between guns and violence (whether it exists or not or it what form) are invalid as well. This is my point.
As for the “research” attackers above: You can’t do research without funding. It takes time and time is money. The best money is money without strings attached and that is always through a government agency of some sort. That’s how it works. If a researcher were to take money from Open Society to study guns in America, people would dismiss it as liberal bias; the same goes in the opposite direction.
Also, there’s a neat thing in statistics called tests of fitness, etc. You can actually see the effects of bias in research and correct for it.
The anti-AGW people: Please submit a hand-drawn diagram of the global carbon budget with correct numbers on the flows to metulj.slovenec@gmail.com. Then we can talk the basics. You don’t seem to understand the tough stuff. Gotta have standards, y’know. 🙂
June 21st, 2013 at 2:20 pm
Metulj:
The hypothesis behind AGW is based on modelling, and the models do. . . not. . . work. . .
End of discussion.
AGW _may_ be the correct hypothesis (I doubt it), but the “research” sop far consists of mutual masturbatory societies tweaking models to force desired results.
June 21st, 2013 at 2:56 pm
“You can’t just call up McMaster and order a crate of earths to test.” OK, that made me laugh.
June 21st, 2013 at 3:30 pm
Metulj,
I don’t agree on gov’t funding. I find it naive to suggest that gov’t funding of independent research is less likely to result in actual bias than private funding. Sure, the majority of people who don’t know how to do or critique social science research might find it so (at least until the recent flushing of gov’t credibility), but what we know from practical experience is that who is actually doing the research is more important than where the money comes from. Why pander to the ignorant rather than educating them?
Good scientists will do good research, publish every last scrap of data and methodology for critique, and let the chips fall where they may. Partisan hacks on a topic won’t. Lott and Kleck publish, take their lumps (cough Rosh cough), revise, republish, and keep on improving. Kellerman took a couple swipes at addressing serious methodological problems and now claims his opponents are simply biased and often implies that there was nothing wrong with his study in the first place.
Rather than asking taxpayers to pay to in effect challenge a fundamental right over and over again (via CDC “guns are a problem, lets see how big” type studies); challenge Bloomy to put his money where his mouth is and fund rigorous university studies. Maybe ask the Koch’s to pony up for a study on the same topic from a different group of researchers. Compare and contrast not only findings but premises and methodologies. Broadcast the differences, name and shame the bad researchers.
I still maintain the reason the anti’s don’t use their own money for real studies and instead resort to things like the VPC’s recent “Concealed Carry Killers” unpaid intern Google search nonsense is that they know that even mostly friendly researchers findings won’t match their claims. For instance the fairly recent Harvard study that confirmed the older NIJ study finding of no statistically significant link between any gun control program and crime rate reduction (a broad summary I know).
June 21st, 2013 at 3:39 pm
“It is settled and pointing to an article or two that you think “refutes” the science isn’t going to cut it. ”
That thar be them fallacies of the appeal to authority and popularity.
Which are the same fallacies commonly cited with regards to the “more guns = more violence”.
June 21st, 2013 at 5:22 pm
The best money is money without strings attached and that is always through a government agency of some sort. – See more at: https://www.saysuncle.com/2013/06/20/gun-research-ban/#comments
First a note to Unc: WTF is that crap getting tacked on to copypasta? Seen it on Windows and Iphone.
Metulj: your faith in government is strange in someone professing to speak for science. Ever heard of Lysenkoism, for one counterexample?
The idea that private money is the root of all bias, but *government money* somehow magically rises above all goalseeking, betrays an odd, yet huge blind spot for history: the government and groups within it, have a well-demonstrated bias of their own: towards greater budget and power.
June 27th, 2013 at 6:34 pm
Getting funding for research is more about how you word your proposal, and less about your conclusions. To put it bluntly, it’s a matter of kissing the right @$$, the right way.
Are you a pro-gunner who wants funding for “gun violence research”? Write a proposal to “study the causal links between high rates of gun ownership and incidents of gun violence”. You’ll get funding. When you’re study find that there is no causal link – and may in fact be a negative correlation – publish that along with your “surprise” at the numbers, and write your next proposal to attempt to disprove it.
In short, your conclusions can (usually) fit your world view, but your proposals need to fit THEIR world view.