In January of 2016, John Lott notified the CDC that their numbers for accidental firearms deaths in Tennessee were in error. He spotted the error and made the prediction that the number was incorrect, based on his knowledge of the statistics.
In September of 2016, an anti-Second Amendment group, put out a news release, touting the numbers and calling for harsh new infringments on the Second Amendment.
That press release page has been taken down, without any correction. But the press release lives on in a Tennessee paper's reporting. From memphisdailynews.com:
In a news release, The Safe Tennessee Project, a grassroots gun-violence prevention organization, said that 105 people died in the state from accidental gunshots in 2014, media outlet reported.
The year before that, there were 19 such deaths in Tennessee, and the state had ranked ninth in accidental shootings.
"We've actually been aware of the new numbers for several months, but the increase was so dramatic that we wanted to confirm the numbers before reporting them," said Beth Joslin Roth, Policy Director for The Safe Tennessee Project.
According to Roth, the group first asked the CDC and state health officials to check the numbers for accuracy. Those figures were then verified.
But John Lott had already alerted the CDC to the problem in the data. The CDC has not yet corrected the data, though they admit an error that increased the numbers was made. From CDC:
Note Regarding Unintentional Firearm Deaths in 2014Lott has reported that the actual number for Tennessee was 5, not 105. That is a drop from 19 in 2013, to 5 in 2014.
There was a coding error in the 2014 file that increases the number of unintentional firearm deaths (W32-W34: Accidental discharge of firearms) substantially in some states. The error was not technically isolated to any particular state, but because of the nature of the error, data from some states (TN, NC) were affected more than others in 2014. Results for 2014 unintentional firearm deaths should be interpreted with caution.
An error of 100 is enormous in this data set. It is 20% of all the fatal firearms accidents in the United States. The corrected number for 2014 should be 486, not 586, for the entire nation. That would be the lowest number of fatal firearms accidents in a year on record.
One of the most important tests of scientific theories are their predictive value. This correction does much to cement John Lott's reputation for understanding the phenomena better than those who disagree with him. He saw the data, predicted that it was in error, and his prediction has been validated.
I look forward to the corrected data being published by the CDC.
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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2 comments:
Dean please do not hold your breathe waiting for the CDC to correct its self. the CDC put out incorrect information on the AIDs epidemic for ten years Fact there had not been a penny spent on research for ten years. what the CDC pumped out for ten years was pure incorrect theory. I worked with a research doctor that proved the aids virus was a man made bioweapon and the government forbid him to publish his results. it was released in Africa for a test that got out of control. Much like when our government experimented with syphilis in the Tuskegee air men.that is well documented.
I believe that HIV AIDS is Natures way of telling humans that eating primates isn't such a good idea. Now, that doesn't mean I don't think governments and wanna be terrorists playing government play bio war in a ongoing hidden war. West Nile? Yeah, look when it showed up in New York, compare it to Al Qaeda's timeline of attacks. Ahem. And where did that come from? Gee, Saddam maybe? Russians liked to pay with their anthrax and it got away from them more than once. It is not like the USA is alone in this, and it is a fools errand to pretend that we are alone.
As for Lott's statistics and the CDC....well, ironically, the product of Lott's work has already bore the best fruit it can, leaving him to do things like busting the CDC numbers out as the propaganda it is. His work forced even the court to admit that Rights are NOT relegated to what the "statistics" say. This happened WHEN it did BECAUSE of Lott - because he showed the "stats" proved out in FAVOR of guns as defense tools.....and those who for so long used that "stat" (which they manufactured to begin with) as a means of playing gun control would have had to stand down their attack based on their own claims of legitimacy. This could not be allowed, so instead, the judiciary simply admitted that the "free standing interest balancing approach" itself was illegitimate.
Thanks you Mr. Lott, you won. Now it is time to force the issue, to smack em in the face with what it is you won - obliterate the "debate' itself because all of the crime going up or down is not germane....it is a distraction. We have to call it out AS nothing more than a distraction.
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