yeah when guys wanna pick up a chick they think is cute they make sure to bring 5 friends to a dark parking lot, that always ups their up your  odds of getting her to give you a phone number.  SHM

keep trying to stuff those camels thru the eyes of needles.

I never underestimate the stupidity of drunk young men.

No, the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

#sarcasm

Yeah, they are rabid anti gun people

#alsosarcasm

Case in point, I met a drunk girl at a bar one time and she told me a guy just raped her. Well it turned out he grabbed her butt. Whether it was the alcohol talking, her emotional overreaction, or her lose definition of what rape means I don't know but in the end if she reported on a survey that she was raped it would be an inaccurate bit of data that would skew the results. I remember reports about how some huge number of girls on college campuses were victims of sexual assault but then when you looked at the way they asked the question it lumped any kind of unwanted advance, so if some drunk guy put his arm around a girl at a party and she didn't like it then it could have been counted as a "sexual assault". Heck, some crazy liberals believe that words are actual violence!

Dude, really? You are going with 'This one time I heard something untrue means everything I heard MIGHT be untrue' line of logic? Why always with outlier data points and ethereal 'what if' BS? Yes not everything is cut and dry, but not everything is f-ing amorphous all the time either. Jeezus you sound like you smoke weed all day.

I don't have the same confidence in people understanding and all agreeing on what it would mean to defend oneself with a firearm. I remember learning in college how important it is to have clear and well defined questions on surveys. If you use a term that isn't widely agreed upon you would have to define it specifically for the sake of the survey to try and make sure everyone was answering the same thing. Maybe the designers of these surveys did a good job of narrowing and specifying the question in a way to minimize this issue, I don't know, but if it wasn't then I would say the results are less accurate.

Case in point, I met a drunk girl at a bar one time and she told me a guy just raped her. Well it turned out he grabbed her butt. Whether it was the alcohol talking, her emotional overreaction, or her lose definition of what rape means I don't know but in the end if she reported on a survey that she was raped it would be an inaccurate bit of data that would skew the results. I remember reports about how some huge number of girls on college campuses were victims of sexual assault but then when you looked at the way they asked the question it lumped any kind of unwanted advance, so if some drunk guy put his arm around a girl at a party and she didn't like it then it could have been counted as a "sexual assault". Heck, some crazy liberals believe that words are actual violence!

I am more interested in whether the firearm actually kept them safe (was used to keep them safe) than whether someone perceived that it kept them safe.

I missed where that "raped but not raped" girl's story involved a firearm.

That story has to do with her maybe lying about the incident on a questionnaire that may or may not have existed long after your drunk conversation conversation in a bar may or may not have happened.

If someone actually uses a gun defensively, they know they did it.  The who, what when, where and why are okay to ask for data points and context, but the defense of ones self and/or others isn't something a respondent is likely to lie about on an anonymous questionnaire or poll.

My family used firearms 3 times that I can recall defending our home.  Only once did it end in a discharge (including the loss of control the person running away experienced in his pants when the shot went off).  Nobody was hit.  No police report filed for that incident.  Reports were filed the other two times, since they were follow-up interactions from previous reports.  "I'm coming to your house", then "Knock knock!  Open the door!" and finally "Please don't shoot!  I'm leaving!!"

It doesn't need to involve a one-on-one encounter.  It could be a burglar trying to open a window who hears from inside, "I have a gun!" and the sound of a round being chambered.  Never have to see each other to know that a gun was used defensively.

You're reading too much into the perp's side of the equation.  It's all about the potential victim stopping something bad from happening by using, or showing an intent to use, a firearm if necessary.

Maybe you should get funding for a poll of perps in prison to ascertain whether they committed their crimes in spite of having their victim pull a gun.  If they fled, ask whether they "perceived" they were about to die and that's why they chose to commit their crime on someone else.

MDA = Mothers Demand Action?

Why?  You part of that group?   

Why?  You part of that group?   

I joined and not 1 mother there wanted any action. Then I found out they meant action against the 2nd amendment.  I was disappointed.

There really is no way of knowing a closer estimate.  Like my 1 example, no report filed, so didn't happen.  Then add in you have people who used a gun and lost in court due to liberal judges/juries deeming so.  Then what if a felon uses a gun in self defense, even though they're not supposed to have one.  Do these fall in the self defense usage category?  Or in Portland, OR a photographer was being followed by an angry group of people. He drew his ccw'd gun and the crowd stopped.  He was arrested and sentenced to a few years in jail.  So would this count toward self defense usage, when he got a brandishing charge. There's a vid on YT of the incident.

I joined and not 1 mother there wanted any action. Then I found out they meant action against the 2nd amendment.  I was disappointed.

You would've gone if they wanted action? 

:barf:

#CMOlovesKarens

I joined and not 1 mother there wanted any action. Then I found out they meant action against the 2nd amendment.  I was disappointed.

i think you were looking for MILFs Demand Action

There really is no way of knowing a closer estimate.  Like my 1 example, no report filed, so didn't happen.  Then add in you have people who used a gun and lost in court due to liberal judges/juries deeming so.  Then what if a felon uses a gun in self defense, even though they're not supposed to have one.  Do these fall in the self defense usage category?  Or in Portland, OR a photographer was being followed by an angry group of people. He drew his ccw'd gun and the crowd stopped.  He was arrested and sentenced to a few years in jail.  So would this count toward self defense usage, when he got a brandishing charge. There's a vid on YT of the incident.

Those are all reasons for an anonymous questionnaire/poll to collect real data that's not attributed to any individual.

If a felon defends him/herself with a gun, it counts.

If a victim defends him/herself with a gun, but a court decides it was not justified (perp was in the process of turning and leaving when shot in the back?), that counts.

As for brandishing, that's always a risk if the presentation of a firearm diffuses the situation.  The attacker could easily involve the police by filing a report you pulled a gun on them for no reason.  Usually the attacker is happy the police aren't involved, but some people will try to use the law against you.  It's another reason calling 911 to record the encounter can be useful.  You could also have the time to turn your camera-phone on to record the action as it happens.  Witnesses would also be a bonus.  If nothing else, a video of the suspect can be helpful to the Cops if you do file a complaint.

If a report isn't filed, that's one major reason for surveys and polls.  Without a data collection effort to seek out these events, they will remain unreported and excluded from any meaningful analysis.

It's not about judging a defensive use of gun incident to be legal nor only including those labeled by the justice system as "justified", but to find out how many times it happens no matter the circumstances.

If Omni walks up to my front door uninvited, and he refuses to leave, what I do in response may count, too!   

Dude, really? You are going with 'This one time I heard something untrue means everything I heard MIGHT be untrue' line of logic? Why always with outlier data points and ethereal 'what if' BS? Yes not everything is cut and dry, but not everything is f-ing amorphous all the time either. Jeezus you sound like you smoke weed all day.

Its called used an anecdote to illustrate the problem. This type of problem is something that survey designers have to deal with. Do you think they just slap a bunch of questions together and hand them out?  You can but then you get crappy unreliable results.

I missed where that "raped but not raped" girl's story involved a firearm.

The point was to illustrate how she reported something that wasn't true. If she were to participate in a survey that tried to see how many women were the victim of rape, her answer would skew the number higher than what it really was. In her mind she may have considered it rape but for the purposes of studying actual rape, her answer would have been inaccurate.

If someone actually uses a gun defensively, they know they did it.  The who, what when, where and why are okay to ask for data points and context, but the defense of ones self and/or others isn't something a respondent is likely to lie about on an anonymous questionnaire or poll.

Again, it depends on what roll they think the firearm played. If the question asked "Did you point a gun at someone" then that is a much more specific question than "did you use a gun defensively" because depending on how the person viewed the event they might have seen just having the gun on their hip as using the gun to protect themselves but pointing a gun at someone is much less open to interpretation. On top of that such questions rely on whether there is an actual threat or just a perceived threat. These would be the types of things that a good survey designer would try to isolate or eliminate.

People flat out lying on a survey is a separate issue but there are also methods that can be used to minimize the rate of people lying such as having the survey be anonymous and by not asking questions that are too personal or would be seen as something that could be judgmental.

I think one thing a good questionnaire could do would be to ask a general question like "did you ever use a firearm defensively" and then follow it up with more specific questions like "have you ever pointed a gun at someone being aggressive towards you"


Lets take allegation of racism as a parallel issue. Many people report experiencing racism but was it really racism at work or was it a misperception? I have no idea at what rate but I know I have seen many many examples where someone cried racism when it really wasn't. Maybe they were trying to get something or maybe they were trained to see it everywhere, who knows. Do you question everytime someone claims racism or do you just take all reports as accurate?

Why?  You part of that group?   

I don't think they would let me in, I think my masculine features might give me away

Its called used an anecdote to illustrate the problem. This type of problem is something that survey designers have to deal with. Do you think they just slap a bunch of questions together and hand them out?  You can but then you get crappy unreliable results.

"Anecdotal Evidence" is an oxymoron. 

anecdotal evidence
noun
A limited selection of examples which support or refute an argument,
but which are not supported by scientific or statistical analysis.

Have you ever taken a class in statistics?  It’s the science of collecting, exploring and presenting large amounts of data to discover underlying patterns and trends. Statistics are applied every day – in research, industry and government – to become more scientific about decisions that need to be made.

IMO, statistical analysis IS a science, but the information produced by this process is, itself, not what I consider scientific.  10 people can analyze the same data or conduct the same surveys, and they can all get different conclusions.  Need an example?  How about the 2016 Presidential Election polling.  Need another?  How about the 2012 election.

Based on specific characteristics of the datasets, the way it was collected, the expected distribution of responses, etc, etc, etc, you pick the METHOD that best represents the dataset.

Basic Statistical Analysis Methods:

Regression
Standard Deviation
Mean
Sample Size Determination
Hypothesis Testing
/and more/

Depending on the method selected, the margins of error (how many people lied, didn't understand the questions, gave simple answers to complicated situations, etc.), would compensate for responses like the "rape-not-rape-lie" would be accounted for.  In the final analysis, the predicted results are guesses and estimates.  You can't really use the numbers as absolute or exact counts, because one of the purposes of the science is to take a sample of the population and extrapolate it to describe the whole population.

I don't think they would let me in, I think my masculine features might give me away

Looking at the MDA website, there are a lot of members who also have masculine features.   

The point was to illustrate how she reported something that wasn't true. If she were to participate in a survey that tried to see how many women were the victim of rape, her answer would skew the number higher than what it really was. In her mind she may have considered it rape but for the purposes of studying actual rape, her answer would have been inaccurate.


Again, it depends on what roll they think the firearm played. If the question asked "Did you point a gun at someone" then that is a much more specific question than "did you use a gun defensively" because depending on how the person viewed the event they might have seen just having the gun on their hip as using the gun to protect themselves but pointing a gun at someone is much less open to interpretation. On top of that such questions rely on whether there is an actual threat or just a perceived threat. These would be the types of things that a good survey designer would try to isolate or eliminate.

People flat out lying on a survey is a separate issue but there are also methods that can be used to minimize the rate of people lying such as having the survey be anonymous and by not asking questions that are too personal or would be seen as something that could be judgmental.

I think one thing a good questionnaire could do would be to ask a general question like "did you ever use a firearm defensively" and then follow it up with more specific questions like "have you ever pointed a gun at someone being aggressive towards you"


Lets take allegation of racism as a parallel issue. Many people report experiencing racism but was it really racism at work or was it a misperception? I have no idea at what rate but I know I have seen many many examples where someone cried racism when it really wasn't. Maybe they were trying to get something or maybe they were trained to see it everywhere, who knows. Do you question everytime someone claims racism or do you just take all reports as accurate?

Maybe you should research the actual questions asked in the surveys and the data collected from law enforcement, medical and social service agencies.  Lott's work has been published, reviewed, refuted, verified, validated, reported, and quoted for many years.  Should be easy to locate.

"Anecdotal Evidence" is an oxymoron. 

anecdotal evidence
noun
A limited selection of examples which support or refute an argument,
but which are not supported by scientific or statistical analysis.

Have you ever taken a class in statistics?  It’s the science of collecting, exploring and presenting large amounts of data to discover underlying patterns and trends. Statistics are applied every day – in research, industry and government – to become more scientific about decisions that need to be made.

IMO, statistical analysis IS a science, but the information produced by this process is, itself, not what I consider scientific.  10 people can analyze the same data or conduct the same surveys, and they can all get different conclusions.  Need an example?  How about the 2016 Presidential Election polling.  Need another?  How about the 2012 election.

Based on specific characteristics of the datasets, the way it was collected, the expected distribution of responses, etc, etc, etc, you pick the METHOD that best represents the dataset.

Basic Statistical Analysis Methods:

Regression
Standard Deviation
Mean
Sample Size Determination
Hypothesis Testing
/and more/

Depending on the method selected, the margins of error (how many people lied, didn't understand the questions, gave simple answers to complicated situations, etc.), responses like the "rape-not-rape-lie" would be accounted for.  In the final analysis, the predicted results are guesses and estimates.  You can't really use the numbers as absolute or exact counts, because one of the purposes of the science is to take a sample of the population and extrapolate it to describe the whole population.

I gave an anecdote as an illustration, not as evidence. I definitely know better than to try and base an argument on "one time I heard/saw..."

I did take statistics courses in college, it was part of my sociology degree. This is why I am questioning how the surveys were designed and why I know how important it is to design surveys well.

Survey data is never going to give you numbers that are purely correct and in some ways that makes social sciences harder than the hard sciences. Humans can be so hard to study for the very nature that people might purposefully answer wrong  to skew a result or answer differently depend on how a question is worded. The better these gun use surveys were designed and administered the more reliable and therefore useful they are to our cause thus I hope that they were designed well and are accurate. I would refuse to use a survey that made a great argument for gun rights if I knew it was highly flawed.

Looking at the MDA website, there are a lot of members who also have masculine features.   

I recall mustaches on some of them. . .

Maybe you should research the actual questions asked in the surveys and the data collected from law enforcement, medical and social service agencies.  Lott's work has been published, reviewed, refuted, verified, validated, reported, and quoted for many years.  Should be easy to locate.

That is exactly what I was thinking about doing.

I recall mustaches on some of them. . .

Is that CMO's type?