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One of the oft qouted themes from this study is, "A gun in the home is twelve times (reduced from 43 times in the original Kellerman study) more likely to result in the death of a household member or visitor than an intruder."
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This is one of the perfect examples of (possibly accurate) data being used to support a flawed conclusion. It presents the claim of a ratio of data, WITHOUT providing the data, and then a conclusion, again, without any data to determine the reliability or real world applicability of the conclusion!
What is the likelyhood of death of a "household member or visitor" when there is no gun present? And, under what situation?
Ok, lets assume the situation is a home invasion. Now, what is the actual number of % likelyhood of "death of household member..etc.."? Is it 1% of the time? 12% of the time? .005% of the time? WHAT IS THE NUMBER??!!!
Because without that number, likelyhood of death when no gun is present, simply stating that it is 12 (or 43, or whatever) times higher when a gun is present means absolutely NOTHING other than a statement of the ratio of the numbers.
Lets say it is 12% (with no gun in the home), just for the sake of argument. Then, since the rate when a gun is in the home is 12 times higher, then the actual number would be 144% chance of death to a household....
Clearly, since 100% is certainty, if the 144% number were real, then EVERY home with a gun in it would have a death in the given situation. Patently false.
Now, suppose the number is .005% when there is no gun in the house. 12 times that would be .060%. They would technically be telling the truth, .060 is 12 times more likely than .005, BUT what is the real world risk? Raising the odds of a death from nearly zero to just over one half of one percent likelyhood doesn't seem like a large increase in my risk, in practical terms.
The CDC has a long history of supporting the idea that gun violence is a
disease. I don't accept that conclusion. One might, mentally stretch the language to consider gun violence in society as a symptom of something, but as a disease? really?
How is it that someone(s) with all the education it takes to become a DR, cannot be intellectually honest enough with themselves, let alone others, to so seriously misuse the definitions in their own field of expertise?
I can't tell you how, but I can give you a pretty good guess as to why.
MONEY
Money, power and influence. That's what they get from saying gun violence is a disease. How can you expect them to be honest and truthful when they stand to gain so much from reporting biased conclusions? They can even claim to be honest in their research, reporting what the data says, technically honestly, and still issue biased conclusions, as my example above clearly shows. After all, its not like they are
lying about what the data shows, now is it???