Title: How to Find Nothing

Publication Date: September 2009

What does it say?

This article uses two studies about guns to explain how the misapplication of research methods generates results that are meaningless.  

In the case of the two studies reviewed in this article, these meaningless results were then used as evidence to support gun lobby policy agendas.  

One of the studies is the nonsensical “Duggan study,” a work-in-progress on gun shows released to the public in the fall of 2008 and picked up by the New York Times Economix blog.

By structuring the study in way that made no sense in terms of how gun trafficking works, the authors found that “…gun shows do not increase the number of homicides or suicides and that the absence of gun-show regulations does not increase the number of gun-related deaths as proponents of these regulations suggest.”   The Economix blog subsequently published a critique of the working paper by five prominent gun violence prevention researchers. 

How can I use it?

The NRA has already started using the “Duggan study” to argue against closing the gun show loophole.  Use this analysis to undermine the usefulness of the “Duggan study” to the NRA.

Citation

Hemenway, David, “How To Find Nothing,” Journal of Public Health Policy 30(3)(2009):260-268

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