A question

If a survey is conducted to support a law , yet does not establish the legal standing of the cases it uses to demonstrate its support of the the law in question , can it be considered a reliable survey on the subject ?
Yes or no .

In what/which legal system?

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Originally Posted by Tribesman

If a survey is conducted to support a law , yet does not establish the legal standing of the cases it uses to demonstrate its support of the the law in question , can it be considered a reliable survey on the subject ?
Yes or no .

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With some qualifications, no.

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In what/which legal system?

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Oh any subject really , say for a completely random example .....the subject regarding self defense with a gun in the American system~;)

Geez...

The survey wasn't even conducted to support a law. It was conducted not to support anything, but as scientific research into an issue.

And considering how an honest defense of your house from robbers will result in no charges in Texas, but get you charged in Maryland, throwing out all cases that don't fit strictly in the law would be dishonest.

But here's the author's of the study rebuttal to a critique with as much logic as yours, tribesy:

I. THE ILLEGITIMACY OF ONE-SIDED SPECULATION: AN OUNCE OF EVIDENCE OUTWEIGHS A TON OF SPECULATION

H[David Hemenway]'s critical technique is simple: one-sided, and often implausible, speculation about flaws that might have afflicted our research, and that might have been consequential enough to significantly affect our conclusions. H devotes his attention almost exclusively to suspected flaws that might have contributed to the overestimation of defensive gun use (DGU) frequency. He either ignores well established sources of underreporting, or briefly and superficially discusses them only for the sake of dismissing them.[10] When H speculates about sources of response error that are plausible, he offers no rationale for why the problems should lead to more false positives than false negatives. Instead he simply conjures up reasons they might lead to false positives. As support for his one-sided speculations H even cites other people guilty of the same dubious practice.[11]

All research is flawed. Known flaws should be identified and their likely impact assessed. Speculation about flaws can play a role in the pursuit of truth by motivating researchers to gather better empirical evidence less afflicted by the flaws. Speculation by itself, however, should not be given any weight in assessing evidence. An ounce of evidence, even though flawed, outweighs a ton of speculation. Unfortunately, in both good research and bad, there is no upper limit on the amount of speculative criticism that can be directed at the work, and thus this sort of critique is just as easily applied to good research as to bad.[Page 1449]

III. THE NATURE OF FALSE POSITIVES

It is hard to discern exactly what kinds of false positives H thinks most often show up in all these gun use surveys. He waffles on the issue of whether people are: (1) consciously inventing nonexistent events; (2) consciously but honestly misrepresenting accounts of real events that did not really involve DGU (e.g., they involved aggressive use of a gun); or (3) unconsciously distorting real events. He seems to have doubts himself about possibility (1) occurring very often, hastening to assure readers that false responders do not necessarily have to lie,[15] but is otherwise unwilling to commit himself to the relative frequency of these types of misreports.

It is worth emphasizing how difficult it was for our RS to falsely report a completely nonexistent event as a DGU. Unlike the UFO example that H insists is somehow parallel to reports of DGUs,[16] a respondent who wanted to falsely report a nonexistent DGU could not qualify as having had such an experience merely by saying "Yes." Rather, respondents had to provide as many as nineteen internally consistent responses covering the details of the alleged incident. In [Page 1450] short, to sustain a false DGU claim, RS had to do a good deal of agile mental work, and stay on the phone even longer. On the other hand, all it took to yield a false negative was for a DGU-involved R to speak a single inaccurate syllable: "No." The point is not that false positives were impossible, but rather that it was far harder to provide a false positive than a false negative.

Consider also the context in which H imagines all these false reports to have occurred. Randomly selected people were called unexpectedly, and questioned rapidly by total strangers, for no more than fifteen minutes, with one question immediately following another. There was no prolonged opportunity to invent a nonexistent event, rehearse inaccurate details, or to otherwise get an false story straight. RS providing a false positive had to be not only dishonest but very quick-witted as well.

Regarding possibility (2), we noted that most of the DGUs were linked with the types of crimes, burglaries, robberies, and sexual assaults, where there is little opportunity for participants to be honestly confused about who was the victim and who was the offender.[17] While a few RS may well have consciously misrepresented aggressive actions as defensive, and a very few might have consciously invented entirely fictitious events, it is hard to see how RS could report an account of a real burglary, robbery, or sexual assault in which they were aggressors and somehow honestly distort it into a DGU incident.

This kind of misunderstanding of real events in a way that falsely qualifies them as DGUs is more plausible in connection with male-against-male assault incidents, such as when people prefer to characterize their partly aggressive, partly defensive behavior in "mutual combat" incidents as purely defensive in character. We addressed this latter possibility in our article and showed that it could not account for more than a small fraction (probably less than a tenth) of the incidents we counted as DGUs.[18] H does not rebut that evidence.

http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/KleckAndGertz2.htm

The first part applies especially.

CR

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Originally Posted by Tribesman

If a survey is conducted to support a law , yet does not establish the legal standing of the cases it uses to demonstrate its support of the the law in question , can it be considered a reliable survey on the subject ?
Yes or no .

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Oh, I see. Pop Quiz on 'establishing the legal standing', and the consequences for failure of the survey to do so.

I'm guessing that by your phrase 'legal standing' you mean something other than the provenance to bring suit; rather you mean "repute in publicly-expressed opinion", yes?

In that rarified, bizarro-world, the only answer is obviously "un-yes".*

Unless Mr. C. Rabbit has correctly guessed your intended topic of conversation. In which case I'm obliged to change the topic title to one more appropriately reflective of the proposed discussion, for example: "Gun Thread #1249".

Your intention, Sir?

*Except in the american state of california, where a "no" vote can be construed as favorable to a proposed Proposition, due to wording..

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The survey wasn't even conducted to support a law.

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Thank you :yes:
The question has a yes or no option rabbit , which is it ?

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But here's the author's of the study rebuttal to a critique with as much logic as yours, tribesy:

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the rebuttal does nothing to address the failure of the study to establish the legality of the cases it uses .

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Thank you
The question has a yes or no option rabbit , which is it ?

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If it wasn't conducted to support any law, then your question is irrelevant.

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the rebuttal does nothing to address the failure of the study to establish the legality of the cases it uses .

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Oh, really? Pray tell us how, instead of just proclaiming it. You know, actually addressing the points of his argument instead of semantics and nit picking.

CR

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If it wasn't conducted to support any law, then your question is irrelevant.

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Nope , not when people cite it to support their position on the laws .

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Oh, really? Pray tell us how, instead of just proclaiming it. You know, actually addressing the points of his argument instead of semantics and nit picking.

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Oh thats simple , if people are citing the report for figures of legitimate defensive gun use then the fact that the report does not address the legality of any of the cases it uses means that the figures cannot be used to support legal self defence using guns .
The rebuttal deals mainly with false positives or false negatives , but since the flaw is the absence of any attempt to establish the legality of the cases then the rebuttal is entirely irrelevant on that subject .

So Rabbit yes or no ?

Yes.

Surveys are used for several purposes - any survey conducted to validate public opinion does not necessarily have to make sense to those who oppose such a stance.

So to answer the question, the survey is as reliable as the reader wishes it to be.

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Oh thats simple , if people are citing the report for figures of legitimate defensive gun use then the fact that the report does not address the legality of any of the cases it uses means that the figures cannot be used to support legal self defence using guns .

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No - something can be a legitimate at of self defense and yet still illegal in certain areas. That is what you don't seem to understand.

Their rebuttal deals with exactly the stupidness you're spouting. The lawfulness of any cases does not matter, as states or cities may outlaw using a gun to defend yourself, but the legitimacy of the actual act.

In that vein, the only possible beef you could have is people describing what was not a legitimate act of using a gun defensively, as a real DGU - that is, a false positive.

You ignored me when I explained this before, but I suppose I had to do it again...

You're still just like a mosquito on this elephant of a survey, tribesy, and how loud you buzz won't change that.

And so, the part I quoted earlier still applies.

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It is hard to discern exactly what kinds of false positives H thinks most often show up in all these gun use surveys. He waffles on the issue of whether people are: (1) consciously inventing nonexistent events; (2) consciously but honestly misrepresenting accounts of real events that did not really involve DGU (e.g., they involved aggressive use of a gun); or (3) unconsciously distorting real events. He seems to have doubts himself about possibility (1) occurring very often, hastening to assure readers that false responders do not necessarily have to lie,[15] but is otherwise unwilling to commit himself to the relative frequency of these types of misreports.

...

Regarding possibility (2), we noted that most of the DGUs were linked with the types of crimes, burglaries, robberies, and sexual assaults, where there is little opportunity for participants to be honestly confused about who was the victim and who was the offender.[17] While a few RS may well have consciously misrepresented aggressive actions as defensive, and a very few might have consciously invented entirely fictitious events, it is hard to see how RS could report an account of a real burglary, robbery, or sexual assault in which they were aggressors and somehow honestly distort it into a DGU incident.

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CR

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No - something can be a legitimate at of self defense and yet still illegal in certain areas. That is what you don't seem to understand.

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Nope , and that bolded section doesn't deal with it at all .

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Their rebuttal deals with exactly the stupidness you're spouting.

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:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: stupidness eh , yet you write....

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The lawfulness of any cases does not matter

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:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: of course it matters .

This thread is beginning to remind me of a country western song.

You get a line, I get a pole
and we will meet down at the fishing hole.

I don't know about country and western, but I do think I have read this before.

If someone can make a convincing argument in PM as to the need for this thread to be re-opened, I'll consider it, but even by the standards of the usual gun-control thread, we are treading old ground.

:closed: