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NFOA on Channel 7 Omaha

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JAK:
I think I may have found the study,

http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/17/6/422.abstract

It was published in 2011 and is based off responses from less then 16,000 respondents from back in 1996-1997.  I do not know about you, but information based on this small of a percentage of the population is hardly representative.   

If you note the author and who he is associated with, I am not surprised with the results they came up with.

John K

Dr Garen J Wintemute, Violence Prevention Research Program, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, 2315 Stockton Blvd, Sacramento, CA 95817, USA

Alcohol use and firearm ownership are risk factors for violent injury and death. To determine whether firearm ownership and specific firearm-related behaviours are associated with alcohol-related risk behaviours, the author conducted a cross-sectional study using Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data for eight states in the USA from 1996 to 1997 (the most recent data available). Altogether, 15 474 respondents provided information on firearm exposure. After adjustment for demographics and state of residence, firearm owners were more likely than those with no firearms at home to have ?5 drinks on one occasion (OR 1.32; 95% CI 1.16 to 1.50), to drink and drive (OR 1.79; 95% CI 1.34 to 2.39) and to have ?60 drinks per month (OR 1.45; 95% CI 1.14 to 1.83). Heavy alcohol use was most common among firearm owners who also engaged in behaviours such as carrying a firearm for protection against other people and keeping a firearm at home that was both loaded and not locked away. The author concludes that firearm ownership and specific firearm-related behaviours are associated with alcohol-related risk behaviours.

Dan W:
While I can not directly refute their findings concerning firearm owners as a whole (yet), there are certainly studies that can disprove the inference when it comes to legal Concealed Carry permit holders.

greg58:
I recieved the same reply that Dan did last night from Mr. Ozaki.

Greg58

Mudinyeri:
I have received no reply.

Mudinyeri:
If the study linked by JAK is, indeed, the study referenced there are a couple items of note:

1. The abstract from the article says that BRFSS data from eight states was reviewed.  Twenty-nine states, or more, have been participating in this study since its inception in 1981.  Why was data from only eight states reviewed?  Excluding participating states creates a bias.  It may not have been an intentional bias but one was created, nonetheless.

2. Self-reported data is notoriously flawed.  Cook and Campbell (1979) pointed out that subjects (a) tend to report what they believe the researcher expects to see, or (b) report what reflects positively on their own abilities, knowledge, beliefs, or opinions. Another concern about such data centers on whether subjects are able to accurately recall past behaviors.

3. A sample size of ~16,000 is relatively small.  Recent estimates suggest that somewhere between 43 and 55 million households own guns.  Let's be conservative and say that equates to ~43,000,000 gun owners.  It would be difficult to achieve a confidence interval (ability to accurately predict an outcome or result) with such a small sample size. 

In summary, even if Ozaki had cited the study in his report, in fairness to law-abiding gun owners he should also have mentioned that the study is based on relatively old, unreliable data with an exceptionally small and biased sample.

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