Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site topaz.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!teddy!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!topaz!josh From: josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Re: Merry Christmas from the NRA Message-ID: <263@topaz.ARPA> Date: Mon, 14-Jan-85 23:59:12 EST Article-I.D.: topaz.263 Posted: Mon Jan 14 23:59:12 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 17-Jan-85 03:44:52 EST References: <1875@inmet.UUCP> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 21 > >>> > >>> Last year, Handguns killed > >>> ... I'm sure you're all tired of seeing this by now... > >.... So you are telling us that > >Americans are 26165% more murderous than Germans. > > This, all by itself, probably deserves a chapter in "How to Lie with > Statistics". > > You did not correct for relative population, (just as a start), nor > do you have any control for Germans and Americans under the same > laws (so that you can evaluate how they respond to different ones), nor > do you compare the relative homicide rates for ALL types of killings. That particular comparison, as the astute reader will have inferred from something I posted earlier, is straight from HCI's "Guns Don't Die, People Do." It can be distinguished from "How to Lie with Statistics" in that it consists only of the examples. --JoSH