Update at bottom of page.
Harvard researcher Matthew Miller released a study on April 10 that ties higher suicide rates with higher rates of firearm ownership. Six days later the Washington Post's Shankar Vedantam printed a five-paragraph brief in the paper's "Science Notebook" that cribbed heavily from the Harvard School of Public Health press release. Yet nowhere in his story was the fact that a liberal anti-gun think tank gave $700,000 to finance the School's research.
No gun rights advocates or independent statisticians were quoted to critique the study's methodology or to question the political motivations that may have guided the study, although Vedantam had five days to round up critics of the study.
Another glaring omission in Vedantam's April 16 story: he failed to inform readers that the Harvard study was financed by the liberal Joyce Foundation.
A review of the Joyce Foundation's Web site makes clear it has an activist anti-gun ownership agenda.
For one thing, the foundation only gives grant monies to organizations it feels will help advance its liberal, anti-gun agenda. According to a "Common Question" page in its "gun violence" section:
We focus our grantmaking on initiatives that promise to have an influence on public policies. That includes advancing the public debate about important policy issues, most notably the need for federal consumer product health and safety standards for the firearm industry. We believe such policy initiatives can lead to broad, systemic changes that affect the most people over the long run.
Another anti-gun initiative the group has helped bankroll (with a $175,000 grant) is a conference of mayors "against illegal guns." Of course, many of those "illegal guns" are perfectly legal in the suburbs of major cities like Chicago, New York City, and Washington, D.C., all of which have strict handgun control laws, or outright bans on firearm ownership.
You can search for a full list of grants the Joyce Foundation has doled out to study "gun violence" here, including $700,000 to the Harvard School of Public Health.
UPDATE: Not all liberals are happy with groups like the Joyce Foundation, or in the liberal media that uncritically pass along anti-gun studies. A Web log called progunprogressive.com picked up my item, noting of NewsBusters, "I don’t buy everything on their site, but the case for the existence of a clear and definite media anti-gun bias is too solid to ignore." Take a look at their site when you get the chance.
—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters
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Man, if that $700,000 was a
April 16, 2007 - 11:29 ET by Dave in TexasMan, if that $700,000 was all for just that one report, then the Joyce Foundation got ripped off big time.
I went to the original page to try and get more details, but there weren't any. It just states that "individual state data on firearm ownership and suicides is available on request".
However, two statements in the report are very suspicious:
They controlled for measures of poverty, urbanization, unemployment, drug and alcohol dependence and abuse, and mental illness.
"Controlled"? Would that possibly involve limiting sample data to just certain areas or adjusting rates of gun ownership/suicide upward/downward?
In the 15 states with the highest levels of household gun ownership,
twice as many people committed suicide compared with the six states
with the lowest levels, even though the population in both groups was
about the same.
Okay, that leaves 29 states unaccounted for. Why didn't they just take the average rate of gun ownership for all states and compare that with the average rate of successful suicides? It seems like that would have been a more meaningful statistic.
"Controlled"? Wou
April 16, 2007 - 12:44 ET by Challenger Grim"Controlled"? Would that possibly involve limiting sample data to just certain areas or adjusting rates of gun ownership/suicide upward/downward?
Technically not Dave. See, in social sciences you HAVE to do what's called "control" for factors that can skew a result if it's not a factor you're searching for. It doesn't mean that you throw out stats resulting from those factors (the methods used to control for vary from study to study).
A very simple and common example: You're attempting to study crime rates. If you just look at the numbers from say... New York state compared to Montana, well of course NY is going to have higher raw numbers because they have a higher population. You have to CONTROL for the population difference. In this case, you have to make sure you try and control for factors which will lead to higher suicide in the first place so that you can determine whether gun ownership impacts suicide. The study might have other sloppiness in it, but that's not one.
Okay, that leaves 29 states unaccounted for. Why didn't they just take the average rate of gun ownership for all states and compare that with the average rate of successful suicides? It seems like that would have been a more meaningful statistic.
Hmmm... those numbers do seem a little odd. Considering that 15 is more than double 6, it would seem that 2x suicides occured in the former than the latter. Unless they are saying that the sum total population in those 6 states put together was equal to the 15 states put together. That does seem like a start, but not a good place to conclude. How do we know that one or two states don't have a much higher than the others within the 15? How does each state break down as a rate? Compared to the national average? Hmmm... more data is needed.
What I did today.
not surprising ...i'm sure th
April 16, 2007 - 12:19 ET by pmohbucknot surprising ...
i'm sure the anti-gun lobby will have a field day today, as 22 people in the college town where i live were killed today
had someone been able to carry a gun on campus (legally) ... maybe the nutjob could have been stopped earlier
When I heard about the shoo
April 16, 2007 - 15:03 ET by John in CAWhen I heard about the shootings and that they happened at VaTech, I asked myself if they allowed guns to be carried on campus. From Captain's Quarters I found the answer -
Predictably enough, the first question at the WH press conference was (again via CQ):
I'm waiting to hear if the shooter was a student/faculty, or an outsider.
Give a Democrat Party free America a chance!
Where I'm from, I hear stor
April 16, 2007 - 15:06 ET by Challenger GrimWhere I'm from, I hear stories all the time about the days of my father that EVERYONE had guns, rifles, etc - even put them in their cars when they went to school. Guns were EVERYWHERE.
And yet, they did not seem to have near the school shootings or problems of violence that we do today. What's been the latest pro-control spin on that?
What I did today.
i possess a concealed carry p
April 16, 2007 - 15:48 ET by pmohbucki possess a concealed carry permit ... i've had it since 1996 ... our local newspaper (roanoke times) decided to publish all the names of virginians w/ ccp ... nice
the sad thing is that, to me, it is plainly clear ... laws have no effect on lawbreakers ... people that want to kill will kill
I don't know how long since
April 16, 2007 - 15:56 ET by Challenger GrimI don't know how long since this has changed, but when I was minoring in criminology, one of my professors pointed out that the MOST common murder weapon was blunt, everyday objects. Not guns, knives, or weapons in general (though of course, they were numbers 2, 3, etc).
I have a bumper sticker that says: "If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?" Unfortunately I think the point is lost on most people: If someone wants to kill, they'll find a way. Heck you can make mustard gas out of household cleaning products. Imagine a kid hitting his school with that? (then what? cleaner is banned??)
What I did today.
"...our local newspape
April 16, 2007 - 15:56 ET by John in CA"...our local newspaper (roanoke times) decided to publish all the names of virginians w/ ccp"
Buck, heard about that on NRA Radio. Other papers have done/tried the same thing. I wonder if they would print a list of every home that had security alarm permits? What better way to let the bad guys know who doesn't have security.
Give a Democrat Party free America a chance!
That's because the media al
April 16, 2007 - 15:59 ET by Challenger GrimThat's because the media always falls under their own "designated hero".
From the link:
"Designated Hero (n): A character who we know the film regards as its ‘hero,’ even though he or she is not, in any objective sense, all that heroic. Designated Heroes usually get a ‘free from responsibility’ pass from the filmmakers, even when their actions result in mass deaths. Take, for example, Ally Sheedy’s reporter character in Man’s Best Friend. The movie ‘blames’ its generic Mad Scientist for the film’s mayhem. Yet it was the film’s ‘heroine’ who illegally broke into the guy’s lab and, in fact, loosed the killer dog upon the world. She then hides the dog at home, over the objections of her boyfriend, who is later horribly killed by it. Yet the film never explores (or even mentions) her culpability in the resultant carnage, pretty much just because she’s ‘the hero.’ This concept is most deeply explored in Douglas Milroy’s review of The Beast, which contains a bonus Designated Villain as well as a Designated Hero."
What I did today.
Sadly, libs will do/say anyth
April 16, 2007 - 12:57 ET by Subsailor599Sadly, libs will do/say anything to take guns from law abiding citizens and put them in the hands of criminals, because as we all know criminals are the real victims.
"Liberals love America like O.J. loved Nicole."-- Ann Coulter
High gun ownership rate = high suicide rate
April 16, 2007 - 15:24 ET by Edward Lunny"that ties higher suicide rates with higher rates of firearm ownership.".....This, of course, would explain the very low suicide rate in Japan when coupled with their very stringent firearms laws, right ? Hmmmmmm......not exactly, in fact, it's quite the opposite in Japan, where there is a high rate of suicide despite exceedingly stringent firearms restrictions.
As an aside.....this guy who
April 16, 2007 - 15:33 ET by bigtimerAs an aside.....this guy who I heard was Asian today who went on this Kamikaze mission today couldn't of just Kamikazied himself he had to take innocent people out with him.
The gun made him do it, it was the campus's fault, everybody but him.
Law-suit time....more gun laws if possible....I can just hear it now.
I pray for the innocent kids and people all involved in this...now let the media go mad, like they always do...and the politicians, that's a given...trial lawyers most likely already on the way.
I wished people wouuld have private burials...just my wish, not my decision, just a wish.
I pray for all the dead and the families.
Sorry world we are living in.