Explore The NRA Universe Of Websites

APPEARS IN News

The Trace Got Something Right

Friday, October 5, 2018

The Trace Got Something Right

Earlier this week, FiveThirtyEight collaborated with The Trace to report that the CDC is publishing unreliable data on nonfatal firearms injuries.

Fatal firearms injury data from the CDC is based on death certificates. Nonfatal injury data is collected through a survey conducted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The survey is small – only 100 out of 5,534 registered hospitals are surveyed and only 66 provide the relevant data. That is less than 2% of all hospitals in the country.  The results are harrowing.

“The agency’s most recent figures include a worrying uptick: Between 2015 and 2016, the number of Americans nonfatally injured by a firearm jumped by 37 percent, rising from about 85,000 to more than 116,000. It was the largest single-year increase recorded in more than 15 years.”

This trend is at odds with the trend from four other estimates of the number of non-fatal firearms-related injuries based on hospitalization and crime data. This means that the CDC nonfatal injury data is completely unreliable – as the CDC itself admits. Noted anti-gun researcher David Hemenway is quoted as saying, “No one should trust the CDC’s nonfatal firearm injury point estimates.” This analysis is too late for the 50 or more academic papers since 2010 that have used CDC estimates on nonfatal firearms injuries.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission responded to the authors’ questions by claiming, “Although visually, the [CDC] estimates for firearm-related assaults appear to be increasing from 2015 to 2016, there is not a statistically significant difference between the estimates.” There’s so much variance in the data that the true number of nonfatal firearms injuries for 2016 is, with 95% probability, somewhere between 46,524 and 186,304. As Hemenway said, “Basically, the confidence intervals are enormous. So you have no idea about trends.”

The survey is ripe for such problems, given its small sample size. Variations across regions can strongly shift the estimate in one direction or another. Hospitals near high-crime neighborhoods in Baltimore or Chicago likely see more nonfatal gunshot injuries than hospitals in rural Vermont. The estimate is based off the hospitals that participate, and so can be easily skewed.

While The Trace should be commended for this analysis, the opportunity to complain about the lack of federal funding for “gun violence research” was too much to pass up. They note that the Dean of the Boston University School of Public Health believes we have “lost a generation of firearms research” and cite several articles bemoaning the state of “gun violence research.” 

We’d like to point out that thousands of studies related to guns, crime, and violence have been conducted in the last 20 years. Not all of the research passes methodological muster, some is clearly biased in addition to being seriously flawed, anti-gun researchers acknowledged federal funding isn’t an obstacle for such research in Science magazine, and the federal government spent more $11 million in grants funding gun violence research between 2014 and 2017.

There are important questions in the wake of this analysis. Perhaps chief among them, why is the Consumer Product Safety Commission running this survey for the CDC when other sources are gathering similar data? We’d wager that hospitals across the country have precise counts of their patients’ ills. Hospitals tend to keep track of their patients. In many states, they’re also required to report gunshot injuries to law enforcement agencies, so this specific type of injury is already being recorded elsewhere. We just have to hope that efforts to collect better data will be put to good use, and not used in convoluted attempts to undermine our Constitutional rights.

IN THIS ARTICLE
United States Research Bias
TRENDING NOW
Undercover Video: Sen. Fetterman (D-Pa.) staffer claims boss would be “okay with like overturning the Second Amendment”

News  

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Undercover Video: Sen. Fetterman (D-Pa.) staffer claims boss would be “okay with like overturning the Second Amendment”

It seems as though Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) may like to overturn more than just the U.S. Senate’s standards of professional attire. According to an undercover video of Fetterman senate staffer Luke Borwegen, obtained by O’Keefe Media Group, ...

Connecticut:  Gun Control Bill Passes the House and Moves to the Senate

Saturday, May 27, 2023

Connecticut: Gun Control Bill Passes the House and Moves to the Senate

On Thursday, the House passed HB 6667 on a vote of 96-51.  This drastic gun control legislation has a bit of everything.  It contains a ban on open carry and strengthens prohibitions and registration of semi-auto "assault ...

Updates to ATF Final Rule on Stabilizing Braces

News  

Monday, January 30, 2023

Updates to ATF Final Rule on Stabilizing Braces

On Monday, January 30, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ (ATF) published the final Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached “Stabilizing Braces” rule for public inspection in the federal register.

U.S. House Judiciary Committee Advances Pistol Brace Resolution

News  

Monday, April 24, 2023

U.S. House Judiciary Committee Advances Pistol Brace Resolution

On April 19, the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee voted 23-15 to advance H.J.Res.44, which would reign in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ attempt to regulate pistol stabilizing braces. The resolution employs ...

Need a Good Lawyer? Don’t Use Anti-Gun Groups as a Resource

News  

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Need a Good Lawyer? Don’t Use Anti-Gun Groups as a Resource

The anti-gun extremists at Giffords and March for Our Lives are running a joint operation to try to convince students in law school to sign a pledge to never represent anyone within “the gun industry or gun ...

Hypothesis or Hyperbole Gun Control Researchers Balk at Betting on Gun Control

News  

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Hypothesis or Hyperbole Gun Control Researchers Balk at Betting on Gun Control

Dr. John Lott, Jr., a leading researcher and founder of the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), recently embarked on an unusual personal experiment: how many pro-gun control academics would literally bet in favor of their own ...

Connecticut:  Gun Control Legislation Nearing House Vote

Thursday, May 25, 2023

Connecticut: Gun Control Legislation Nearing House Vote

Gun banners in Hartford have been busy all session cooking up a concoction of more gun control.  In a state where there is already a large buffet of gun laws, it’s time for Connecticut gun ...

Louisiana House Passes Constitutional Carry

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Louisiana House Passes Constitutional Carry

Last week, the House Administration of Criminal Justice Committee held their “Gun Day,” where multiple pro-gun bills passed out of committee and the lone anti-gun measure was involuntarily deferred. Your active participation was crucial to protecting and ...

South Carolina: Constitutional Carry Advances to Floor from Senate Judiciary Committee

Tuesday, May 9, 2023

South Carolina: Constitutional Carry Advances to Floor from Senate Judiciary Committee

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12-11 to pass S.109, the NRA-backed Constitutional Carry bill, and it has now been sent to the Senate floor for further consideration. This is a huge step toward South Carolina becoming the next state ...

NRA Challenges ATF Brace Rule

News  

Second Amendment  

Thursday, February 9, 2023

NRA Challenges ATF Brace Rule

The National Rifle Association announced the filing of an NRA-backed and supported lawsuit challenging the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' (ATF) unlawful rule on stabilizing braces.

MORE TRENDING +
LESS TRENDING -

More Like This From Around The NRA

NRA ILA

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.