John Richardson highlights some new research by Garen Wintermute showing that gun owners are disproportionately drunks. What does it say about what kind of culturally condescending bigot you are when you even do major research to ask that kind of question? Did Wintermute ever perhaps consider that alcohol consumption was more tied to income? We know that income and gun ownership correlate. Both hooch and guns are something that takes a certain amount of income to partake in. But obviously, here, the goal is to show most gun owners are too irresponsible to be so.
13 thoughts on “Gun Owners are Irresponsible Drunks”
Comments are closed.
A survey from an anti-gun group turns out with anti-gun results. Who would have thunk it?
Funny, I own a bunch of guns and don’t drink at all. Not a drop. I guess you could say the ranks of academia are filled with a bunch of pot heads.
His data set is from 1996-97. He never appears to distinguish between legal gun owners and thugs, or the circumstances of the “drinking” (wedding vs. 40oz on a Tuesday afternoon).
Basically, yeah, so thugs = carry guns + drink a lot more than non-thugs do. Whoopdie-doo.
I own a bunch of guns but I don’t drink. I wish Mr. Wintermute would come tell me to my face that I am a drunk.
One of the first things I was taught when studying statistics is that you can get statistics to say anything you want. I would start shooting the study full of holes, but it already has more holes per inch than substance, so my chance to hit is pretty slim.
Thanks for the post. It was good for a laugh!
Weird. The CDC website says BFRSS data is available for up to 2010. A search of the 2010 questionnaire turns up nothing for “firearm” or “gun.”
Maybe the firearms questions were deprecated in 1996-97? If so, he’s really scraping the bottom of the barrel for his data. I didn’t see the funding source on the abstract, but I could take one guess… begins with a “J”.
Another thought –
the dataset is from 1996-97. A lot more states back then had no provision for lawful CCW, compared to now. The abstract doesn’t say, but is it possible he sampled from states where CCW was always illegal? In other words, respondents who said yes were by definition criminals.
If he didn’t account for this then it’s kind of a “thanks, genius” conclusion that thugs engage in riskier alcohol behavior.
Criminee; “liars, damn liars, and statisticians.”
It’s this kind of “study” that give slanted, resulted-oriented studies a bad name . . .
FatWhiteMan hit it right out of the gate: An anti-gun group ends up with an anti-gun “study.” Shocked, I am.
This “study” has more holes than, well, more than Bitter’s targets at the Lucky Gunner shoot. And I’m betting that Bitter shoots well.
I don’t drink, but I’m also left wondering:
1. Does the study sort out responsible drinkers from the ones who get plastered? There are a lot of people I wouldn’t mind carrying a gun, even after they have drunk a beer or a glass of wine with a meal. Heck, I wouldn’t even mind them driving!
2. Of those that do get drunk, do they carry while in that state, or only carry when they are sober?
I didn’t look at the study, so I don’t know if they addressed these concerns–but if they didn’t, I would be even more suspicious of the data.
As for myself, I don’t think anyone should drink, and if they do, they should just limit their drinking to a glass of wine, or a mug of beer, at a meal; nonetheless, I do not see why we should worry about the gun owner–or the car driver, for that matter–who gets plastered, but always does so without carrying or driving.
Well, we probably should worry about the friend who gets plastered, and try to get him to stop drinking…but if he doesn’t change, I’ll just feel sorry for him, because there’s only so much I can do to help others! (I have my own life to be troubled with.)
Just a view from someone who might fall into their “Danger” groups for drinking- but wouldn’t consider himself a drunk. If we define a single “event” as something like a BBQ on Saturday evening, then yes I have had 5+ drinks in a single event- but over the course of 7 plus hours… so not really any danger of being drunk since you can matobolize about a drink an hour.
Also, I think the proper causation (if the data is true) is that people who love freedom like all their freedoms- A good Saturday is sleeping in, going to the range, having a big steak and fries for dinner with some wine, then finishing it off with a cigar and bourbon.
John Richardson’s desperation makes me happy.
How about a study designed to show that California academics function as de facto communists?
CORRECTION: I meant to say:
“Garen Wintermute’s desperation makes me happy.”
Apologies to Mr. RIchardson, my copy-paste-fu failed me again. The point being that if this is the best he can come up with (and it’s quite laughable), then he’s grasping at straws. I think gun control is much like global warming in that it’s really a religion for some people and things that seem absolutely ridiculous to outsiders seem logical and sound to true believers.