So then I checked the facts. The FBI does not collect the types of facts that this post "reported." Maybe the ATF. Maybe some other governmental agencies. But not the FBI. In fact, I could not uncover actual studies that backed up the claims on this post. Since I dug for a while, I spent an hour or so on this. But the bottom line is, if there is no academic study or nonpartisan organization attached to your stats, 99% of the time they're bogus. Just like that 99%. Bogus. Feels good to make up though.
Friday, December 21, 2012
Fact checking
Today on Facebook, I saw an image re-posted by a couple of old friends that was an image of a person shooting with a list of "statistics" about how rare it is that a gun is used in a violent crime. The statistics rang as completely false to me as I've been reading about these things lately. There were no proper citations, only "source: FBI and CATO institute" printed in one corner. Well, that isn't a citation. That's a fact that is asking to be checked. The other corner identified the source as "The Bastiat Institute." Now, that sounds official. So I checked it out. You can too, it's easy. Google it. The website looks pretty scholarly. The thing is, when you dig deeper the Bastiat Institute is two guys writing a blog. The guys are sort of low-level tea party wackos "politicians" people.
So then I checked the facts. The FBI does not collect the types of facts that this post "reported." Maybe the ATF. Maybe some other governmental agencies. But not the FBI. In fact, I could not uncover actual studies that backed up the claims on this post. Since I dug for a while, I spent an hour or so on this. But the bottom line is, if there is no academic study or nonpartisan organization attached to your stats, 99% of the time they're bogus. Just like that 99%. Bogus. Feels good to make up though.
So then I checked the facts. The FBI does not collect the types of facts that this post "reported." Maybe the ATF. Maybe some other governmental agencies. But not the FBI. In fact, I could not uncover actual studies that backed up the claims on this post. Since I dug for a while, I spent an hour or so on this. But the bottom line is, if there is no academic study or nonpartisan organization attached to your stats, 99% of the time they're bogus. Just like that 99%. Bogus. Feels good to make up though.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
real facts about guns
A few reasons to not believe anything John Lott says:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/Hemenway/book.html
Real science from the NIH that should persuade anyone who can understand an academic paper that guns don't belong in your home:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12764330
An excellent annotated bibliography:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/Hemenway/book.html
Real science from the NIH that should persuade anyone who can understand an academic paper that guns don't belong in your home:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12764330
An excellent annotated bibliography:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/
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