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Post by MO on Jun 6, 2004 14:26:16 GMT -5
According to your own logic, it could just be that Canada would have lower crime rates regardless of ccw.
Or we could tell the truth and say that different countries collect their data in different ways.
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Post by rush22 on Jun 6, 2004 14:39:48 GMT -5
Who cares how they collect the data. What my point is, is that it is stupid to use that crime rate/ccw stat to make any point, because crime is influenced by other factors. If all states had ccw, or no ccw, the crime rates would still all be different right? Therefore, you cannot extrapolate the conclusion that ccw = lower crime. It might be true, but it is an error to come to that conclusion based on those statistics. Furthermore, other statistics show that when the ccw variable is changed, crime rates change. Therefore crime is linked to ccw. So to scientifically study this you have to only change one variable. Doing so results in the conclusion that if you restrict ccw laws, crime rates fall.
The way your interpreting it is incorrect, because you are not changing only one variable, you are changing a multitude of different variables such as population, average income, geography, density, etc. and therefore cannot come to any conclusion, as the scientific process is flawed.
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Post by scummybear on Jun 6, 2004 16:30:08 GMT -5
This has the stats from the FBI. "According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports, from 1996 to 1997 the nation’s overall crime rate dropped 3.2%, from 5086.6 to 4922.7 crimes per 100,000 population. More telling, crime fell faster in states that have strict carrying concealed weapons (CCW) laws or that don’t allow the carrying of concealed weapons at all than in states which have lax CCW laws. This strongly suggests that, contrary to the arguments made by the National Rifle Association and others, states should not make it easier for citizens to carry concealed weapons in order to reduce crime""In the 29 states that have lax CCW laws (where law enforcement must issue CCW licenses to almost all applicants), the crime rate fell 2.1%, from 5397.0 to 5285.1 crimes per 100,000 population from 1996 to 1997.
During the same time period, in the 21 states and the District of Columbia withstrict carry laws or which don’t allow the carrying of concealed weapons at all, the crime rate fell 4.4%, from 4810.5 to 4599.9 crimes per 100,000 population. The decline in the crime rate of strict licensing and no-carry states was 2.1 times that of states with lax CCW systems, indicating that there are more effective ways to fight crime than to encourage more people to carry guns. "www.texansforgunsafety.org/articles/archives/statsrefute.htmIt appears to me, that crime rates fell regardless (considering that the article seems to refer to states with "stricter"CCW laws). Still looks like info compiled by the anti-gun lobby. Who is encouraging people to carry guns? I agree that there are safe ways to fight crime anywhere. I just believe, as indicated by the numbers that I've seen, that crime is lower in the areas that have CCW permits; strict or not. I apprecitate the info, I just think mine is more reliable.  |
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Post by rush22 on Jun 6, 2004 17:11:58 GMT -5
Now that I think about it, those stats I gave don't conclusively say anything about ccw as crime prevention either. The only way to tell statistically if ccw has a positive or negative effect on crime is to reference a state that has changed the law (not just always been this way) and see if the curve of the crime rate changes significantly.
Anyway, you can make the statistic you cited and the one I did out of anything, it's basically meaningless because it has multiple variables.
It only suggests they might be linked (and that's obvious in the first place), and both show different interpretations of the same data.
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Post by MO on Jun 6, 2004 20:13:34 GMT -5
You know what? I wouldn't give a fig if you could prove conclusively that there was MORE crime in ccw states, I would still support it. The crime rate has no bearing on my constitutional right to defend myself. I don't want to be at the mercy of an attacker in a low crime area any more than I want to be defenseless in a high crime area.
From what I have read, ccw does prevent quite a bit of crime, and more importantly, those with permits are very seldom the perps of crime.
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Post by rush22 on Jun 7, 2004 1:19:34 GMT -5
Well, at least you have your priorities straight, and you're not justifying it based on stats.
Possible. You shouldn't use bad interpretations of stats to support your ideals. As long as you have the facts straight, then you can deal with it in terms of politics, and think for yourself clearly about what you want or don't want.
If you haven't noticed already, that's my main beef. I'm not even here to discuss politics really, I just want people to know what's what and make their own decisions based on that, and not rely on misinterpreted or false information.
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Post by scummybear on Jun 7, 2004 8:58:19 GMT -5
Possible. You shouldn't use bad interpretations of stats to support your ideals. As long as you have the facts straight, then you can deal with it in terms of politics, and think for yourself clearly about what you want or don't want. If you haven't noticed already, that's my main beef. I'm not even here to discuss politics really, I just want people to know what's what and make their own decisions based on that, and not rely on misinterpreted or false information. Let's define facts. Are facts all of the sudden your interpretation of statistics and information? A case could very easily be made about your interpretations being a very transparent attempt to impose illogical liberal theories over the truth. No matter how many articles, links, etc. . . that we post, you come back and attempt to trump it with tenuous and questionable info, made worse by your interpretation of it. And then have the gall to say that we've "misinterpreted" data. So, your here to tell us what's what, and your not here to discuss politics? What makes you think anyone on a conservative board is going to make decisions about their core beliefs based on what a liberal thinks? It is disingenuous for you to come here, rush, and say that your not here to discuss politics. If your just here to police the content of information, you might try getting a job as John Kerry's speech writer. |
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Post by MO on Jun 7, 2004 11:05:59 GMT -5
I didn't post any stats.
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Post by rush22 on Jun 7, 2004 16:12:48 GMT -5
I meant it generally. If you're looking for clear, unequivocal information, you can't use stats like the ones I or scummybear posted as proof ccw affects crime rates. The stats suggest things which still might be true, but there is a huge margin of error to deal with. They're sort of 'after the fact' stats. I still haven't seen any statistical proof that ccw affects crime rates in a positive or negative way. It is intuitively obvious they're linked, and the stats I gave show that it is likely they're linked, but don't misinterpret "proof ccw is likely linked to crime rates" as "proof ccw affects crime rates positively/negatively." Scummybear's stats didn't really show anything imho  . All those did was show that you can put two variables beside each other. It's like if I said "Canada only has 20,000 guns and the US has 2 million guns, what a bunch of gun-crazies, they have 100 times the guns." It's totally stupid to conclude that, because, in this case, it's not per capita. In scummybear's stats it has left out population, income, density and all those others things which affect crime rates, and so using those stats as proof only proves the writer doesn't know how to use statistics. "The crime rate" is very complicated. A good stat, imho, would be to compare death by firearms per capita per state, and then compare that number to ccw. Then you find out if people in ccw states kill more often with guns, and that can tell you if ccw encourages more violence....... but then you can always argue that there is more violence because the crime rate is already high. See how complicated it is? |
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Post by rush22 on Jun 7, 2004 16:28:08 GMT -5
Scummybear, neither you nor I are statisticians. But, I, being someone who was at the top of my class in courses of calculus, computer programming, physics, finite math, and algebra, I can recognize when variables are missing. The interpretation of that stat (and mine, though somewhat less) is flawed because crime rate is not solely affected by ccw laws. Surely that is obvious, and hopefully you can see how your comparison could be completely wrong.
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Post by rush22 on Jun 7, 2004 16:30:55 GMT -5
It's hard to discuss politics when people keep posting stuff that doesn't make sense. I wouldn't mind discussing politics if any of you actually want to do that instead of posting what amounts to self-propaganda.
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Post by scummybear on Jun 8, 2004 9:24:41 GMT -5
You can be proficient in all of the sciences, and still be a rambling idiot. Besides, what makes you think that what you post makes anymore sense than what I, or MO or anyone else posts. I am especially referring to some of the information that is provided.
It sounds like your full of yourself.
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Post by scummybear on Jun 8, 2004 11:46:53 GMT -5
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Post by rush22 on Jun 10, 2004 2:25:26 GMT -5
All I'm saying is that, so far, all evidence I've seen concerning gun control is inconclusive; your stats comparing crime rate of individual states and ccw laws especially. You'd think if there were actually hard facts to back it up, and considering the NRA lobbying, there wouldn't be so much difficulty getting gun control laws repealed. The fact is, noone can yet say without a doubt what effects ccw laws have. The only thing you can do is weigh your arguments. I'll weigh mine, you weigh yours. I wanted to point out stats like yours can be misleading, and why they can be misleading, but apparently you don't care about that.
So, I'm going to take a whole lot of my time to come up with the most ridiculous statistic and present it to you in exactly the same way. For example, something like rates of forest fires are higher in states with seatbelt laws.
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. All those did was show that you can put two variables beside each other. It's like if I said "Canada only has 20,000 guns and the US has 2 million guns, what a bunch of gun-crazies, they have 100 times the guns." It's totally stupid to conclude that, because, in this case, it's not per capita. In scummybear's stats it has left out population, income, density and all those others things which affect crime rates, and so using those stats as proof only proves the writer doesn't know how to use statistics.