Date: Thu, 1 Dec 1994 00:26:43 -0800 (PST) From: "Edgar A. Suter" To: ca-firearms@shell.portal.com, firearms-alert@shell.portal.com, ca-liberty@shell.portal.com, "Eric J. Rittberg" <74157.1503@compuserve.com>, NFALIST@ORION.FAC.CS.CMU.EDU, jbardwel@cassandra.cair.du.ed, markb17@aol.com, shealey@netcom.com, ChingESH@aol.com, christieh@aol.com, tm@mainstream.com, DRGOTWW@aol.com, Peter Alan Kasler Subject: Exaggerated "costs" of gun violence DIRPP expects that the Caldera "study" [see below] will be widely quoted by gun prohibitionists precisely because it wildly -- and unsupportedly -- exaggerated the costs of gun violence. Because of ongoing publicity of this deeply flawed polemic, DIRPP has released the preliminary comment below. We hope these preliminary comments are useful to gun rights activists confronted by the Caldera "data" and similar exaggerations. For brevity, the letter to the SF Examiner, did not address another fundamental flaw in the Caldera "California Research Bureau Study," namely, the study's discussion of the "costs" of guns without a comparison with the benefits of guns - the lives saved, the injuries prevented, the medical costs saved because deaths and injuries were averted, and the property protected by guns. In analyzing _any_ public policy proposal, comparisons of costs _and_ benefits are essential. We expect to release our detailed analysis of the Caldera "study" in January. Copies of our monograph will be posted. For those who wish hard copy, the study will be available for $12 by request from: Edgar A. Suter MD, DIRPP, 5201 Norris Canyon Rd. #140, San Ramon CA 94583-5405 ************************************************************************* * Edgar A. Suter, MD suter@crl.com * * Chair, DIRPP Doctors for Integrity in Research & Public Policy * ************************************************************************* Doctors for Integrity in Research & Public Policy Edgar A. Suter MD, National Chair 5201 Norris Canyon Road, Suite 140 San Ramon, CA 94583 USA November 30, 1994 Letters to the Editor SF Examiner by facsimile only Dear Editor, Our _detailed_ review of the California Research Bureau's "study" of the costs of gun violence will be completed in January, but the undeserved publicity of such a flawed study (Lehrman, Sally. "Doctors seeking to treat epidemic of gun violence." SF Examiner, 11/30/94. p.A-2.) demands a factual rebuttal. Commissioned by extremist gun control advocate Assemblyman Louis Caldera, this "hit piece" claimed $0.7 billion in annual costs for California's gun violence. Based on earlier studies estimating the _entire_ nation's costs of gun violence at $1.5 billion (about 2/10ths of 1% of the $800 billion annual health care costs), the Caldera study suggested that _half_ of the nation's gun violence costs are in California alone - an assertion that should have generated curiosity, if not skepticism, in your reporter's mind. To explain this gross exaggeration, the Caldera study claimed it used a "more refined method," citing a Los Angeles Times newspaper article as the source of the method. Whether or not newspaper articles are a reliable source of innovative scientific methodology, the fact is that _the article does not exist_. A similarly titled article (by a different author and published on a different date) described no scientific method whatsoever. So, as best we can tell, the Caldera study estimates are based on nothing more than fiction. If your reporter had read the "study" carefully, she would have noted that Caldera's estimates went so far as to include estimates of "costs" of work lost because workers might gossip about gun violence. "Costs" of the drop in tourism during the recent economic depression was blamed entirely on gun violence without any apportionment for non-gun violence, for the depression itself, or other myriad factors. These are only a few of the study's many flaws. The intellectual debate was lost by gun prohibitionists in 1981 with the publication by Drs Wright, Rossi, and Daly of the National Institute of Justice Study on gun control - a 3-year study begun by advocates of gun control. The prohibitionist loss was re-affirmed in 1991 with the exhaustive research review by Dr. Gary Kleck - another _former_ advocate of gun control. For these reasons, our national think tank of medical school professors and researchers is _not_ surprised that prohibitionists must resort to fabricated data --- and emotionalism --- to fool the public (and _they_ have the nerve to call 3.4 million NRA members liars). We _will_ be surprised, however, if the SF Examiner finds our rebuttal study as newsworthy as Caldera's junk science. Sincerely, Edgar A. Suter MD National Chair, Doctors for Integrity in Research & Public Policy