Consequences of committing a crime.
Via Townhall:
Researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Northeastern University came together to study the correlation between states’ gun ownership and officer-involved shootings. The researchers published their findings in the Journal for Urban Health. Their grandiose takeaway: if you live in a state with “looser” gun laws – AKA you’re allowed to utilize your Second Amendment rights – then you’re more likely to be shot by police officers.
Their abstract has three main points that are rather troubling:
Although numerous studies have examined how rates of police killings of civilians are related to several ecologic determinants of these events, no peer-reviewed study to date has examined the extent to which variation in police involved firearm homicides is explained by firearm prevalence while adjusting for violent crime rates (the most well-established ecologic factor associated with fatal police shootings).
What do researches consider a “violent” crime? Are they using the FBI’s definition which includes “murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault”?
Data come from the Washington Post’s “Fatal Force Database”, which assembles the information from news reports and other sources.
The researchers are using data from the Washington Post, a liberal, anti-gun publication. You know what that means: they’re going to cherry pick which “data” they include. And you know the data they store is going to fit their gun control narrative.
Explanatory ecologic variables in our models include the violent crime rate, the percentage of the state population that is non-White, poverty rate, and urbanization, along with a validated proxy for firearm prevalence. We find that rates of police shooting deaths are significantly and positively correlated with levels of household gun ownership, even after accounting for the other explanatory variables.
There is absolutely no reason to look at race and poverty rate when looking at gun ownership. You know why? Because the most important factor they should be looking at is the number of legal gun owners in each state.