How's That Working For Ya Venezuelans?

[Dill]

(04-23-2017, 11:51 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I don't buy the numbers in that study at all.  Gun owners aren't going to be up front with poll takers anymore, likely never again.

Same point, I don't think people are even remotely honest with survey takers in this regard.  feel free to disagree, but also realize that Trump is president after every poll showed otherwise. (I'd point out that I predicted otherwise, for months)

Or perhaps your data sucks ass?

Haha, please.  You're talking to a man who deals with criminal behavior for a living.  Alcohol has a large effect on crimes like battery, and DV.  Burglary, robbery, etc. not so much.

I see you're unfamiliar with statistics, despite your claims otherwise.  Allow me to explain.  My father's family is from a comparatively underpopulated section of Iowa.  When he was a kid a woman killed her six children by throwing them in a well.  According to your amazing statistics the per capita murder rate for that area was immense!  It was also a bullshit statistic.  Research outliers and their effect on statistics.  The basic point is that the higher the sample size the more reliable the data.  But you knew that, being a student of statistics and all.

Let's go back to your Iowa story for a moment.

You have indeed "disputed" the gun ownership stats I offered claiming that gun owners are not honest with surveyors.  Apparently you are so confident about this you have not demonstrated that you have looked into how the statistics in my sources were compiled.  A little patience would have enabled you to see that different researchers working on different projects for different institutions have compiled and shared and cross-referenced gun ownership stats for decades, controlling for "no response" answers and using means other than surveys to arrive at the current trend of proportionally fewer households owning guns and more gun owners owning more guns.  There is no special reason to distrust the stats showing a downward trend in the percentage of households owning guns.

You trust gun ownership statistics when you think they support what you want to believe--more people own guns. Then they are "provable facts." And you stop there.  But when they don't support what you want to believe they "suck."  Or do you have an alternative set of gun ownership stats based upon truthful gun owners? 

Your Iowa story is the basis of a claim that the gun ownership stats are based upon a small sample size.  Nothing in any of my sources supports this claim.  you tell a story about outlier distortion. Claim it affects the stats offered. But do not show this at all. You do not identify any sample size. You do not at all discuss how the sources compiled their data.  I have pointed out that a sample size of STATE and NATIONAL statistics is involved in producing gun ownership stats. I add now (since I have to) that these do not only rely on "surveys." They also correlate, for example, the rate of gun deaths with the rate of ownership. These factor in, among other things, ALL GUN DEATHS in states and the nation, not to mention data like gun registration and gun purchases in some states.  Those who die by guns do not get to lie to statisticians.  

There is a larger, national dimension to your beef with the facts in this case. Scientifically compiled statistical knowledge is disputed by our president and his supporters on an almost weekly basis (his win often cited as a supposed failure of statistical science). And it is disputed on the basis of their instinct or gut feeling or what they just "know."  In line with this trend, you, when confronted with an array of statistical data you claim "sucks," substitute methodological critique and any data of your own with your private experience. 

National trends in crime and gun ownership are suddenly to be decided by whether your opponent knows police work better than you.  

You are hardly the first person in this forum confront uncomfortable statistics with no more than your own hunch and deal of bravado.  The Trump role model is aptly followed by others.

But you could probably save us all some time and ink if, instead of challenging people to post stats you'll blow off without examining, you just made clear that personal experience will your ultimate criterion whatever anyone else puts up.