Where they are going with THIS study…
Sixty-six percent of Veteran firearm owners stored at least one firearm unlocked, and 46.7 percent stored at least one loaded.
Storing a firearm loaded and unlocked was more common among Veteran firearm owners who:
- Disagreed that firearms should be stored unloaded and locked when not in use
- Agreed that firearms are not useful for personal protection if the owner has to take time to load or unlock them
- Agreed that having a firearm in the home makes the household safer
Full article, HERE at Science Daily.
Honestly, I think this number is probably low…
The article goes on to prattle about Veterans Health Administration (VHA) initiatives to stop suicide and claim this is the first ‘comprehensive’ study…
But the total numbers are less that 4000 interviewed, with only a little over 550 veterans interviewed. That, to me, is NOT a comprehensive dataset. There are roughly 20.4 MILLION veterans in the USA, so to have a statistically significant study, one would need to systematically sample over 200,000 people!
Sigh… But they will run with this data, and I’m betting we (VA users) will start seeing more and more intrusive questions concerning gun ownership and storage in the home.
They can be as intrusive with their questions as they want to be. Me? Nothing says I have to answer them. Around here there as useful as tits on a boar anyway.
Most intelligent gun owners keep at least one firearm unlocked and loaded and ready for action, don’t they?
They can have them one round at a time.
Doc: Do you have many guns at home?
Me; Na, there’s too much gun violence around. Besides 911 is all I need.
They don’t need to know shit. F’ em.
Common sense helps a lot in gun ownership. Something the anit-gunners seem to lack.
I should add and clarify — “They” in my comment refers to the local VA folks, who are very PC. Not the 38 in the drawer…
Polls have been corrupted for a long time. Instead of using them to arrive at correct data, the questions are skewed, sample populations are stacked, and the polls become propaganda.
Veterans should be armed, and their arms ready to fire. They have the most training to protect the nation, and the nation needs an armed citizenry.
As Rooster Cogburn once said, “Well, a gun that’s unloaded and cocked ain’t good for nothin’.”
Hey Jess! I got interviewed by Gallup on a Sunday morning about 10AM on my views of non-commercial Christian ministries. How did they know I was playing hookey from church? And worked for a non-commercial Christian radio station as a broadcast engineer?? After the 2 hour interview, his face was priceless when he asked where I worked…..
They skew everything to say what they want. They are bar stewards of the lowest order…
So, Household Six has great insurance through her work. We decided it was easier for her to take a pay cut and add me than to keep fooling with the VA for healthcare.
And this is another sterling example of why I washed my hands of them.
I remember in college I hurt my knee in fraternity softball game. The triage nurse at the local VA clinic was more concerned about how much beer I drank in a day and what I did with my guns than the fact that “Hey, that chunk of Humvee moved and is pressing on something.”
“Storing a firearm loaded and unlocked was more common among Veteran firearm owners who:
Disagreed that firearms should be stored unloaded and locked when not in use”
Duh, no s**t Sherlock.
By the way, not a veteran, but I have loaded, unlocked firearms in my home (no children or visiting children).
…because at 0200, the guy breaking your window or back door is going to patiently and politely wait to do whatever until you open the gun-safe and get the proper weapon and ammunition for the threat at hand.
Not a vet, just pragmatic.
I suspect the whole point of the survey is to push “safe storage” laws and to encourage the VA to make another counter productive rule.
“I will neither confirm nor deny…”
And if anyone doesn’t like it, too bad.
Hey Old NFO;
I don’t answer polls especially when it comes to firearms, I believe that the pollsters are trying to cook the books and I will not participate even a little. I consider the VA worse, I flat out don’t trust the VA that whatever data they gather don’t get put on some .gov list and it is used to compile the “hit” list. Am I paranoid…perhaps…but better paranoid than collected.
1) Any sample that controlled for race, sex, age, and political affiliation would be valid if they had 1500 responses.
If you don’t do that, no amount would be valid.
2) Anyone who answers surveys from the VA, or would, or from any other branch of the .Gov is already de factonot smart enough to own firearms.
3) In a famous apocryphal survey, 40% of men admitted to masturbation, and 60% admitted to lying on surveys.
Remember that the poele who answer surveys are like the people who show up for jury duty: the ones not bright enough to avoid the experience.
4) A recent federal Appelate Court decision, IIRC, just affirmed that any requirement that a firearm be stored in any condition other than “immediately ready to fire” constituted an unlawful infringement upon the 2nd Amendment, because any firearm kept for self-defense was “in use” every second it was owned, because criminals don’t make an appointment to rob you, or break down your door.
The inherent wisdom of such jurisprudence is unassailable, and unless and until stricken down by The Nazgul, is the law of the land.
Given that reality, it’s nobody’s damned business if I own firearms, where I keep them, how I store them, or in what state of readiness.
If we just assume that I’m ready to confront Chinese wave assaults to repel borders 24/7/365/until I’m dead, it will save a lot of time all around. If we assume I’m one of the friendlier, less-threatening veterans in any given sample, that would be even wiser.
With all due respect NFO, calculating a statistically significant sample size results in a size more like the one they used. Your suggestion that a sample size of 200,000 is unnecessary when an added factor is the time and cost of conducting such an extensive survey.
So, in a word, unnecessary.
Check out https://www.isixsigma.com/tools-templates/sampling-data/how-determine-sample-size-determining-sample-size/
Your link seems to have several assumptions baked into that are unmentioned, and might impact the results.
Methodology: I used find to check how many times ‘distribution’ is mentioned, and in what context.
Justification: Assumptions about distributions are actually fairly critical to drawing valid conclusions about a sample from a population. The link mentions only the standard normal distribution, so the link is probably only valid for cases where a normal distribution can be assumed. The URL mentions Six Sigma, a set of techniques for process improvement in a manufacturing environment. If your statistical background comes from business and is filtered through Six Sigma, it makes sense that you would rarely see a situation where the assumption of normality is invalid.
Discussion: If you have a sample from population, what can you say about the population from the sample? Depends. What is the relationship between what you can calculate from the sample and what you don’t know about the population? Sometimes you can assume that the relationship is normally distributed. You can do this when the population is normally distributed, or when you have a large enough sample size. The closer the population is to normal, the smaller the sample size you can get away with.
Measuring human beings is much different from measuring widgets. Widgets can’t choose to lie to you. Humans can also be very different. A number of the soft sciences, such as psychology, routinely publish garbage based off too small samples, or samples incorrectly selected or measured. Really excellent work would be prohibitively expensive, so they produce the results they have a budget for.
A PhD might have the training in graduate level statistics to ask about the assumptions. See Aesop for a reasonable guess about necessary measures for sampling humans on this issue. If you knew those demographic details for the veteran population, a small controlled sample might usefully predict the veteran population. If you didn’t, you would need a much larger sample from the veteran population. The larger the sample, the smaller the chance of accidentally selecting a sample that doesn’t much resemble the overall veteran population. 1000 female AF PR officer short timers versus 1000 male Army Security Agency long term service NCOs, for example.
Issues with publicly reported political polls in 2016 raises the possibility that the distribution of the overall voting population has changed in ways that the pollers were not prepared for. Ergo, if we are going to pay attention to statistical data, we need to be intelligent and informed consumers.
Conclusion: McChuck’s polite suggestion that you “Read The F… Manual, dude” is reasonable.
@BobtheFool: Thank you Sir for a great explanation. I appreciate the background as applied to the “human” element and was only stating what I had learned in Business School.
What I don’t appreciate it the snide “Read the F’n Manual, dude” which is not what McChuck said. And I still don’t know why I should give a crap about WM whatshisname with regard to this issue. Bottom line is, we know the MSM lies about EVERYTHING, and all we really need to know is Mark Twains dictum about statistics.
I’m confident McChuck’s suggestion of that blog would have been cheaper for you than the suggestion that you go buy a graduate level text on engineering statistics.
There’s at least one circumstance in business where it is incorrect to assume a normal relationship between a sample and the population. You’d be doing yourself a favor if you corrected that gap between what business school has taught you and the confidence it gave you in having a full and complete knowledge of statistics.
I speak bluntly because you have been speaking very confidently, and ignored hints from McChuck, and Old NFO that there are deeper waters.
I’ve had a look at the Briggs website, and the material I can easily find seems both too advanced and too basic to quickly get you up to speed. As for me, I need to look at it more closely when I have more time.
humm, deeper waters? Why not just say so instead of making a statement and then not clarifying to anyone questioning? I am not “very confident” and recognize that I am not a statistics expert but my basic argument that large sample sizes cost time and money still hold. Rather than people hinting “at me” I consider the source and in this case I don’t know you guys or your backgrounds so “hints” don’t mean much to me.
Give me a break. There are certain things that we can discuss between “the gap” of b-school or engineering stats and a “complete knowledge of statistics,” whatever that means.
Sorry to have intruded on your mutual admiration society. I won’t bother you any longer.
All- Thanks for the comments. Mongoose, maybe, but my PHD would have disagreed. 🙂
Posted from my iPhone.
@OldNFO: Again, with all due respect, even if you have a PhD, or a friend with a PhD, would you care to elaborate on why a sample size of 200,000 is necessary? I’m open to learning. Thanks.
Just curious OldNFO, but what do you have a PhD in?
I have 3 loaded and unlocked on 2 levels of my house unless a kid is going to be visiting.
Mongoose –
You need to start reading WMBriggs’ blog. “Statistician to the stars.”
@McChuck: Guys, I’m not looking to pick a fight here. I have used stats in business and just “on the surface” a sample size of 200,000 that was mentioned by OldNFO seemed a bit out of place by an order of magnitude. I don’t know who WMBriggs is and you don’t explain why I should visit his site or what I should read that is relevant to this discussion.
Can someone just explain to me why on this issue of 2A Rights, a larger sample size is warranted given the time and cost that would otherwise be warranted? I really am interested in learning but I like to know the reasoning behind the statement. That’s all I am looking for. Thanks.
Thank you all, on the road.
Posted from my iPhone.
Whatever the sample size, unless there is some data source beyond self reporting, it isn’t going mean very much. When everyone knows the smart path is to lie about the topic, you get results like “100% of moms of college report their children are going to class, studying on weekends and avoiding alcohol.”
For ways to respond to questions about guns from the medical community, drgo.us has many articles and a .pdf printout of how to respond, and what to do to fight back if they push the issue. I found it very illuminating.
Firearms? Gave them up when I got out of the Army.
I’d like to know what use they think I have for a trigger lock on the gun in my holster on my hip would be…..
I use the VA. Should they ask me I plan to tell them I’ll as fully forthcoming with them as the FBI, NSA and DOJ have been with Congress.
“guns”?? “firearms”?? nope,don’t have any.
“hunting implements” and “self defense tools”?? yep, got several of each
depends on what the definition if “is” is.