re: Scientific American: Gun Owners Are Scared Racist Losers

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says a recent, definitive study from the Injury Control Research Center at Harvard University.

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OK. So I'm not only going to laugh at the source but really, you might as well get Marlboro to study cigarettes.

So, on to the specific humor. First, from Ms. Stroud. She based her "study" on her own interviews and her interpretation of the responses she got. Do I need to help liberals with why this is a horrible way to do science?

They go on to tell us her "insight" is "backed up by many". OK.

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A 2013 paper by a team of United Kingdom researchers found that a one-point jump in the scale they used to measure racism increased the odds of owning a gun by 50 percent

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Um. LOL. OK guys. I'm 0 for 2 at bumping into something you could really call "science" in this article. Maybe things will get better. LOL

Then, we get ANOTHER self adjudicated study.

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Steven Shepherd and Aaron C. Kay asked hundreds of liberals and conservatives to imagine holding a handgun—and found that conservatives felt less risk and greater personal control than liberal counterparts.

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For frick's sake. Do they teach sociologists how to do real science these days?

Maybe next one?

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Baylor University sociologists Paul Froese and F. Carson Mencken created a “gun empowerment scale” designed to measure how a nationally representative sample of almost 600 owners felt about their weapons. Their study found that people at the highest level of their scale—the ones who felt most emotionally and morally attached to their guns—were 78 percent white and 65 percent male.

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“We found that white men who have experienced economic setbacks or worry about their economic futures are the group of owners most attached to their guns,” says Froese. “Those with high attachment felt that having a gun made them a better and more respected member of their communities.”

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And this my friends is why anytime you hear a Sociologist tell you they practice "science" you should merely laugh in their face and move on.

Their scale
Their interpretation of interviews
etc etc

Did ANY of these fricks ever hear of observer bias?