This study asserts a statistical correlation, not a causal relationship:

We also did not account for the potential of reverse causation between gun possession and gun assault. Although our long list of confounders may have served to reduce some of the problems posed by reverse causation, future case–control studies of guns and assault should consider instrumental variables techniques to explore the effects of reverse causation. It is worth noting, however, that the probability of success with these techniques is low.

It does not successfully account for confounding factors. Perhaps people who were shot while carrying a gun weren’t shot because they were carrying a gun, but rather were carrying a gun in (apparently justified) fear they would be shot and hoped to have at least some chance to resist. In other words, people might be carrying a gun because they’re already at elevated risk for being shot, introducing the possibility of a strong selection bias. It’s like saying “black people are more likely to be arrested.” It’s true, but fails to account for a wide variety of confounding factors including and especially systemic racism in the police force that confound the implicit explanatory power of that simple statement.

The study makes a lot of, in my opinion, unwarranted assumptions. They assume that a person may be shot anywhere in philly at any time day or night, and this assumption is justified because “guns are mobile, potentially concealable items and the bullets they fire can pass through obstacles and travel long distances.” Which is undoubtedly true, but raises the question in my mind at least- what does a bullet passing through obstacles after traveling a long distance have to do with the victim’s carrying a gun themself? It’s a true assumption but one that should be considered as a confounding factor that needed to be controlled for rather than included in the statistical analysis. It is certain that a victim sitting at their desk who got shot through a wall had nothing to do with the shooting whether they were carrying a gun or not. This methodology tends to inflate the numerator, inappropriately in my opinion.

They also chose not to include self-inflicted, unintentional shootings, police shootings, and underage carriers (which they describe, without justification, as being somehow different from an adult being shot while carrying a gun). If carrying a gun truly increases your chance of getting shot, then the effect should manifest whether one is being shot by the police or as a juvenile delinquent or by a stray bullet from an accidental discharge. If not, then the thesis statement needs to be adjusted. The correlation does not imply causation- Having possession of a gun doesn’t increase your chance to commit suicide, it allows for the possibility of suicide by gun in those who already had suicidal impulses. It’s just there’s more ways for suicide to complete with a gun than with many other attempted methods, introducing survivorship bias in the results. Incidentally, I’m not convinced whether or not excluding self-inflicted shootings was appropriate. Overall, these methodological choices tend to deflate the denominator, inappropriately in my opinion.

Also, on a moral level the conclusion is flawed because it victim blames- ‘look what they were wearing’ type reasoning in the conclusion statement. It tends to suggest the person carrying a firearm bears the responsibility for not getting shot, rather than the responsibility to shoot or not shoot.

We coded case participants as in possession if 1 or more guns were determined to have been with them and readily available at the time of the shooting. We coded control participants as in possession if they reported any guns in a holster they were wearing, in a pocket or waistband, in a nearby vehicle, or in another place, quickly available and ready to fire at the time of their matched case’s shooting.

They used a different definition of possession for their control vs their case studies. I don’t need to read further. The methodology is flawed- a textbook case of information bias. This is shoddy work.

I do not deny that there does seem to be a consensus in the correlation between carrying a gun and being shot. Having said all that, there may be practical considerations. If you’re considering carrying a gun out of fear you might be shot at and would like to assert your right of reply, it might be more practical to avoid the source of that fear than to confront it with lethal violence. To OP, while the dog still needs to be walked and you can’t change the color of your skin, you might be able to take a different route on your walk, or even move entirely. Often discretion is the better part of valor. On the other hand, solutions like that might just not be possible: maybe either direction you choose to walk down the street from your home presents danger. Maybe you’re too impoverished or have powerful ties to the community. What are you supposed to do then, hope the people harassing you don’t escalate? Has that been your experience of harassment, SatansMaggotyCumFart, that people tend to deescalate their harassment if you just ignore and/or comply with them?

You wanna have a conversation about justified fear vs paranoia, civilian arms races, or the tragic nature of the situation I just described, I’m here for it. Miss me with this cooked-p-value dressing up flawed methodology and victim blaming as serious research.

Thanks for posting that! I read through it, and I don’t think that it applies to the situation described by the original poster. It includes many interactions where both sides were intoxicated in some way, and had a criminal history. They did some interesting work in matching controls to the victims of gun assaults, but as the limitations section discusses, it really doesn’t apply to a “responsible armed citizen” scenario, which is how I interpreted the recommendation above.

It is certainly still plausible that merely having a gun does not protect one very well from assault. The potential mechanisms of causation that the study authors came up with make for an interesting read, but the risk numbers don’t really seem to connect to those mechanisms.

I think there are pretty good reasons to say that more firearms in private hands is a detriment from a public health perspective. I just don’t think that this study adds much to that conversation.