Yet another school shooting

[Lord Jim]

Morse could not say if he was a resident of the home or a suspect in the home invasion.

I'd be very interested in knowing the answer to that question, since the answer to that sort of defines the meaning of the story...

[Lord Jim]

Okay, I just found this update on the Sacto shooting:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —

Sacramento police are investigating a home invasion robbery on Haven Court that left one intruder dead and three others injured on Saturday.

The incident happened at 3:30 a.m. in the Pocket neighborhood.

Investigators said during the course of the robbery, gunfire was exchanged and total of four people were shot.

Police confirmed one man, who was an intruder, died at the scene; three others were transported to the hospital and are expected to be OK.

At this time, Sacramento police will not release the identity of the shooter or victims.

Several frantic parents showed up to the crime scene to find the street shut down for the investigation.

One man who did not want to be identified said his 12-year-old had spent the night at the house and was there when the shooting took place.

He was waiting to pick him up.

A woman came by to pick up a 1-year-old boy in the home.

She didn't want to give KCRA 3 her name but said the boy's dad was shot in the home, and taken to the hospital.

Police told KCRA 3 several children were inside the house when the home invasion happened.

It appears there may have been a slumber party or sleepover.

Read more: http://www.kcra.com/news/4-shot-in-dead ... z2FolCmGKv

Well this looks like a case where a horrible tragedy was averted because there was a firearm available in the home.

An armed intruder and a house full of kids. The only one dead is the scumbag.

[dales]

Lock and Load, Baby!

[MajGenl.Meade]

Now Dave look up the incidents where bystanders have been shot concealed carries.

You won't but that's ok I still make my point...

Hardly so, keld. Why don't you look them up and enlighten us all? Otherwise you simply accuse him of not bothering and then you don't bother either. Which I suppose is a point in a way.

Meade

[rubato]

The data on gun ownership has been avail. for a long time. You are far more likely to die of homicide or suicide if you keep a gun in the house than not:



http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929.full

Our findings also suggest that the presence of a gun in the home increases the chance that a homicide or suicide in the home will be committed with a firearm rather than by using other means. Victims of suicide living in homes with guns were more than 30 times more likely to have died from a firearm-related suicide than from one committed with a different method. Guns are highly lethal, require little preparation, and may be chosen over less lethal methods to commit suicide, particularly when the suicide is impulsive. Suicidal persons may also be more likely to acquire a gun to commit suicide and, given the lethality of the weapon, are more likely to complete suicide, although the evidence on this point is mixed (20–22).
...
Much of the debate in the literature has focused on the risks and benefits of gun ownership in terms of lives saved versus lives harmed. Studies of defensive gun use suggest that millions of defensive gun use incidents occur each year by people to protect themselves or their property against assaults, theft, or break-ins (30, 31). However, guns are also involved in unintentional firearm shootings and domestic altercations in the home and are the primary method used in suicides in the United States (1, 32). The body of research to date, including the findings of this study, shows a strong association between guns in the home and risk of suicide. The findings for homicide, while showing an elevated risk, have consistently been more modest. They suggest a need for more research to better distinguish the risk and protective factors associated with guns in the home, including an examination of the risk posed by forces both internal and external to the home. "


For victims of homicide, there was also a strong association between guns in the home and risk of dying from a firearm-related homicide, but this risk varied by age and whether the person was living with others at the time of death. These deaths may have been related to domestic violence or to other interpersonal disputes either involving them or someone else in the household. The majority of victims knew their assailant, suggesting that the assailant was either a family member or was acquainted with the victim or victim’s family and less likely to be an unknown intruder.

Some of the research conducted to date has found a higher risk of a violent death in homes with handguns and unlocked and loaded guns (13, 17, 19). However, many studies have either not examined the risk associated with specific firearm-related characteristics (e.g., type of gun or storage practice) (14, 15, 18, 23, 24) or have found no significant differences (16). In our study, the risk of dying from a firearm-related homicide or suicide was greater in homes with guns, but this risk did not vary by specific firearm-related characteristics. Simply having a gun in the home increased the risk of a firearm homicide or firearm suicide in the home. Whether certain types of guns or storage practices confer greater or lesser risk, or reflect recall and reporting biases when studied, is unclear. Previous research suggests that proxy respondents and nonusers of firearms are not always knowledgeable about the number or types of guns in the household or the storage practice and may be inclined to give socially desirable responses (27–29). "


yrs,
rubato

[Rick]

rather than by using other means

to quote Homer Simpson...doh!

[Lord Jim]

This is an interesting study, but it has some serious contradictions and flaws.

I'm going to analyze the numbers on homicide , (this study analyses both homicide and suicide , and then lumps them together to reach it's conclusion; the first major flaw) since they are obviously two completely different kinds of events, with two completely different sets of factors involved. (Suicide should be discussed separately.)

First, the contradiction, as relates to homicide. Here's the studies conclusion:

In our study, the risk of dying from a firearm-related homicide or suicide [as I said, the study's conclusion lumps these together]was greater in homes with guns

From the same study:

an estimated 40 percent of adults in the United States report keeping a gun in the home for recreational or protective purposes

According to the study's footnote, that the number comes from a Justice Department survey conducted in 2001. I can't find the original report, but I suspect the researchers may be misstating that somewhat, (substituting "adults" for "households") based on the results of this 2005 Gallup poll:

How many Americans personally own guns, and what do they use them for? A recent Gallup Poll* shows that 3 in 10 Americans personally own a gun; most gun owners say they use their guns to protect themselves against crime, for hunting, and for target shooting. Gun ownership varies by different groups in the country, with men more likely to be gun owners than women, Southerners and Midwesterners more likely than Easterners or Westerners, Republicans more so than Democrats, and older rather than younger Americans.

Gun Ownership

The poll, conducted Oct. 13-16, finds that 4 in 10 Americans report they have a gun in their homes, including 30% who say they personally own a gun and 12% who say another member of their household owns it. These results show essentially no change since this question was last asked in 2000. At that time, 27% of Americans said they personally owned a gun and 14% said another household member owned one.



http://www.gallup.com/poll/20098/gun-ow ... erica.aspx

So, it seems to me the fair thing to do based on that, would be to substitute "households" for "adults" and then accept an estimate of somewhere around 40% or slightly higher as houesholds where a firearm is present.

Now, again, from the Oxford study rube quotes:

Nearly three quarters of suicide victims lived in a home where one or more firearms were present, compared with 42 percent of homicide victims and one third of those who died of other causes

Well, gee whiz....

We have roughly 40% of the households with firearms, and 42% of homicides occurring in households where firearms are present....

According to the Oxford study's own data, the differentiation between homicides occurring in households with firearms and without, is statistically insignificant.... not "greater"....

But it's worse than that...(here's one of the serious flaws)

Look at the methodology the Oxford study employs:

We used the death certificates for information on the decedent’s cause and manner of death and proxy-respondent interviews for all other demographic and behavioral information on the decedent. The study sample consisted of deaths that occurred in the home. Included were persons who subsequently died en route to or at a hospital. Deaths were classified by whether they were homicides (n = 490; International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision codes E960–E969), suicides (n = 1,049; International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision codes E950–E959), or the result of other causes (n = 535). Accidental poisonings or poisonings of undetermined intent, unintentional firearm injuries and firearm injuries of undetermined intent, and other deaths of undetermined cause were excluded from the study sample on the basis that they could be homicides or suicides.

See the problem here? For their statistical purposes, they are classifying any death caused deliberately by a firearm as a "homicide". This must be the case because nowhere on that list of factors they excluded from their homicide by firearm criteria, does the phrase, "death by someone in the household using a firearm for self defense" appear.

In other words, in order to get to their 42% number, they have included the deaths of home invaders in the number and labeled them "homicides". This represents illegitimate methodology, and provides misleading conclusions, since shooting and killing someone who invades your home is not legally defined as "homicide".

The conclusion to be drawn from all of this, is that despite the fact that the the authors of this study went to great pains to conduct much of what they did in an apparently scientific manner, they failed to do so in some key and important ways, tainting their conclusions, and strongly suggesting that their results were driven more by an agenda than by objective inquiry.

To summarize, two decisions they made point to this, quite clearly:

1. The decision to lump two completely different kinds of actions, (suicide and homicide) together in order to be able to state their conclusion. (Since they must have realized that stating them separately wouldn't have shown a statistical difference regarding homicide)

2.The decision to lump all deliberate firearms deaths together and label them as "homicides" without regard to whether or not the person who died was a perp or a vic.

I'm really glad rube posted this, because it has given me an opportunity to illustrate something I have talked about before. (most recently in a discussion about second hand smoke) The way in which something can "look scientific" but if you really drill down you can see how by fudging and blurring key distinctions, results can be massaged to reach the conclusions that the "researchers" wanted to reach in the first place.

This study is a classic case in point.

[Joe Guy]

In our study, the risk of dying from a firearm-related homicide or suicide was greater in homes with guns

Very profound conclusion.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the likelihood of people dying in their homes is greater in people who have homes...

[Lord Jim]

One of the things the authors of this study did that was quite clever, is that in their report, they begin by going through as number of previous studies, (some of which agreed with their conclusions, some of which that didn't) and pointing out potential flaws in these earlier studies, (self-reporting, small samples, etc.) before going into a discussion of their own study.

This was clearly designed to have the affect of setting the reader up to believe, "well, these guys have looked at the previous studies,and are pointing out shortcomings in them, even if the study reached the same conclusions that they have, so this should be a really honest and objective study using sound methodology."

[rubato]

The data is very clear. Guns increase your risk. They do not protect you.

yrs,
rubato

[dales]

Turn your 9mm in, rubato.

[Joe Guy]

The data shows that owning guns increase a person's chance of using a gun.

I'm guessing that someone intent on committing suicide will use the quickest and easiest method. If a man has access to a gun he is more likely to use it than to go looking for a rope to hang himself or drive to a bridge to jump from. In that case, the gun is not an increased risk, it's just the most efficient tool available.

To be consistent in your thought process you should also believe that having access to the Golden Gate Bridge increases one's risk of using it to commit suicide and that having access to rope increases one's chance of hanging one's self, access to cyanide increases one's chance of using it to commit suicide, etc.

[Lord Jim]

The data is very clear. Guns increase your risk. They do not protect you.

yrs,
rubato

What's "very clear", is that once again rube has proven that either he cannot read, cannot understand what he reads, or is too dishonest to admit what he has read.

As I have demonstrated in detail, the study you quoted was clearly structured in a way that gives a false and misleading impression of the relationship between the presence of a firearms in a household and the likelihood of a homicide being committed.

(And of course this study doesn't even address the issue of homicides prevented by the presence of a firearm in the household. This is difficult to quantify precisely, but we know that it must be some number, and that the corresponding number in households without firearms is zero.)

Turn your 9mm in, rubato.

That's an excellent point....

How 'bout that rube?

What kind of an idiot keeps something around that "increases their risk" and "does not protect them"?

When are you planning to ditch that thing?

[Lord Jim]

someone intent on committing suicide will use the quickest and easiest method. If a man has access to a gun he is more likely to use it than to go looking for a rope to hang himself or drive to a bridge to jump from. In that case, the gun is not an increased risk, it's just the most efficient tool available.

To be consistent in your thought process you should also believe that having access to the Golden Gate Bridge increases one's risk of using it to commit suicide and that having access to rope increases one's chance of hanging one's self, access to cyanide increases one's chance of using it to commit suicide, etc.

Excellent points, Joe.

[Econoline]

Turn your 9mm in, rubato.

That's an excellent point....

How 'bout that rube?

What kind of an idiot keeps something around that "increases their risk" and "does not protect them"?

When are you planning to ditch that thing?

Hmm, I would've thought that you of all people would be in favor of an increased risk to rubato? You're going soft on us, Jim.

[Lord Jim]

Hmm, I would've thought that you of all people would be in favor of an increased risk to rubato? You're going soft on us, Jim.

Well, what can I say Econo...

I'm turning into a regular cream puff in my old age....

He shoots himself in the foot metaphorically so much, I'm concerned he could quite easily do it literally....

[Sue U]

Injuries and Deaths Due to Firearms in the Home
Kellermann, Arthur L. MD, MPH; Somes, Grant PhD; Rivara, Frederick P. MD, MPH; Lee, Roberta K. RN, PhD; Banton, Joyce G. MS

Abstract
Objectives: Determine the relative frequency with which guns in the home are used to injure or kill in self-defense, compared with the number of times these weapons are involved in an unintentional injury, suicide attempt, or criminal assault or homicide.

Methods: We reviewed the police, medical examiner, emergency medical service, emergency department, and hospital records of all fatal and nonfatal shootings in three U.S. cities: Memphis, Tennessee; Seattle, Washington; and Galveston, Texas.

Results: During the study interval (12 months in Memphis, 18 months in Seattle, and Galveston) 626 shootings occurred in or around a residence. This total included 54 unintentional shootings, 118 attempted or completed suicides, and 438 assaults/homicides. Thirteen shootings were legally justifiable or an act of self-defense, including three that involved law enforcement officers acting in the line of duty. For every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides.

Conclusions: Guns kept in homes are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal accidental shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.

Source:
Journal of Trauma-Injury Infection & Critical Care, August 1998; Vol. 45 No. 2

ETA bold so you don't miss the point.

[Sue U]

Homicide as Infectious Disease: Using Public Health Methods to Investigate the Diffusion of Homicide

DOI:10.1080/07418825.2012.732100
April M. Zeoli, Jesenia M. Pizarro*, Sue C. Grady & Christopher Melde

Abstract

This study examined the spatial and temporal movement of homicide in Newark, New Jersey from January 1982 through September 2008. We hypothesized that homicide would diffuse in a similar process to an infectious disease with firearms and gangs operating as the infectious agents. A total of 2,366 homicide incidents were analyzed using SaTScan v.9.0, a cluster detection software. The results revealed spatio-temporal patterns of expansion diffusion: overall, firearm and gang homicide clusters in Newark evolved from a common area in the center of the city and spread southward and westward over the course of two decades. This pattern of movement has implications in regards to the susceptibility of populations to homicide, particularly because northern and eastern Newark remained largely immune to homicide clusters. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings, as well as recommendations for future research, are discussed.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10. ... 012.732100

[Sue U]

Oh, and about your Sacramento "home invasion" story? Read a little more carefully:

Okay, I just found this update on the Sacto shooting:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —

Sacramento police are investigating a home invasion robbery on Haven Court that left one intruder dead and three others injured on Saturday.

***
A woman came by to pick up a 1-year-old boy in the home.

She didn't want to give KCRA 3 her name but said the boy's dad was shot in the home, and taken to the hospital.

If one is to believe the first sentence, there were four intruders, all of whom were shot, one of whom died. The only ones shot were intruders.

One of the injured intruders apparently had a child in the home. This leads me to believe there is substantially more to this story. Like a custody issue gone very bad.

Now, it is possible the first sentence is just poorly written, and should have said something to the effect that an intruder was shot and killed while three other non-intruder people at the residence were injured in the gunfire. But it doesn't.

Moreover, it is entirely unclear who did any of the shooting and with whose gun(s). Given the overall lack of factual information concerning major features of the incident, I wouldn't jump to any conclusions about anything at this point.

[Lord Jim]

Those are some nice little studies you've got there.

Here are some more macro numbers:

Roughly 16,272 murders were committed in the United States during 2008. Of these, about 10,886 or 67% were committed with firearms

Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology,[17] U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year.[18]

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

(Bold so you don't miss the point.)

I'll leave you to work out the ratios, but they look fairly significant to me...

If one is to believe the first sentence, there were four intruders, all of whom were shot, one of whom died.

That was never the impression I got when I read that sentence; I thought there could have been only one intruder and that he may have wounded as many as 3 innocent people. (Which is why I used the phrase "only the scumbag dead." It may not have been the best written sentence in the world, but I thought the meaning was fairly clear. I assume the injured Dad was in the home at the time of the intrusion. I believe you're over-thinking this with your "custody battle gone bad" theory.)

Moreover, it is entirely unclear who did any of the shooting and with whose gun(s). Given the overall lack of factual information concerning major features of the incident, I wouldn't jump to any conclusions about anything at this point.

gunfire was exchanged and total of four people were shot.

So you figure there's a possibility there were multiple intruders shooting at each other, and that's how the injuries and death occurred....

Interesting theory....