Gun violence blamed on . . .
Wait, not guns this time? Really:
Reducing gun violence by addressing heavy drinking and off-premise alcohol outlets
* New research has found that heavy drinking and being near off-premise alcohol outlets, such as take-out establishments and delis, can increase the risk of gun violence.
* Reducing the density of off-premise alcohol outlets, and better training of servers in these outlets, may help to reduce gun violence.While inappropriate gun use certainly contributes to gun violence, other contributing factors, such as alcohol, deserve greater scrutiny. New research has found that heavy drinking near off-premise alcohol outlets, such as take-out establishments and delis, is a risk factor for being shot in an assault. The authors suggest that reducing the density of off-premise alcohol outlets and better training servers in these outlets may help to reduce gun violence.
So, shift the blame from one totem to another. I guess this could be used to make the case that carrying in restaurants that serve alcohol is preferable?
And: “Strategies to reduce gun violence often focus on the guns themselves,” said Charles C. Branas, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania and corresponding author for the study. “While most Americans agree that gun violence is something we need to reduce, there is less certainty as to how we should intervene while striking a balance between gun owners’ rights and public safety.”
March 11th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Charles C. Branas:
“While most Americans agree that gun violence is something we need to reduce, there is less certainty as to how we should intervene while striking a balance between gun owners’ rights and public safety.”
It doesn’t seem to me that _certainty_ is lacking: most of us are _very_ certain “they” should leave us and our guns alone. And do something about the criminals. The uncertainty seems to be on the gun grabber side: they’re not certain how to get away with taking my guns. That it is not possible to do so without bloodshed doesn’t seem to sink in.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:08 am
So, shift the blame from one totem to another.
At least alcohol has been proven to alter behavior by reducing or removing inhibitions. That is something a gun has never been proven to do.
March 11th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Madrocketscientist, your absolutely right.
March 11th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
One problem is professional busybodies being paid to devise social experiments to be forced onto unwilling participants via government. It’s like living in a mad scientist’s test tube. Not surprisingly, there’s no respect for those who are the objects of all this excessive attention and manipulation, and they rightly tend to resent the process. Should we ban this or should we ban that? Ban yer mutha, and get yer paws off of me, you damned dirty apes!
March 11th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
This is a reiteration of the type of study performed by Kellerman et al., wherein statistical methods are used to correlate one thing (gunshot victims) with other things. For Kellerman, having a gun in one’s domicile was #7 on a list of correlations to getting shot. Renting, rather than owning a home, was near or at the top of the list, illustrating to most rational people once again that correlation is not causation. But gun ownership was acclaimed as the cause of getting shot, by a factor of 43x, as I recall.
This study finds that being near a take-out liquor store correlates with being shot. Did they also correlate the distance to the nearest police officer of those shot versus those not shot? That would likely also show a similar correlation. Because both corner hooch shops and lots of police working in the area are symptomatic that you are in a less than friendly environment.
An even stronger correlation for getting shot might be the distance to the homes of residents with violent prior felonies on their records. But that would require addressing the criminal rather than the law abiding.
March 11th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Clearly, we need a 3-day waiting period for pastrami. 🙂
At least they’re not blaming violent video games (yet) for all society’s ills like they are in the U.K.
(Apologies if this gets double-posted)
March 11th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
This is simply another study that I would bet was funded by grant money with the conclusion drawn prior and the focus was to produce a study that supported the foregone conclusion.
March 16th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Instead of everyone getting all upset over the weakness of the correlation/causation factor of this study with regard to liquor stores, look instead at the finding that there is a very low correlation with shootings in bars and restaurants.
And then the next time someone complains about a bill to allow CCW in a bar or restaurant that serves alcohol, you can ram this down their throat.
March 17th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
I had one more thought about this. The study talks about the greater level of gun violence near off-premise outlets. So I thought about why, and it got me wondering if they controlled for armed robbery?
I mean, liquor stores and convenience stores get robbed all the time by gun-toting mutants and goblins, but bars and taverns, not so much.