I was just pointed to a Sci-Show I missed when I was out of town last year:
First up I’ll note that Hank’s drank the “Climate Change” Kool-Aid (or whatever name the Cult is calling it now), so he’s shown to be swayed by junk science outside of his comfort zone.
That being said he leads with the studies on the AWB and Concealed carry that show inconclusive results.
If you’re an Authoritarian, “Inconclusive” means the government should keep that power.
If You’re a “Progressive” then an “Inconclusive” law is progress and should be embraced!
If you’re a Conservative then an “Inconclusive” law was a mistake and should be repealed
If you’re a libertarian then even CONCLUSIVE laws with a low impact on society should be repealed!
I think Hank leans towards the top two, while I lean well towards the bottom. Honestly we’re talking opinion on all of those. I don’t agree with him, but at this juncture I’m man enough to admit we can BOTH be wrong.
Then he gets roped hard. He essentially cites the Branas study, and a Joyce extension of Kellerman, both we recently discussed here. These studies were intentionally misleading by conflating lawful gun owners with criminals in illegal possession of guns engaging in criminal acts.
I certainly suspect that Hank leans to the authoritarian and “progressive”, but overall I think he was simply mislead by the creative writings by the cult of anti-rights.
If you think he was mislead have you considered writing to him and trying to sway him?
There’s some pretty basic statistics with regard to CCW and rifles that should be compelling if he’s got anything even close to an open mind.
There are 6,000+ comments. Several of them hit on that.
Also Youtube people can see when their videos are linked (I’ve had some great youtube authors follow me here), so maybe he’ll come over and have a read.
There’s also that you’re a scientist.
Which automatically confers expert status on any subject!
Amazingly, as a scientist I AM an expert on EVERYTHING! Just ask my wife! *Snicker*
Speaking of science there’s also this recent study.
http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2013/Priorities-for-Research-to-Reduce-the-Threat-of-Firearm-Related-Violence.aspx
that Sebastian linked http://www.pagunblog.com/2013/08/22/the-science-is-in/
“”
The study, which was farmed out by the CDC to the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, also revealed that while there were “about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008,” the estimated number of defensive uses of guns ranges “from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year.”
“”
My $0.02:
First gun violence… a scientist or any researcher tried to use language that is both accurate and quantifiable. “Gun Violence” is a bullshit term.
The use of the statistical term x times more likely is meaningless until you say what the
base likelihood is. For example getting hit by lightening is pretty remote though it happens, its some number more likely if your under a tree. If we leave out how frequency an even is statistically we have no clue of 5x more likely is serious or or still unlikely. Statistics are often misquoted and even more rarely understood what they mean.
So quoting stats without a basis is not science or anything but junk.
Eck!
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that “gun violence” is related to the availability of guns. But your not much of a critical thinker if you stop there and don’t ask the pertinent questions: is all gun violence bad? Is the availability of guns related to defense with guns (uh, yeah)? How does it relate to violence as a whole, since we care when someone dies by other means? Etc…