Gun statistics

[Tak]

I'm doing a project for school on the effect (or lack thereof) of gun control laws on violent crime. My problem is that I can't seem to find reliable data on either gun ownership by state, gun sales or information of that sort.

Does anyone have some good suggestions on where I could find raw data on either number of persons who own guns by state or the sale of guns by state. It would also be immensely helpful if that raw data was collected yearly from 1960 until today.

[philw]

G'Day Tak,



Welcome to DownRange



are you after just USA Stats or other countries   where there have been extreme gun control laws in place

[tombogan03884]

Try www.gunfacts.info

[Tak]

Thank you for the welcome.

I'm really just interested in looking at the United States. And within the U.S. I might limit myself to just looking at a few states, depending on the data available.

[philw]

you should look at what happened in Australia after Port Arthur in 96   

[Sponsor]

[Tak]

The downloadable book at www.gunfacts.info seems like it would be very helpful under other circumstances, but it does not have the kind of raw data I need. I need something with numbers of gun sales or number of people who own guns. That way I can show the correlation between violent crime rates and the number of people who own guns. It might be that the number of people owning guns does not predict the amount of violent crime at all.

[Rob10ring]

The downloadable book at www.gunfacts.info seems like it would be very helpful under other circumstances, but it does not have the kind of raw data I need. I need something with numbers of gun sales or number of people who own guns. That way I can show the correlation between violent crime rates and the number of people who own guns. It might be that the number of people owning guns does not predict the amount of violent crime at all.

We have a winner! Violent crime would be more affected by the number of those inclined to commit violence.

[Texas_Bryan]

The downloadable book at www.gunfacts.info seems like it would be very helpful under other circumstances, but it does not have the kind of raw data I need. I need something with numbers of gun sales or number of people who own guns. That way I can show the correlation between violent crime rates and the number of people who own guns. It might be that the number of people owning guns does not predict the amount of violent crime at all.

After researching I couldn't find any per state information on gun sales, indeed I imagine that any information you find would be very misleading.  They would most likely only count the number of submitted ATF checks, not overall sales, including those between private peoples.  I don't think that there may be correlation between gun sales and crime rates.  Remember that most people own several guns, and a sale of a gun probably goes to expand someone's collection, so an extra sale may not mean a new gun owner.  Also, I don't know of any state that has taken to ask how many citizens own guns.  Most pro-gun arguments have been that if people are permitted to protect themselves in public and in the home through the establishment of pro-self defense laws then crime will decline.  The state of Texas, I recall, list the number of conceal carry incidents.  I found a site with some interesting numbers, you may try checking their sources for more in depth details.  Alot of what they've chosen to list show that not only to pro-self defense laws lead to declines in crime, but that anti-defense and gun laws are ineffective or detrimental to the safety of citizens.  I'm afraid you won't be able to find any actual numbers relating to gun ownership, but the laws are where crime is stopped.  Pro-gun and self defense laws lead to less crime, and the opposite is true for anti-gun laws.  Focus on your laws and you should have plenty of ammo, good luck.

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

[fightingquaker13]

Texas Bryan is right, the stats are slippery in regards to resale, multiple purchases by one individual etc. As an example, I've sold off seven guns from my grandfather's estate and bought three over the last two months or so. How is that reported and logged? I am a political scientist (smothering laughter over the science part), so if you PM me a copy of your abstract, I can help you look toward data that you can use. I'm not a quantoid, so you're on your own for statistical models, but I will help you operationalize your data to the best of my ability. Remember in writing any paper it has to have four parts and answer two questions. The questions are:
1 Why should I believe you? What is your evidence?
2 Saying that I believe you, so what? What does this prove? What is the significance? Or, why did I just waste an hour of my life reading this?
The Four parts are:
Thesis
Evidence
Warrant
Conclusion
This can be summed up as as follows. I believe X. (thesis). I believe it for the following reasons (evidence). The evidence supports my conclusion and disproves other theories beause .......(warrant). In summary I have proved X (conclusion).
FQ13  
PS Welcome aboard   

[TAB]

the only thing the stats community agrees on when it comes to gun stats is...

guns play no roll in crime stats.


so unless you  have a idiot for a professor, I'd strongly recomend changing subjects.