Harvard Study: WOULD BANNING FIREARMS REDUCE MURDER AND SUICIDE ?

[Bob Hubbard]

A Harvard study released in the spring – to virtually no media attention – focused on the prevalence of gun ownership in the United States versus those strict gun-control countries in Europe the left is so fond of talking about.
It was called, with disarming bluntness, “Would banning firearms reduce murder and suicide?”

Its answer was: “No.”

Let us read that again since one of the arguments for the increased push for gun control was to reduce murder and suicide.

“Would banning firearms reduce murder and suicide?”

NO.

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/08/24/harvard-study-proves-gun-grabbers-argument-dead-wrong-82127

Well, must be some drunk bloggers right?

Oh, wait. Harvard.

Gotta be some stoned interns right?

Oh, couple of PHD's.

Well, damn.

Now, since the link above goes to one of those "gun nut blog thingys", and sources need to be cited....

Here is the Direct Link to the Source Study.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

See that? Source Study? It's up there. ---^ ---^ ----^ I made it bigger for easy reading for the old folks surfing on their C-64's.

Oh, and as to the 2 guys who did the study...
http://www.garymauser.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Kates

In case anyone wants to whip out their cv's and measure stock or something.
:wavey:

 

[billc]

That must be Chuck Harvard's school of interpretive dance...Right?

 

[granfire]

Let us read that again since one of the arguments for the increased push for gun control was to reduce murder and suicide.

“Would banning firearms reduce murder and suicide?”

NO.

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/08/24/harvard-study-proves-gun-grabbers-argument-dead-wrong-82127

Well, must be some drunk bloggers right?

Oh, wait. Harvard.

Gotta be some stoned interns right?

Oh, couple of PHD's.

Well, damn.

Now, since the link above goes to one of those "gun nut blog thingys", and sources need to be cited....

Here is the Direct Link to the Source Study.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

See that? Source Study? It's up there. ---^ ---^ ----^ I made it bigger for easy reading for the old folks surfing on their C-64's.

Oh, and as to the 2 guys who did the study...
http://www.garymauser.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Kates

In case anyone wants to whip out their cv's and measure stock or something.
:wavey:

well, there is one little flaw in your analysis of the study tho:
You seem to believe that stoner and PHD/Doctor is mutually exclusive!

 

[arnisador]

Pretty much everything said in there is wrong, granfire. It's from a conservative organization's journal that is edited by Harvard students.

The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy is a student-edited law review of conservative and libertarian legal scholarship. It was established by Harvard Law School students Spencer Abraham and Stephen Eberhard in 1978, leading to the founding of the Federalist Society, for which it is the official journal.

Notable authors include [...]Ted Cruz[...]William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia[...]Clarence Thomas, Ron Paul

It was written by a retired business administration professor from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, and a retired lawyer (no PhD--in fact, not even a JD but rather the older 2-year LLB) from The Independent Institute, an American libertarian think tank. From the journal's own web page:

The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy is published three times annually by the Harvard Society for Law & Public Policy, Inc., an organization of Harvard Law School students. The Journal is one of the most widely circulated student-edited law reviews and the nation’s leading forum for conservative and libertarian legal scholarship.

So, a lawyer and a business professor wrote an article that was approved by a couple of Harvard students to go into their student-run journal that is a student org., not a Harvard activity, and which is the official publication of the conservative Federalist Society (note that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was the founding faculty advisor to this organization). To say, as the website linked does, that this is "A Harvard study released in the spring" is all wrong--it wasn't a study from Harvard but rather a law review article from Canada, and it wasn't released by anyone--it was simply published. (There's a difference.) Anyway, let's also look at the full title of this article:

WOULD BANNING FIREARMS REDUCE MURDER AND SUICIDE?
A REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL AND SOME DOMESTIC EVIDENCE

How many times have we been told here that intl. evidence is not worthwhile? That's the key subject under review here. (The lack of a Methodology section is a clue to it being a review rather than a more formal study--plus the use of the word "review" in the title.) As to their conclusion:

CONCLUSION

This Article has reviewed a significant
amount of evidence from a wide variety of
international sources. Each individual
portion of evidence is subject to cavil—at
the very least the general objection that
the persuasiveness of social scientific
evidence cannot remotely approach the
persuasiveness of conclusions in the
physical sciences.

Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests
on the proponents of the more guns equal
more death and fewer guns equal less death
mantra, especially since they argue public
policy ought to be based on that mantra.

This is hardly neutral language (calling an opposing view a "mantra"), but this not surprising for a journal that is a conservative mouthpiece; but in addition saying they have shifted the burden of proof is a far cry from a resounding "NO".

Once again, the gun-nut side presents Ted Nugent evidence as though it was produced by Albert Einstein and hopes that if they lie about it loudly enough then people won't check for themselves and find out. There may be value to be found within this piece, but it is not what it is described as being--not even close.

Once again, that those of us who understand and respect the scientific method and academic approaches do not bust every piece of conservative nonsense posted doesn't mean it's not nonsense--it means that the people who listen to Fox News have already made up their minds that facts don't matter, so it's pointless.

 

[Big Don]

Pretty much everything said in there is wrong, granfire. It's from a conservative organization's journal that is edited by Harvard students.



It was written by a retired business administration professor from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, and a retired lawyer (no PhD--in fact, not even a JD but rather the older 2-year LLB) from The Independent Institute, an American libertarian think tank. From the journal's own web page:



So, a lawyer and a business professor wrote an article that was approved by a couple of Harvard students to go into their student-run journal that is a student org., not a Harvard activity, and which is the official publication of the conservative Federalist Society (note that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was the founding faculty advisor to this organization). To say, as the website linked does, that this is "A Harvard study released in the spring" is all wrong--it wasn't a study from Harvard but rather a law review article from Canada, and it wasn't released by anyone--it was simply published. (There's a difference.) Anyway, let's also look at the full title of this article:



How many times have we been told here that intl. evidence is not worthwhile? That's the key subject under review here. (The lack of a Methodology section is a clue to it being a review rather than a more formal study--plus the use of the word "review" in the title.) As to their conclusion:




This is hardly neutral language (calling an opposing view a "mantra"), but this not surprising for a journal that is a conservative mouthpiece; but in addition saying they have shifted the burden of proof is a far cry from a resounding "NO".

Once again, the gun-nut side presents Ted Nugent evidence as though it was produced by Albert Einstein and hopes that if they lie about it loudly enough then people won't check for themselves and find out. There may be value to be found within this piece, but it is not what it is described as being--not even close.

Once again, that those of us who understand and respect the scientific method and academic approaches do not bust every piece of conservative nonsense posted doesn't mean it's not nonsense--it means that the people who listen to Fox News have already made up their minds that facts don't matter, so it's pointless.

Scientifically conducted studies only matter when they meet your preconceived world view...

 

[arnisador]

Scientifically conducted studies only matter when they meet your preconceived world view...

Yes, that is the conservative position. This wasn't in any sense 'scientific' however. Neither author was a scientist, or even had the scientific law training that allegedly comes with a JD; the reviewers were students, not professionals; it wasn't conducted via the scientific method; and it wasn't published in a scientific journal. This article from a journal of "conservative and libertarian legal scholarship" may well have some value but not everything that is printed that fits your preconceived notions is therefore god-given truth.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Scientifically conducted studies only matter when they meet your preconceived world view...

That is the usual situation.

After all what would these guys possibly know about the topic?

Gary A. Mauser is a Professor Emeritus at the Faculty of Business Administration and the Institute for Urban Canadian Research Studies at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. Professor Mauser earned his Ph.D. from the University of California at Irvine.

His interest in firearms and “gun control” grew out of his research in political marketing. He has published two books, Political Marketing, and Manipulating Public Opinion and more than 20 articles. For the past 15 years, Professor Mauser has conducted research on the politics of gun control, the effectiveness of gun control laws, and the use of firearms in self defense.

http://www.garymauser.net/

[h=1]Don Kates[/h] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Don Kates is a retired American professor of constitutional and criminal law, and a criminologist and research fellow with The Independent Institute in Oakland, California. His books include Armed: New Perspectives On Gun Control, Restricting Handguns: The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out, Firearms and Violence: Issues of Public Policy, and The Great American Gun Debate: Essays on Firearms and Violence (with Gary Kleck). As a civil liberties lawyer he has represented gun owners attacking the constitutionality of certain firearms laws.
Don B. Kates, Jr., attended Reed College and Yale Law School. During the Civil rights movement, he worked in the South for civil rights lawyers including William Kunstler. Thereafter, he specialized in civil rights and police misconduct litigation for the federal War on Poverty program. After three years of teaching constitutional law, criminal law, and criminal procedure at Saint Louis University School of Law, he returned to San Francisco where he currently practices law, teaches, and writes on criminology. He is editor of Firearms and Violence: Issues of Public Policy (San Francisco: 1984, Pacific Research Institute) and the Winter 1986 issue of Law & Contemporary Problems. He is author of the entry on the Second Amendment in M. Levy & K. Karst, The Encyclopedia of the American Constitution; "Firearms and Violence: Old Premises, Current Evidence," in T. Gurr (ed.), Violence in America (1989); and "Precautionary Handgun Ownership: Reasonable Choice or Dangerous Delusion," B. Danto (ed.), Gun Control and Criminal Homicide, forthcoming (1990).
[h=2]Bibliography[/h]

• Armed: New Perspectives on Gun Control (w/ Gary Kleck, gun control, Prometheus Books, 2001) ISBN 1-57392-883-6
• Firearms and Violence: Issues of Public Policy Publisher: Ballinger Publishing Company (May 1984) ISBN 0-88410-922-4, ISBN 978-0-88410-922-8
• The Great American Gun Debate: Essays on Firearms & Violence (w/ Gary Kleck and John K. Lattimer, gun control, Pacific Research Institute, 1997) ISBN 0-936488-39-5
• Restricting Handguns: The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out Publisher: North River Press Publishing Corporation (February 1979) ISBN 0-88427-034-3, ISBN 978-0-88427-034-8

A Business PHD and a Constitutional Law PHD. 2 types the anti-freedom libloonies fear.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Once again, that those of us who understand and respect the scientific method and academic approaches do not bust every piece of conservative nonsense posted doesn't mean it's not nonsense--it means that the people who listen to Fox News have already made up their minds that facts don't matter, so it's pointless.

:roflmao:

 

[Carol]

That is the usual situation.

After all what would these guys possibly know about the topic?

http://www.garymauser.net/
A Business PHD and a Constitutional Law PHD. 2 types the anti-freedom libloonies fear.

Source for both please? Gary Mauser's site says nothing about what his degree is in. Also, the wikipedia page says nothing about Kates completing any degrees. A doctorate in ConLaw in the US would be an S.J.D., not a Ph.D -- I'm a bit skeptical here.

 

[arnisador]

In the article it states that Kates had an LLB as his highest degree--not even a JD, let alone a research doctorate like the SJD. He isn't doctorally educated.

 

[Carol]

In the article it states that Kates had an LLB as his highest degree--not even a JD, let alone a research doctorate like the SJD. He isn't doctorally educated.

And Gary Mauser does not have a PhD in business. He has a psych degree.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...ninstitute.org/index.php/team/116-gary-mauser

 

[Bob Hubbard]

more information.
Gary Mauser
http://www.sfu.ca/~mauser/
Education
Ph. D., University of California, Irvine (1970), Psychology
B.A., University of California, Berkeley (1964), Psychology
From his CV http://www.sfu.ca/~mauser/cv/CV13.pdf


Don B. Kates
is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He received his J.D. from Yale University Law School and has taught constitutional law and lectured on criminology at Stanford University, Oxford University, Saint Louis University School of Law, and the University of Melbourne.
http://www.independent.org/aboutus/person_detail.asp?id=739


Someone above who wrote "It was written by a retired business administration professor from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, and a retired lawyer (no PhD--in fact, not even a JD but rather the older 2-year LLB)" seems to be wrong. Again.

The Juris Doctor (J.D.) is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law. The degree is earned by completing law school in the United States or other common law countries...

Afraid on a quick search I can't find his CV listed.

From 1989

You can tell he's a college professor. Just look at the hair.


Of course, to understand what a PHD is we can refer to wikipedia:

A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that, in most countries, qualifies the holder to teach at the university level in the specific field of his or her degree, or to work in a specific profession. The research doctorate, or the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) and its equivalent titles, represents the highest academic qualification. While the structure of U.S. doctoral programs is more formal and complex than in some other systems, it is important to note that the research doctorate is not awarded for the preliminary advanced study that leads to doctoral candidacy, but rather for successfully completing and defending the independent research presented in the form of the doctoral dissertation (thesis). Several first-professional degrees use the term “doctor” in their title, such as the Juris Doctor and the US version of the Doctor of Medicine, but these degrees do not contain an independent research component or require a dissertation (thesis) and should not be confused with PhD degrees or other research doctorates

Or Mel Brooks, who holds a PHD in Stand Up Philosophy.

 

[Carol]

Yale didn't offer the JD until 1971.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juris_Doctor

The change from LL.B. to J.D. was intended to end this discriminatory practice of conferring what is normally a first degree upon persons who have already their primary degree.[SUP][64][/SUP] The J.D. was proposed as the equivalent of the J.U.D. in Germany to reflect the advanced study required to be an effective lawyer. The University of Chicago Law School was the first to offer it.[SUP][65][/SUP] While approval was still pending at Harvard, the degree was introduced at many other law schools including at the law schools at NYU, Berkeley, Michigan and Stanford. Because of tradition, and concerns about less famous universities implementing a J.D. program, prominent eastern law schools like those of Harvard, Yale and Columbia refused to implement the degree. Indeed, pressure from them led almost every law school (except at the University of Chicago and other law schools in Illinois) to abandon the J.D. and readopt the LL.B. as the first law degree by the 1930s.[SUP][66][/SUP]
It was only after 1962 that a new push—this time begun at less-prominent law schools—successfully led to the universal adoption of the J.D. as the first law degree. Student and alumni support were key in the LL.B.-to-J.D. change, and even the most prominent schools were convinced to make the change: Columbia and Harvard in 1969, and Yale, last, in 1971.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Yale didn't offer the JD until 1971.

ok? So?


Don B. Kates (LL.B., Yale, 1966) is an American criminologist and constitutional lawyer associated with the Pacific Research Institute, San Francisco. Gary Mauser (Ph.D., University of California, Irvine, 1970) is a Canadian criminologist and university professor at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC Canada.
http://thebullelephant.com/harvard-law-gun-control-is-counterproductive/

So the LL.B is a Bachelors of Laws. He got it in 1966, from Yale.

Maybe he went back to school? Maybe it's honorary? Don't know, and since I can't find some big expose on him, don't care.

I see numerous sites listing him as having a JD from Yale. A search including the word "fake" turns up nothing. Considering he's been doing this for decades, has papers and books published, is considered an expert by authorities.... If there were an issue with his credentials, some one should have noticed it by now. Certainly if there were a problem major universities wouldn't keep including his work in their journals? I mean, certainly there has to be some level of review to get in. I mean, if I could get a math article in the same journal as Arni, I think he'd go off his pizza.

Then again, maybe this is a first, and the rabid desire to discredit an opposing view has Scoobyed out something that no one else ever has.


hmm... dejavu
http://forums.motortrend.com/70/937...unteers-with-guns-at-every-school/page15.html


In any event, the research is there, people can read it, or not.

 

[Carol]

I don't think his credentials themselves are fake, I just don't see how they are a B-school PHD and a ConLaw PHD...the kind that teh lib'ruls fear. Of course teh lib'ruls might fear 'em anyway

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Well Carol, you know I'm just too stupid to understand that.

But...you know the diference between a liberal and a puppy? A puppy stops whining when it grows up.

 

[granfire]

Well Carol, you know I'm just too stupid to understand that.

But...you know the diference between a liberal and a puppy? A puppy stops whining when it grows up.

By your definition every guy would be liberal....
:angel:

 

[granfire]

Pretty much everything said in there is wrong, granfire. It's from a conservative organization's journal that is edited by Harvard students.

Uh, what?
What are you picking on me for?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Uh, what?
What are you picking on me for?

It's his way of round about shooting at me without having to actually read the study which might hurt his hard-coded mindset. You get used to it.

Arnisidor "poo poos" this as being something students published in a student run magazine.
Seems that most of these major universities have similar. Requirements are 'student, alumni, or expert'. (I'm summarizing there of course).

The Southwestern Law Review is a student-edited quarterly journal that publishes scholarly articles and commentary on the law contributed by prominent jurists, practitioners, law professors, and student members of the Law Review staff.

The Harvard Law Review is a student-run organization whose primary purpose is to publish a journal of legal scholarship.

Aside from serving as an important academic forum for legal scholarship, the Review has two other goals. First, the journal is designed to be an effective research tool for practicing lawyers and students of the law. Second, it provides opportunities for Review members to develop their own editing and writing skills. Accordingly, each issue contains pieces by student editors as well as outside authors.

The Review publishes articles by professors, judges, and practitioners and solicits reviews of important recent books from recognized experts. All articles—even those by the most respected authorities—are subjected to a rigorous editorial process designed to sharpen and strengthen substance and tone.

The Stanford Law Review was organized in 1948 (see Warren Christopher's 1948 President's Page from Volume 1 of the Review). Each year the Law Review publishes one volume, comprised of six separate issues. Each issue contains material written by student members of the Law Review, other Stanford law students, and outside contributors, such as law professors, judges, and practicing lawyers.

Since students run these, and not anointed PHDs, it of course must be crap. /sarcasm.
I'm probably just showing how woefully ignorant and clueless I am, but these seem to be of a higher standard and quality than the local free-news paper or jr. high zine.

Of course, rather than attempt to refute the data, research or conclusions, the usual 'discredit the authors and poster' method is used.
Kates holds a degree from one of the hardest universities to get into in the US. He's had that degree years before most of the people here were out of grade school. He's a respected expert in the field, who has over 30 years experience in the subject. Mauser likewise. I can be forgiven for not taking 3 hours to track down everything mentioned in an authors bio blurb and factchecked it down to tracking down the dean of the U who signed their sheepskins.

Unless someone has evidence that they have falsified their credentials, I think we can move on from attacking them and focus on the -actual content- of the study/review/article.

 

[billc]

Well, obviously it isn't officially discredited until Breitbart.com covers it...so here is Breitbart.com's A.W.R. Hawkins commenting on the study...for those who are afraid of Breitbart...please refer to the beginning of this thread, the first post, so that you can read about the study there...

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/27/Harvard-Study-Shows-No-Correlation-Between-Strict-Gun-Control-And-Less-Crime-Violence

For example, when the study shows numbers for Eastern European gun ownership and corresponding murder rates, it is readily apparent that less guns to do not mean less death. In Russia, where the rate of gun ownership is 4,000 per 100,000 inhabitants, the murder rate was 20.52 per 100,000 in 2002. That same year in Finland, where the rater of gun ownership is exceedingly higher--39,000 per 100,000--the murder rate was almost nill, at 1.98 per 100,000.