Counting Guns

2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 699-708
Author(s):  
Gordon Wood ◽  
Robert Churchill ◽  
Edward Cook ◽  
James Lindgren ◽  
Wilbur Miller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Statistical Methods ◽  
Violent Crime ◽  
The United States ◽  
Real Income ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Gun Control ◽  
Gun Laws ◽  
The Impact

At the fall 2001 Social Science History Association convention in Chicago, the Crime and Justice network sponsored a forum on the history of gun ownership, gun use, and gun violence in the United States. Our purpose was to consider how social science historians might contribute nowand in the future to the public debate over gun control and gun rights. To date, we have had little impact on that debate. It has been dominated by mainstream social scientists and historians, especially scholars such as Gary Kleck, John Lott, and Michael Bellesiles, whose work, despite profound flaws, is politically congenial to either opponents or proponents of gun control. Kleck and Mark Gertz (1995), for instance, argue on the basis of their widely cited survey that gun owners prevent numerous crimes each year in theUnited States by using firearms to defend themselves and their property. If their survey respondents are to be believed, American gun owners shot 100,000 criminals in 1994 in selfdefense–a preposterous number (Cook and Ludwig 1996: 57–58; Cook and Moore 1999: 280–81). Lott (2000) claims on the basis of his statistical analysis of recent crime rates that laws allowing private individuals to carry concealed firearms deter murders, rapes, and robberies, because criminals are afraid to attack potentially armed victims. However, he biases his results by confining his analysis to the years between 1977 and 1992, when violent crime rates had peaked and varied little from year to year (ibid.: 44–45). He reports only regression models that support his thesis and neglects to mention that each of those models finds a positive relationship between violent crime and real income, and an inverse relationship between violent crime and unemployment (ibid.: 52–53)–implausible relationships that suggest the presence of multicollinearity, measurement error, or misspecification. Lott then misrepresents his results by claiming falsely that statistical methods can distinguish in a quasi-experimental way the impact of gun laws from the impact of other social, economic, and cultural forces (ibid.: 26, 34–35; Guterl 1996). Had Lott extended his study to the 1930s, the correlation between gun laws and declining homicide rates that dominates his statistical analysis would have disappeared. An unbiased study would include some consideration of alternative explanations and an acknowledgment of the explanatory limits of statistical methods.

Associations Between Gun Laws and Suicides

2019 ◽  
Vol 188 (7) ◽  
pp. 1254-1261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Ghiani ◽  
Summer Sherburne Hawkins ◽  
Christopher F Baum
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
White Women ◽  
Negative Binomial ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gun Control ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
Gun Laws ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
The Impact

Abstract We examined the impact of a state gun law environment on suicides overall and within demographic subgroups. We linked 211,766 firearm suicides and 204,625 nonfirearm suicides in the 50 states of the United States for 2005–2015 to the population in each state, year, race/ethnicity, sex, and age, as well as to an index of state-level gun control. Difference-in-differences, zero-inflated, negative-binomial models were used to evaluate the impact of strengthening gun control on firearm and nonfirearm suicides. We subsequently stratified by sex and tested for interactions with race/ethnicity and age. We found 25 states strengthened gun control by an average of 6 points. Such an increase may result in a 3.3% (incidence rate ratio = 0.967; 95% confidence interval: 0.938, 0.996) decrease in firearm suicides. Although no impact on nonfirearm suicides was found overall, interaction models showed an increase in nonfirearm suicides among black men, white women, black women, and older individuals. Strengthening gun control may reduce firearm suicides overall but may increase nonfirearm suicides in some populations. The results indicate stricter gun laws should be advocated for and that additional policies are needed for populations who shifted to nonfirearm suicides.

scholarly journals Using multiple imputation to classify potential outcomes subgroups

2021 ◽  
pp. 096228022110028
Author(s):  
Yun Li ◽  
Irina Bondarenko ◽  
Michael R Elliott ◽  
Timothy P Hofer ◽  
Jeremy MG Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Imputation ◽  
Statistical Methods ◽  
The United States ◽  
Treatment Selection ◽  
Potential Outcomes ◽  
Model Framework ◽  
Medical Tests ◽  
Gene Assay ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Test Result

With medical tests becoming increasingly available, concerns about over-testing, over-treatment and health care cost dramatically increase. Hence, it is important to understand the influence of testing on treatment selection in general practice. Most statistical methods focus on average effects of testing on treatment decisions. However, this may be ill-advised, particularly for patient subgroups that tend not to benefit from such tests. Furthermore, missing data are common, representing large and often unaddressed threats to the validity of most statistical methods. Finally, it is often desirable to conduct analyses that can be interpreted causally. Using the Rubin Causal Model framework, we propose to classify patients into four potential outcomes subgroups, defined by whether or not a patient’s treatment selection is changed by the test result and by the direction of how the test result changes treatment selection. This subgroup classification naturally captures the differential influence of medical testing on treatment selections for different patients, which can suggest targets to improve the utilization of medical tests. We can then examine patient characteristics associated with patient potential outcomes subgroup memberships. We used multiple imputation methods to simultaneously impute the missing potential outcomes as well as regular missing values. This approach can also provide estimates of many traditional causal quantities of interest. We find that explicitly incorporating causal inference assumptions into the multiple imputation process can improve the precision for some causal estimates of interest. We also find that bias can occur when the potential outcomes conditional independence assumption is violated; sensitivity analyses are proposed to assess the impact of this violation. We applied the proposed methods to examine the influence of 21-gene assay, the most commonly used genomic test in the United States, on chemotherapy selection among breast cancer patients.

scholarly journals COVID-19 In United States: Statistical Analysis and Inferences From the Empirical Data

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nivedita Rethnakar
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Statistical Inference ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Respiratory Diseases ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mortality Statistics ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
The Impact

Abstract This paper investigates the mortality statistics of the COVID-19 pandemic from the United States perspective. Using empirical data analysis and statistical inference tools, we bring out several exciting and important aspects of the pandemic, otherwise hidden. Specific patterns seen in demo- graphics such as race/ethnicity and age are discussed both qualitatively and quantitatively. We also study the role played by factors such as population density. Connections between COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases are also covered in detail. The temporal dynamics of the COVID-19 outbreak and the impact of vaccines in controlling the pandemic are also looked at with suf- ficient rigor. It is hoped that statistical inference such as the ones gathered in this paper would be helpful for better scientific understanding, policy prepa- ration and thus adequately preparing, should a similar situation arise in the future.

scholarly journals A call for comparative thinking: Crime, citizenship and security in the global South

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa Barolsky ◽  
Suren Pillay
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Violent Crime ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Democratic Transitions ◽  
The World ◽  
Resource Poor ◽  
International Comparative ◽  
The Impact

This article argues for the importance of an international comparative perspective in terms of our analysis and response to violent crime. This is particularly important in the light of the fact that while an increasing number of countries in the global Southhave achieved formal democracy, they continue to be plagued by high levels of violent crime. In fact, transitions from authoritarian to democratic governance around the world, from Eastern Europe to Latin America and Africa, have been accompanied by escalating violent crime rates. In this context, we have much to learn from an international comparative approach in terms of understanding why democratic transitions are so often accompanied by increases in violence, what the impact of this violence is on the ability of these societies to deepen democracy, and what the most appropriate interventions are in relatively new and often resource poor democracies.

Club convergence of crime rates in the United States of America

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kolawole Ogundari
Keyword(s):  
Violent Crime ◽  
Property Crime ◽  
The United States ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Community Level ◽  
Club Convergence ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Convergence Club ◽  
Over Time

Purpose The cyclical behavior of US crime rates reflects the dynamics of crime in the country. This paper aims to investigate the US's club convergence of crime rates to provide insights into whether the crime rates increased or decreased over time. The paper also analyzes the factors influencing the probability of states converging to a particular convergence club of crime. Design/methodology/approach The analysis is based on balanced panel data from all 50 states and the district of Columbia on violent and property crime rates covering 1976–2019. This yields a cross-state panel of 2,244 observations with 55 time periods and 51 groups. In addition, the author used a club clustering procedure to investigate the convergence hypothesis in the study. Findings The empirical results support population convergence of violent crime rates. However, the evidence that supports population convergence of property crime rates in the study is not found. Further analysis using the club clustering procedure shows that property crime rates converge into three clubs. The existence of club convergence in property crime rates means that the variation in the property crime rates tends to narrow among the states within each of the clubs identified in the study. Analysis based on an ordered probit model identifies economic, geographic and human capital factors that significantly drive the state's convergence club membership. Practical implications The central policy insight from these results is that crime rates grow slowly over time, as evident by the convergence of violent crime and club convergence of property crime in the study. Moreover, the existence of club convergence of property crime is an indication that policies to mitigate property crime might need to target states within each club. This includes the efforts to use state rather than national crime-fighting policies. Social implications As crimes are committed at the local level, this study's primary limitation is the lack of community-level data on crime and other factors considered. Analysis based on community-level data might provide a better representation of crime dynamics. However, the author hopes to consider this as less aggregated data are available to use in future research. Originality/value The paper provides new insights into the convergence of crime rates using the club convergence procedure in the USA. This is considered an improvement to the methods used in the previous studies.

Abstract 076: Longitudinal Trajectories And Predictors Of County-level Cardiovascular Mortality In The United States (1980-2014)

Circulation ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 143 (Suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shreya Rao ◽  
Amy E Hughes ◽  
Colby Ayers ◽  
Sandeep R Das ◽  
Ethan A Halm ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Violent Crime ◽  
High Mortality ◽  
Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽  
The United States ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Social Characteristics ◽  
Mortality Data ◽  
County Level ◽  
Obesity And Diabetes ◽  
Health Factors

Introduction: CV mortality has declined over 4 decades in the U.S. However, whether declines have been uniformly experienced across U.S. counties, and predictors of CV mortality trajectory are not known. Methods: County-level mortality data from 1980-2014 was obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics. We used a ClustMix approach to identify 3 distinct county phenogroups based on mortality trajectory. Adjusted multinomial logistic regression models were constructed to evaluate the associations between county-level characteristics (demographic, social, and health status) and CV mortality trajectory-based phenogroups. Results: Among 3,133 counties, there were parallel declines in CV mortality in all groups (Fig.1A). High-mortality counties were located in the South and parts of the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys (Fig. 1B). County phenogroups varied significantly in social characteristics such as non-white proportion (low vs. high mortality: 12% vs. 27%), high-school education (11% vs. 20%), and violent crime rates (.01 vs. 0.3/100 population). Disparities in health factors were also observed with higher rates of smoking, obesity, and diabetes in the high (vs. low) mortality groups. A substantial collinearity was observed between social and health factors. In adjusted analysis, social, environmental, and health characteristics explained 56% variance in the county-level CV mortality trajectory. Education status (OR [95% CI]=12.4 [9.4-16.3]), violent crime rates (OR [95% CI] =1.6 [1.3-1.9]), and smoking (OR [95% CI] = 3.9 [3.1- 4.9]) were the strongest predictors of high mortality trajectory phenogroup membership (ref: low mortality). Conclusions: Despite a decline in CV mortality, disparities at the county-level have persisted over the past 4 decades largely driven by differences in social characteristics and smoking prevalence. This highlights the need for multi-domain interventions focusing on safety, education and public health to improve county-level disparities in CV health.

Public Opinion, Political Parties, and Guns

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Cook ◽  
Kristin A. Goss
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gun Control ◽  
Gun Laws

Do Americans Want Stricter Gun Laws? Public opinion experts have long observed that the United States has a gun control paradox: Most Americans favor all sorts of firearms regulations—sometimes overwhelmingly so—yet these regulations are not enacted into law. Four decades ago, one scholar noted...

Sharing the Monopoly on Violence? Shall-Issue Concealed Handgun License Laws and Responsibilization

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (6) ◽  
pp. 929-947 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trent Steidley
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Event History ◽  
Collective Security ◽  
Capita Spending ◽  
Gun Laws ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Licensing Laws

Although research has examined if concealed handgun licensing laws may affect crime rates by enabling gun carry in public, the determinants of these policies have received less attention. Drawing on the thesis of the new criminologies of everyday life and the more recent conceptualization of sovereign subjects, this study posits that the expansion of shall-issue concealed handgun laws in the United States is a product of low-collective security in states. Understanding that shall-issue laws reflect state efforts to responsibilize firearm carrying, shall-issue laws are more likely to become state policy when a state has lower rates of police officers and lower per capita spending on police and corrections. Results from discrete-time, event history analyses indicate that shall-issue laws are, indeed, related to reduced capacities to provide collective security, independent of competing political and social correlates. This understanding of why states adopt such gun laws appears to be unique to shall-issue laws and has little explanatory power for newer unrestricted concealed handgun laws.

Growing Incomes, Shrinking People—Can Economic Development Be Hazardous to Your Health?

2004 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-270
Author(s):  
Michael R. Haines
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
The United States ◽  
Real Income ◽  
Food Prices ◽  
Similar Process ◽  
Human Organism ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
The Impact

This article examines declining adult human stature in the nineteenth century in three countries: the United States, England, and the Netherlands. While this was not unprecedented, these three relatively important nations did experience a deterioration in the biological standard of living at a time when economic development was proceeding at a goodly pace. England and the Netherlands were among the most urbanized countries in Europe at the time, while the United States was still predominantly rural and agrarian. The essay argues that a confluence of circumstances contributed to the worsening of the physical condition of these populations even while real income per capita was growing. Among the factors involved were rapid urbanization without adequate public health and sanitation; a transport revolution and related commercialization, which brought people and goods into much closer contact; the consequent integration of disease environments, both within and across nations; and a growing dependence of the working populations on wage income along with a probable growing inequality in wealth and income, exacerbating the impact of fluctuations in food prices. Technological change had an impact on these events by lowering the relative prices of industrial goods. While the term Malthusian crisis (i.e., a shortage of subsistence followed by a rise in mortality) seems inappropriate in these cases, a similar process may have been taking place. It suggests that such a crisis may not commence with an increase in mortality but rather with an adjustment of the human organism to new nutritional circumstances.

scholarly journals Contribution to cultural-geographical research: Possible evaluations of cultural aspects by statistical methods

Geografie ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 110 (4) ◽  
pp. 300-314
Author(s):  
Silvie Kuldová
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Statistical Methods ◽  
Regional Identity ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Geographical Research ◽  
Hard Data ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
The Impact ◽  
One Way Anova ◽  
Statistical Analysis Methods

The aim of this article is to show that an evaluation of cultural aspects does not always mean an operation with "soft", non-quantifiable data. It is possible to refer to cultural variety of regions also with the help of numeric indicators, so-called "hard" data. As an example, differences between the Czech borderland and inland are studied in this article. The used characteristics are the percentage of native persons and number of municipality parts per municipality. Dissimilarity ratio of these indicators in space is evaluated by statistical analysis methods: independent-samples T test, one-way ANOVA, chi-square tests. Component analysis outputs help to complete the findings. Statistically significant differences between the identity of the Czech borderland and inland were proved. The impact of the former Czech-German linguistic boundary on the degree of regional identity of the inhabitants is still sensible.

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