Another "Gun Disease" Study

I've only glanced at this report linked at Alphecca. No doubt it's the usual finely researched and vetted study we've come to expect from the health care industry.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — The potential for gun shows to serve as places where criminals obtain firearms can be curbed through increased regulation without adversely affecting attendance or business, according to a pioneering study published this week in Injury Prevention, an international peer-reviewed journal for health professionals.

The embargoed study and the accompanying editorial are available at http://press.psprings.co.uk/ip/june/150_ip16212.pdf and http://press.psprings.co.uk/ip/june/145_ip16170.pdf.

The study, based on field observations made by Garen J. Wintemute, director of UC Davis’ Violence Prevention Research Program, also found that undocumented gun sales between private parties and illegal “straw purchases” in which a person with a clean record buys a weapon for someone with a criminal record were much more common at gun shows in states with little regulation.

and

The study, titled “Gun shows across a multistate American gun market: observational evidence of the effects of regulatory policies,” was funded by the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation and the Broad Foundation of Los Angeles and was approved by the UC Davis Institutional Review Board.

I don't know the Broad Foundation, but the Joyce Foundation is a well known anti-gun group. No doubt their research is responsible, or not.

I especially enjoy their continued view of gun ownership as a disease.

While gun shows — commonly held at convention centers or county fairgrounds — have long been suspected as a venue where criminals can obtain firearms, “before this no one to my knowledge has actually gone to these shows and observed what guns were being sold and to whom, or checked whether laws were being adhered to,” said Teret, a leading expert in addressing gun violence as a public health problem.

“It’s real shoe-leather epidemiology,” added Teret, who has co-authored papers with Wintemute on the public health impacts of gun violence. “Now for the first time the public policy discussion on gun shows can be based on data rather than speculation.”

Wonder how they treat people who are brutalized in their homes by criminals? Probably see legal ownership of firearms as the same thing.

The "research" was observational. Meaning they walked around and watched. Talk about lacking in integrity. Was there any second party making the same observations with clearly segregated documentation of the activities?

Wintemute’s first challenge was to find some way to eavesdrop on gun transactions without attracting notice. At first he tried recording his observations by speaking into a hidden tape recorder that he carried with him, but the quality of the recordings were poor.

“Then I realized that everybody at the gun shows was using cell phones,” he said.

Wintemute decided to do likewise. He recorded his observations by calling up his voice mail, the capacity of which he had expanded for the study. The voice mail messages were then transcribed by members of Wintemute’s staff. He made visual recordings of the gun shows by taking pictures with a hidden camera.

Guess not.

I suppose I'll have to read this thing completely. No doubt their fine research will stand up just fine to peer review, but will likely not stand to the light of non-peer researchers.