A Subtle Attack on Guns

[JustThisGuy]

The Florida shooting of a young black man by a Neighborhood Watch patrolman continues to spark controversy.

MSNBC hosts a story today indicating that holding a gun may make you think that others are also holding one.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46801703/ns/health-behavior/#.T2nUR9nwrnU

He (Blackmore) said the work is not intended to support gun control, but it suggests that people should know that when they hold a gun "that might change how you're going to interpret what's around you."

Seems like a lot of speculation to me.

 

[ScottRiqui]

I'm not going to speculate on whether that was what happened in the recent shooting, but I didn't see anything about the studies mentioned in the article that screamed "flawed research". I'm going to see if I can find the actual results, though, since I'm curious how statistically-significant their results were. In other words, just how noticable was the effect they're talking about?

 

[dstyle47]

I have just started to follow this story, quite interested into how it will turn out. They are making it a huge deal here in FL. I was turned onto the story watching CNN on one of my school's televisions. At first i was trying to understand why the story was significant as they were spending WAY longer than a normal news story, so i stuck around and watched. Sure enough, the story quickly turned into a smear on FL's stand your ground law. One of the talking heads said some ppl referred to it as the "right to kill" law, and then only a few minutes later referred to it by a similar name herself. The story seemed to quickly turn into a not so subtle attack on FL's self defense laws.

 

[Spats McGee]

I saw part of this story on NBC this morning, and heard them say something to the effect of "following the passage of FL's Stand Your Ground law, the number of justifiable homicides has tripled." (I'm paraphrasing; that's not a real quote.) I haven't checked any statistics to follow up on this, but I did not hear (or have time to listen for) any reporting on exactly what numbers NBC used to get to their conclusion. Nonetheless, the manner in which it was phrased could easily lead some to believe that the number of homicides increased following passage of SYG in FL. It occurred to me that the number of justifiable homicides could increase, simply because SYG changed the way the FL legal system determines what is "justifiable."

 

[arentol]

Little hint, if you give people an object then tell them to look at images and indicate what they see someone else holding they will find that object in those images whether it is there or not. Doubly so with something that is dangerous and possibly somewhat unfamiliar to them.
The test would be better done by choosing people at random and just showing them the images. You would want them to write down what they saw in each image, not indicate when they saw a gun specifically, nor choose from a limited selection of options. Then after the test ask them to answer a questionnaire which includes a question of whether they are a gun owner and whether they have a firearm with them today.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

1. Since we don't have the original study to read - speculation is useless as to specifics of research design.

2. Since, I am expert in this area - sorry to say, folks - there is a giant wealth of data showing the perception is a constructive process and that priming you for a set of stimuli can lead you to false positive errors. Meaning you will perceive an target that is not there from a minimal and vague cue.

3. Next - we have said a rant against the media or speculation on the nature of this case - leading to the inevitable close,etc. - is not what we want.

To conclude, the data are strong that the effect can exist. Did it operate it here? We don't know. I could speculate from news reports that this guy has the characteristics to make that mistake, but I don't know.
Let's wait till the investigation plays out and we have more facts.

Thus, I'm closing this before we go off the deep end and some of you getting banned.

Closed.


PS - just read the research article.

1. It is not antigun but a study in the vein of quite a few others.
2. It is congruent with other past studies.
3. It is congruent with the implications of other studies for police and civilian training.
4. The implication in the OP that the study is a subtle attack on guns is incorrect as far as the study goes. It is a legit analysis.
5. If others use it in the general context of guns being bad - that might happen but the science is independent of that. Much of the modern training that police and civilians should undertake in part is to mitigate such effects.