Reno Defends Gun Law (Brady)

O

Oatka

New member
Surprise, surprise! A textbook example of denial.

As always, the cry of a defender of a useless law, "It may just take longer to measure that affect."

http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/breakingnews/2000/08/03/bradylaw0803_01.html

Reno Defends Gun Law
Says Brady Act Helped Reduce Murder Rate

By Amy Worden

WASHINGTON (APBnews.com) -- Attorney General Janet Reno today disputed the results of a new study that found the 1994 Brady Act has not reduced the murder rate.

During her regular news briefing, Reno said since the law does require background checks, which take guns out of the hands of known criminals, it must have at least helped reduce gun-related murders.

"Someone who is not authorized goes to purchase a gun and can't because they have a prior record must have some effect [on the declining rate of gun crimes]," Reno said. "It may just take longer to measure that affect."

Reno's remarks follow the release of a new study that found murder and suicide rates did not decline any faster in states that had to toughen gun laws to comply with the Brady Act.

Study: 9,368 lives saved

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, compared homicide and suicide rates in the 32 Brady Bill states with the 18 states that already had those measures in place and found no overall difference.

The National Rifle Association said the research supports its claims that the Brady Act has had no effect on crime.

But Reno said it's too early to make judgments about the effectiveness of the Brady Act, citing a study released last week by the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, which found because guns were less available, 9,368 lives were saved between 1994 and 1998.

"No one should jump to conclusions," she said. "It shows we need more study and that each community is different. There is no one particular answer for all communities."

Secondary gun market not considered

She pointed to the Brady Bill, community policing and the administration's "vigorous efforts" to enforce gun laws through programs such as Project Exile -- which stipulates mandatory minimum sentences for those convicted of federal gun violations -- as reasons the overall crime rate declined for the eighth straight year.

Part of the problem with the JAMA study, she said, is that it did not consider the secondary gun market, or gun sales by unlicensed dealers, the source of most criminal gun trafficking.

Reno said the secondary market was flooded during the crack cocaine epidemic of the mid- 1980s and as a result, law enforcement has faced an uphill battle to stem the 15-year flow of illegal gun sales.

Difficult to isolate crimes

Reno's top deputy on gun crimes, Bea Witzleben, blamed Congress for not closing loopholes in the gun laws, which have allowed unlicensed gun dealers to make sales with no questions asked.

But Witzelben, an associate deputy attorney general, said while it is difficult to isolate crimes committed with the Brady law in place, the fact remains that the number of violent firearms-related crimes is falling.

"We believe the Brady law has contributed to the decline in crimes committed with handguns," she said.

Amy Worden is an APBnews.com staff writer (amy.worden@apbnews.com).

©Copyright 2000 APB Multimedia Inc.


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The New World Order has a Third Reich odor.

[This message has been edited by Oatka (edited August 04, 2000).]
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Oatka:
But Reno said it's too early to make judgments about the effectiveness of the Brady Act, citing a study released last week by the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, which found because guns were less available, 9,368 lives were saved between 1994 and 1998. [/quote]

Now that's an objective organization!

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
"No one should jump to conclusions," she said. "It shows we need more study and that each community is different. There is no one particular answer for all communities." [/quote]

Then why make it a national law, you idiot?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?
 
Before they start spinning the suicide drop in 55 year olds and above we should note this:

In fact, the actual study goes on to point out that while the FIREARM suicide rate was reduced for this group by 0.92 per 100k, the NONGUN suicide rate increased. The study even finds evidence of "weapon substitution" (meaning that rather than save lives, the law just forces suicidal people to use another means)

"However, we did not detect an association of the Brady Act with overall suicide rates. We find some signs of an offsetting increase in nongun suicides to those aged 55 years or older, which makes the reduction in the total suicide rate smaller than the reduction in gun suicides. Neither the increase in nongun suicides nor the decrease in suicides from all causes are statistically significant at the conventional 95% level, though the overall pattern of findings is consistent with theories of "weapon substitution."39

(source: http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v284n5/full/joc91749.html - Cook and Ludwig)"

"I think it would be a big mistake to conclude from this study that the Brady act is ineffective. Given that older people in the United States have one of the highest suicide rates in the world, the act has saved lives by reducing the number of suicides," says study co-author Jens Ludwig, assistant professor of public health at Georgetown University."

--Strange that Ludwig's own study contradicts him on this point.--

--thanks bartholomew

madison46

Truth and facts - a risky scheme
 
Before we get to accustomed to using this study as example, we ought to remember that Cook and Ludwig have a terrible record for doing good science.

My take on this study is that its junk science. They went looking for nothing and found it. They go on at length speaking about the limitations of their study, and when you sum it up, they really didn't investigate anything.

I wouldn't give this particular study any more air time... very soon someone is going to dispute it with another study that is more politically correct.

Smells like bait. Let's go fishin.



------------------
~USP

"[Even if there would be] few tears shed if and when the Second Amendment is held to guarantee nothing more than the state National Guard, this would simply show that the Founders were right when they feared that some future generation might wish to abandon liberties that they considered essential, and so sought to protect those liberties in a Bill of Rights. We may tolerate the abridgement of property rights and the elimination of a right to bear arms; but we should not pretend that these are not reductions of rights." -- Justice Scalia 1998
 
USP45 et al,
From Neal Knox Report:

It's been fun watching the media
spin the Journal of American Medical Association study showing that
the Brady Act had little or no effect.

What the study did was look at the crime stats in the 32
states where Brady imposed new gun purchase restrictions, compared
to those that already had restrictive laws. The researchers
thought it would have a dramatic effect, but couldn't find it.

The Washington Post played the story on Page 1 and rather
straight, but some newspapers gave headlines to the only bright
spot for the anti-gunners, the claim that there were fewer suicides
among older people due to the waiting period -- which HCI has been
trying to reinstate.

Those who don't pay much attention to academic studies are
missing the best story, that the study's authors -- Jens Ludwig and
Philip Cook are two of the more dedicated anti-gun partisans in the
debate.

Ludwig, from Georgetown University, was one of the researchers
who initially jumped on Prof. John Lott at an HCI-sponsored, C-Span
televised session shortly after Lott's study into the effects of
concealed carry laws was first released.

I would wager that that counter-study was funded with a grant
from HCI or one of its affiliates. Instead of reducing crime, as
Lott's study showed, concealed carry laws had no effect -- at least
after Ludwig, et al, juggled the numbers by leaving out Florida's
decline.

For this Ludwig study to show that Brady had no effect on
homicide, the numbers must have been so horrendously anti-Brady
that Ludwig could again only say there had been no effect.

Like all snake-oil salesmen, Ludwig said the reason the law
didn't work is that the dose wasn't strong enough -- he suggested
gun registration to a reporter.

I'd wager that Ludwig and Cook undertook the study for the
specific purpose of proving Lott's study of the Brady Act was
wrong. It didn't. Funny.

--End of Report
 
Keep in mind - the actual study in JAMA says that they did not use juvenile homicides because it would "bias" the results.

I don't know how the study classified "juveniles" but if they used the traditional anti description of those 19 and younger then they eliminated the two biggest demographics for violent crime (18 and 19yr old males).
 
I agree with Waterdog; Reno can talk till she's blue in the face.
She will always be so full of #@%$ that her eyes are brown.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>"Someone who is not authorized goes to purchase a gun and can't because they have a prior record must have some effect [on the declining rate of gun crimes]," Reno said. "It may just take longer to measure that affect."[/quote]

Not authorized! Arg. Okay commrade Reno, we'll all go register are our guns now so we can be authorized by the regime to bear arms, even though our right to do so is also legally protected quite clearly in the second ammendment. How is this woman still in office? How is she still even alive? I'm amazed somebody hasn't snapped after years of dealing with her and finally done her in. Janet Reno is far worse than King George ever was.

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I twist the facts until they tell the truth. -Some intellectual sadist

The Bill of Rights is a document of brilliance, a document of wisdom, and it is the ultimate law, spoken or not, for the very concept of a society that holds liberty above the desire for ever greater power. -Me
 
This is indeed humorous, but it won't slow down our favorite anti-self defense gun bigots ... at least, not for long.

After all, they just need a sound bite here and there, and a mumble about 'doing it for the children'.

Interesting that JAMA would publish this, and that the authors would want it published, if Knox is correct. I've heard that JAMA has had a management change.

Regards from AZ
 
"Cook and Ludwig have a terrible record for doing good science."


Ludwig and Cook are devoted anti-gunners. And believe me, they are talented at their craft. If there was anything they could do to make the Brady Law come up smelling like roses, they would have done so. But this is the best they can come up with.

As far as removing certain groups because they might "bias" the study, believe me, they crunched those numbers and already know which way that inclusion or exclusion would have taken the study.

These guys are propagandists. It was Cook who tried to disprove Prof. Gary Kleck's " a minimum of 2.5 million times per year" defensive use of gun study. Cook's study bumped the minimum number to 4.7 million (which was actually closer to Kleck's average) and advised that the "real number of DGUs could not be known." His work appeared in a law journal which I have at home titled, "I give up, how many defensive gun uses are there?" He presented his data to a criminology seminar and was laughed off the stage.

This is who we are dealing with.

Or... this is with whom we are dealing.

Rick
 
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