From: booth@mdd.comm.mot.com (Greg Booth)
Subject: Re: Effectiveness of gun control
Organization: Motorola - Mobile Data Division; Richmond, BC
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 23:17:27 GMT

In <1992Dec23.190031.24169@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:

>From Vol. 325 No. 23 of the New England Journal of Medicine:

>"Effects of REstrictive Licensing of Handguns on Homicide and Suicide in
>	the District of Columbia"

>Abstract

>Background

>Whether restricting access to handguns will reduce firearm-related homicides
>and suicides is currently a matter of intense debate.  In 1976 the District
>of Columbia adopted a law that banned the purchase, sale, transfer or
>possession of handguns by civilians.  We evaluated the effect of implementing
>this law on the frequency of homicides and suicides.

>Methods

>Homicides and suicides committed from 1968 through 1987 were classified 
>according to place of occurrence (within the District of Columbia or in
>adjacent metropolitan areas where the law did not apply), cause
>(homicide or suicide), mechanism of death (firearms or other means), 
>and time of occurrence (before or after the implementation of the law).
>The number of suicides and homicides was calculated for each month
>during the study period, and the differences between the mean monthly
>totals before and after the law went into effect were estimated.

MONTHLY TOTALS!?!? OVER A 19 YEAR PERIOD!?!?

Show me the rates per 100,000 per month. Show me the population
totals on a monthly basis.

>Results

>In Washington, D.C., the adoption of the gun-licensing law coincided
>with an abrupt decline in homicides by firearms ( a reduction of 3.3
>per month, or 25%) and suicides by firearms (reduction, 0.6 per month,
>or 23%).  No similar reductions were observed in the number of homicides
>or suicides committed by other means, nor were there similar
>reductions in the adjacent metropolitan areas in Maryland and
>Virginia.  There were also no increases in homicides or suicides by other
>methods, as would be expected in equally lethal means were substituted 
>for handguns.

Were there increases in suicides per 100,000 pop. per month? Were there
increases in homicides per 100,000 pop. per month? Were there
increases in suicides by other methods per 100,000 per month?

>[The body of the study contains many graphs and tables documenting the
> claims above.  It also discusses why the intuitive idea that gun
> availability through the black market would render controls useless
> does not actually pan out.]

This study ignores the huge drop in population of Washington DC over
that period. (If you drop the population in half, but the total
murders only drops by 25%, you have an increase in the rate by 50%)

This also ignores the actual rates in neighbouring cities, it
only looks at changes in totals per month (it sounds like).
Does Virginia Beach (is that the name?) has similar population,
looser gun laws, and 1/7th the homicide rate. Virginia Beach is
across a bridge from Washington DC.

(Frank Ney, do I have my city names right?)


This so called study is a piece of garbage because of its non-scientific
and misleading methods. This study is one of the few pro gun banning
studies more dishonest than the Vancouver-Seattle study.


-- 
Greg Booth BSc                    |     /_____________________________
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Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns