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The world according to Brady (Part 2)
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(Photo courtesy of Oleg Volk)
Previously, we examined how Brady’s favorite states, in terms of the gun control laws they enact, correlates with lower firearms ownership rates, higher violent crime rates, and bloated, inefficient government.
However, a reader took exception to the use of the statistical analysis and challenged me to prove that the findings had “significance,” meaning that the trends really had some relationship to the Brady report card scores.
That’s a fair question, though the person’s use of derogation was immature, and they haven’t accepted the offer to examine my data. This is a common occurrence with anti-rights proponents: Like angry children, they feel that the very fact that they stuck their tongue out in anger is sufficient proof they are right.
I can relate. Being a recovering California liberal, I know how hard it can be to re-examine values you have invested a lot of emotion in. It’s much easier just to say “you’re stupid” and prance off with your nose in the air. It takes all of three seconds.
But two factors forced me to take another look at gun control:
· As a medical researcher, I must be honest and thorough: You begin with an open-ended question, collect sufficient data, and accept the preponderance of the evidence as your conclusion.
· I have always had a respect for those in the military and law enforcement. I didn’t always agreed on specific issues, but they were willing to put their lives on the line for their beliefs, and that was “significant.”
So when a police client–the only people I thought should have guns–started discussing gun control, he piqued my interest enough to take another look. I admit to one biased decision at the outset: I didn’t include data from the National Rifle Association or other pro-gun groups, because I assumed they were biased. That left government and United Nations data, and datasets cited by groups like the Brady Campaign and Violence Policy Center, because I believed these organizations worked to make me safer.
Even so, not only was there a preponderance of evidence against gun control, but Brady and VPC datasets actually showed that more guns correlated with less violent crime!
My initial research took me over three years to complete.
So now I write as a form of Twelfth Step work, in hopes that I can help other people recover from their gun control addiction.
That said, let’s re-examine some data in a new form, so that the reality of gun control becomes more accessible, in order to better help others.
To understand what the Brady grades mean, we will re-examine data from 2001, except this time states will be grouped according to grade. This way, a clearer picture emerges as to what Brady means when they assigned an “A” grade–or “B,” “C,” “D,” or “F”–to a state.
When grouped by Brady grade, a clearer picture emerges on gun ownership. By grouping by Brady grades, one gets five quintiles, each representing a grade level. Starting with states graded “A” (position 1 in the chart below) and running through states which Brady graded “F” (position 5) we see that states which didn’t enact enough gun control laws to pass Brady’s evaluation had the highest civilian gun ownership levels, while Brady’s “teacher’s pet” states had very little gun ownership.
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Now let’s examine “significance.” Excel allows you to display “R-squared” values when analyzing trends. Duke University says that R-squared identifies the percent of the result that is attributed to the data. In the above chart, Excel tells us that Brady grades have about a 95% “effect” on gun ownership levels.
Next, take the square root to derive the linear correlation coefficient, which “measures the strength and the direction of a linear relationship between two variables.” The closer the R-value is to positive or negative 1, the more perfect the correlation between the two variables, or the more closely related they are. In the above chart, the R-value is 0.9731, which means that there is a near-perfect linear relationship between lower Brady grades and higher gun ownership levels. Since a correlation greater than 0.8 is considered “strong,” this correlation is very strong.
Therefore, a name change is reasonable: The Brady Campaign Against Guns.
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Sorting by Brady grade quintiles, average violent crime rates varied from 677.6 (incidents per 100,000 population) for the “A” group down to 335.3 for the “F” group. The above chart shows trend line varies from around 600 for the “A” group to about 325 for the “F” group. The R-squared value indicates that Brady scores have about a 70% “effect” on violent crime rates. The R-value is 0.8371, showing a strong correlation between higher Brady grades and higher violent crime rates.
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Looking at the relationship between Brady grades and murder rates, there is a weaker but still significant correlation. While the R-squared value shows about a 44% Brady grade effect on murder rates, the R-value is 0.6601. This shows a moderate correlation: as Brady grades fall towards “F,” murder rates decline.
The problem with statistics is that by altering variables, one can affect results. To avoid this, these graphs provide simple correlations between Brady grades and one other set of values. Obviously, violent crime is a complex social issue that involves more than an organization that wants to ban civilian firearms ownership.
But instead of engaging in thoughtful dialogue, we get people like Brady’s president Paul Helmke, who as mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana, failed to provide for the safety of its citizens. But rather than owning their issues, they blame law-abiding gun owners who have committed no “offense” against society other than to take responsibility for their own lives, thereby offending those who would control us. This “convenient” course of action is preferable to the more challenging process of thoroughly studying the issue and admitting that they don’t know enough to be promoting policy positions which will have negative consequences.
That’s significant!
Previous: The world according to Brady
References
All charts and data cited here are available in Excel format. Email request via bio.
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For in-depth analysis of the issues discussed here, read Howard’s book Four Hundred Years of Gun Control: Why Isn’t It Working?, which deconstructs the gun control agenda and motivates more people to support our civil right of self-defense.
Check out other Gun Rights Examiners:
- Atlanta: Armed customer stops robbery
- Austin: Taxation: The other gun ban
- Boston: More Federal and State Government tyranny on the way
- Charlotte: Dangers of gun registration: 'The Belgian Corporal'
- Cleveland: Don't believe the gun control lie, being prepared isn't paranoia
- DC: Under Obamacare, where will Canadians go for medical services?
- Denver: What happens to you when you buy a gun?
- Los Angeles: SoCal Churches go concealed carry.
- Minneapolis: Dirty Deeds in Virginia
- National: South Africa gun owners get reprieve
- Seattle: Lautenberg’s legislation cloak’s anti-gun senator’s true intention
- St. Louis: Area gun range fights for survival
- Wisconsin: Gun rights advocates make progress
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Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence ·
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