Baltimore Shooting
Frank emails me a link to this piece on the psychopath who decided to kill his family. Obviously, a discussion of gun laws ensues:
Greg Shipley, a state police spokesman, said Maryland law requires handguns to be secured and stored out of the reach of a child under the age of 16. Failure to keep firearms away from children is a misdemeanor and subject to a fine up to $1,000, he said.
Didn’t work, did it?
Daniel Webster, an associate professor and co-director at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy, said Maryland has one of the better-crafted gun laws.
He said about 20 states have laws that require owners of firearms to lock up their guns.
Webster said these type of laws for firearms owners have reduced unintentional shootings throughout the country by about 23 percent. Little data exists, however, on whether locking up guns reduces deliberate shootings, Webster said.
Both of those statistics sound made up. I make it a habit of knowing the source of most gun stats and have never heard either of those. I even perused the Brady’s score card and can’t find 20 states that require weapons to be locked up.
And the Baltimore Sun’s bias is showing. Compare:
Gun rights advocates such as Erich Pratt of Gun Owners of America said yesterday that the lobby group opposes most restrictions on handguns inside the home. He added that keeping a gun locked away and secured by a trigger lock would hobble a law-abiding homeowner with only seconds to respond to an intruder.
To:
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign, the nation’s largest nonpartisan grass-roots organization against gun violence, said that a gun is 22 times more likely to be used against a family member than to ward off an outsider.
We’re the gun lobby. They’re grass roots. And that statistic sounds made up too. I think the debunked Kellermann study but the number at 43 times. Are there new Joyce Foundation funded studies I don’t know about?
Update: I suspected a Joyce Foundation link with Webster. PGP says there is one.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I think I’ll wait to decide whether or not he is a psychopath. Hours in interrogation with cops who have made up their minds has caused false confessions from grown-ups. I think I would want to see more evidence.
February 5th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Unintentional shootings are down over the last several years which coincides with when the Maryland and similar laws went effect. It also coincides with increased safety training. To argue the law caused the decline is foolish.
February 5th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Growing up in Maine, many of the houses in the Rural areas had a gun cabnet right in the living room. Glass door up top, drawer with ammo down bottom. No locks, and no “Safe Storage laws” required. Also almost no gun crime to speak of, and most of the gun “accedents” involved hunters not following the common rules of safty.
Now living in mass, before I tuck my .45 in the night stand I have to secure it with a trigger lock….and note that while its one of the fastest means to get my gun to the ready (legally of course) its also a pure-and-simple violation of rule #3.
Also they can be removed with ice pick or small screw driver with minimal effort
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/13/the-lockdown-gun-locks-unsafe-at-any-caliber/
February 5th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Greg Shipley is the MSP spokesperson who got on TV here in Baltimore and insisted that they weren’t saying I was “bringing the threats from drug dealers upon myself” (by being a good citizen). Take what he says with that boulder of salt you take with everything spokespeople says.
February 5th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Oh, and I’ve exposed this Webster fellow for exactly who he gets his marching orders from before.
February 5th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
The “22 times as likely” figure is from another, later study, also by Kellerman (“Inquiries and Death Due to Firearms in the Home,” Journal of Trauma, Injury, Infection and Critical Care,” Vol.45, no.2, 1998). Evidently, Kellerman’s 1986 study had been discredited so thoroughly that he had to produce a new one. This one, like pretty much all Kellerman’s work post-1986, has been insulated from criticism by the simple expedient of not publishing the research data.
February 5th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
“About 20” states? WTF does that mean? It’s either 20 or its not. Unless they are counting D.C. which requires you to disassemble your gun, lock it in a box, bury the box in concrete, and throw it into the potomac.
BTW, 83% of all statistics are just made up.
February 5th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
actually, 83.4% are made up. statistics show that 79.9% of people are more likely to believe made up statistics when they’re given to one decimal place.