Need some help...

[Cratemaker]

What are some of the most unbiased gun rights studies or articles that you have read. Please provide any links that point the way. Thanks in advance. I look forward to some good reading.

[Librarian]

It would be helpful to explain what it is you are trying to find out.

[Cratemaker]

Just looking for any studies that have been done, or articles written (based on studies), that are published by an unbiased sources, as much as possible. I understand that no matter what, someone's interpretation of the numbers are going to have a bias one way or another, but some are able to sort their personal feelings out better than others. That's all.

I'm always reading, but I'm not always seeking out unbiased sources. A lot of times when people want to read the facts for themselves, I'd like to have a small database I articles that come across at trustworthy and credible.

So if there are articles that people here have read and can remember where they found them, I'd like to hear about them. And I'll bookmark them and save them for a later Facebook debate.

Thanks again!

[Librarian]

Topics if interest? 'Everything' doesn't work.

If you were searching Google, what terms would you try?

[Cratemaker]

Something that shows statistics that, guns in the hands of good guys stop crime and violence of bad guys. Or, more guns in society means a safer society. Something along those lines. Does that help more?

[Librarian]

Something that shows statistics that, guns in the hands of good guys stop crime and violence of bad guys. Or, more guns in society means a safer society. Something along those lines. Does that help more?

Yes.

No such thing.

You have bumped up against the two major unanswerable questions in research involving guns.

1) How many guns are there, and who has them? Nobody knows. There is no good way to find out. We 'sort of' know it is very likely that there are around 300 million guns in the hands of the civilian population of the United States; BATF maintains statistics of guns made, imported and exported, because manufacturers and importers must tell them.

But who has them? Best we can tell is 'guns are unevenly distributed'; not all guns are registered, so there is little reliable government information at that level, and all the proxies - telephone surveys ("Hi, I'm a complete stranger; please tell me whether you own any guns". *click*), inferences from crimes and suicides with guns, or from magazine subscriptions - are laughably unconfirmed.

If we do not know how many guns there are, we can't compare 'lots of guns' areas to 'few guns' areas. That doesn't work among US cities, different states, or different countries.

2) How many times do 'good guys' use guns in self defense? That's more technically a 'defensive gun use' or DGU. Nobody knows for sure. Do a Google search for 'Gary Kleck' and 'DGU' and you'll see ...

And then there are the statistical comparisons ... Another Google search for you: John Lott and 'More Guns, Less Crime'. Personally, I think he has it right, but there is 'baggage' there that interferes, and statistical results are not 'facts' but 'probabilities'. (He works with law changes and violent crimes, which CAN be measured, not number of guns.)

Finally, see More Statistics, Less Persuasion. From 2003 some of the discussion is a bit dated, but in summary, it looks like statistics are useful in conversation only when folks are already prepared to agree with them. Otherwise, it's a verbal Augean stable.

[Mitch]

I believe that Gary Kleck started out skeptical about gun ownership, but was converted by the results of his own research. To my mind, that makes him much less biased than John Lott.

Personally, I won't quote John Lott.