Junk Science: So called "Studies" Linking Licensed Concealed To High Homicide Rates Are Bogus - VPC AGAIN FALSELY ACCUSES CCW LICENSE HOLDERS OF HAVING A HIGH HOMICIDE RATE [More]Still at their "concealed carry killers" scam, eh?
Sir Wilfrid is having none of it:
Excuse me, David, but the author of that post at 2ndamendmentclergy - while telling the absolute truth - is doing more than a bit of slanting or shading the truth. He (apparently deliberately) truncated the bottom of both graphs to exaggerate the difference in rates between "may issue" and "shall issue" states. When plotted from a zero base, the differences, while still present, do not appear quite so great. The actual differences are 18.64% and 19.78% respectively.
ReplyDeleteMUST we stoop to the gun grabbers' level to counter their propaganda? If so, how are we any different from them? You used to have a Latin (sorta) motto up on your site referring to bar fights. Are we now reduced to slanting or shading the truth to get our point across? DO the ends justify the means? In the final analysis, CAN evil means even PRODUCE a good end? I am not setting myself up as the morality police but things like this disturb me.
I'm not understanding what you're telling me at all.
ReplyDeleteI see you left a comment on his site, so we'll see if he responds.
Bill's referring to choices one makes in formatting a graph.
ReplyDeleteIt can be linear or logarithmic (a log graph makes the distances between larger numbers smaller so that a 10% change on the bottom looks like a 10% change on the top, and is most common in investment return charting, otherwise a change in share price from 100 to 110 would look the same as a change from 10 to 20).
And the graph can start at zero, or the graph can start at some non-zero point below the data points. This is usually done to save space and show detail better. Bill seems to think it's done to make a mountain out of a molehill.
He's saying the guy cut the bottoms off the graphs instead of starting them at 0 to exaggerate the difference between may issue and shall issue states. I would argue his point is irrelevant since I don't believe the graph, even exaggerated, does justice to the numbers we are actually talking about. The population of the may issue states is roughly 86 million (not counting US territories, which are also mostly may issue). At a difference of roughly one murder/ 100k we're talking about 860 more murders. Per year.
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