REVIEW TERMS FOR TEST 4 FROM RMCJ
REVIEW LIST FOR TEST FOR
CJ 160
SP 00
RMCJ PAGES 208-234 DROPPED
LIST OF READINGS YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR:
K&K: 193-222; K&K 151-186
GUNS IN AMERICA 57-76
GUNS IN AMERICA 77-84
RMCJ 183-205; 235-262
RMCJ 266-291
ROTH AND KOPER
LOTT
WEBSTER ON LOTT
RMCJ
RMCJ 183 - 205
The main points you want to understand here is: what are the advantages of probability sampling procedures; do they allow you to refer back to the population from which the sample was drawn; if so why?; when you are doing that referring back, what are the limits of this procedure. You also want to understand sampling error
RMCJ 235 - 262
What are advantages and disadvantages of different
types of survey modes?
In general form, how is the NCVS carried out?
Want to know a lot about telescoping
Issues of validity
Response bias
contact persons
RMCJ 266-291
treatment
quasi-experimental design (weak vs. strong)
control group
implementation difficulties
true experimental designs
TIV
estimate of the effect
one-group posttest only design
posttest only design with nonequivalent groups
one group pretest-posttest design
selection or selection bias
history
statistical regression
matching
untreated control group design with pretest and posttest
local history
simple interrupted time series
maturation
ceiling effects
floor effects
attrition
instrumentation
SKIP SECTIONS "TRUE EXPERIMENTS" AND "MATCHING" (282-285)
stakeholders
target problem
target population
program implementation
program element
program monitoring
implementation failure
theory failure
program effectiveness
program impact
program delivery
efficiency
cost effectiveness
monetize
TCHE article on Lott
What are the main points of Lott's analysis? In general terms, what does he find? In general terms, how does he get to this conclusion? In general terms, what are some of the problems mentioned with Lott's study? How does Lott's main point "sell" with the media? HOw do the criticisms "sell" with the media
Webster et al.'s comments on Lott
In general terms, are there any important policy implications of the methods problems they are describing? If so, what are they?
Roth and Koper
What was the 1994 assaults weapons ban? What constituencies were they
trying to satisfy? In general terms, what was "banned?"
What were the effects of the ban on weapons manufacture?
What were the effects of the ban on weapons price?
What were the effects of the ban on gun tracing?
What are the limits of the gun tracing data?
What were the effects of the ban on gun murder rates? How did this
differ by two types of states? Given the pattern of differences
observed for different states, what TIVs appeared to be ruled out as
potential competing explanations for the shift in gun murder rates?
(Here are all the questions for K&K. Just pick out the ones that correspond to your pages assigned. (I do not have my copy of K&K,having loaned it out to one of your colleagues.)
CHAPTER 1
On p. 5, authors dispute some
commonly held notions about problems caused by guns, for example,
children killed by guns annually, and the total number of accidental
gun deaths. They contrast these points with the positive uses of
handguns (p. 6). In their eyes, what are the costs of handguns, and
the benefits, and the relative volume of each?
What are the
characteristics of gun owners, according to K&K? (p. 9 on). How
does this contrast with the popular wisdom? (this would make a good
short essay question). How do their findings (p. 10) square with YOUR
views of gun owners?
Does their discussion of
murderers (12-13) convince you that murderers not handguns are the
cause of murder? why?
Authors introduce
"media-based conventional wisdom" as a construct (17). What
evidence do they provide you that such a construct is warranted?
CHAPTER 2
What
pieces of information do authors introduce (32-33) to convince you
that "ordinary citizens" are not murderers, and thus that
the cause of murder is NOT just that ordinary folks got hold of guns?
They make the case that
there are differences between "nondangerous" owners and
"dangerous" owners. What indicators do they use to tell if
an owner is in one category or another? Do you find this distinction
convincing? These two types of owners represent CONSTRUCTS. How yould
you go about assuring yourself that these were two different types of owners?
Do you agree with them that
"the real need is for the intensive enforcement resources
necessary to deter or incarcerate dangerous owners" ? (p. 33).
What would happen if
handgun bans resulted in long gunsubstitution in murder incidents?
(34). can you see any problems with the evidence here?
Authors mention a study
(35) finding that the introduction of liberal carry laws were
followed by decline in homicide rates. Can you see how the TIV of
regression to the mean (RMCJ 275) might help explain this?
What is the point of Table
2.1 (38)? What do the authors infer from this?
pp. 53-92
Authors
introduce the construct "bias on the gun issue" (54)
evident in the media. What specific INDICATORS point to this
construct, in the authors' views? (Hint: they call these "shaping
technologies")
Authors make the case that
the media has oversold the construct of "assault rifle
availability" (71-78). According to the authors, how has the
information been misrepresented?
According to the authors,
what are the effects of the "slanted" coverage of the gun
issue? (89 on). Do you think the authors establish CAUSAL links
between coverage and each of these outcomes? Can you think through,
for just one of these outcomes, how you would go about establishing
CAUSAL links (do we need to talk about causal links?)
Chapter 6
What is defensive gun use
(152); you want to be sure to have a clear definition
What are the advantages of gun
ownership as a protection strategy (152-154)? Can you think how you
would measure these benefits?
On pp. 154-175 the authors
get into a very detailed discussion of DGU. I do not expect you to
understand all the ins and outs of the points that they make. But I
do expect you to understand the following: * are the estimates from
different surveys for DGU similar or different; and if different,
different by a little, or by a lot?; * What are some of the reasons
the NCVS estimates of DGU are likely to be low?
What are the features of
how the "National self defense survey" (175 on) was
conducted that make it LESS likely to undercount DGUs? Be specific.
On 178 the authors give
very specific criteria for defining a "genuine" DGU. Do you
think these criteria are adequate?
Why are the authors' DGU
estimates higher than in previous surveys (181). There is an
important point here about connections between measurement and rates;
what is it?
Authors come up with a
fairly high estimate of annual DGUs (181). How do the data from
prisoner interviews support this rather high number? (184-185)
Don't worry about the material in the appendix to chapter 6.
Chapter 7
What are some of the
problems with getting at civilian legally defensible homicides
(CLDH)? (198 on) From a research methods point of view, what are the
MAJOR problems with getting at this number (be able to list a couple)?
Are you surprised by the
high proportion of NONfatal gun woundings?(202). If you were
surprised, how does your personal reaction provide support for the
authors' earlier arguments about "misleading" media?
Who is more likely to keep
a gun loaded? (203).
How much do owners carry?
(204 on)
In what ways do problems
with survey methodology create problems for the results on gun
carrying reported on pp. 204-205?
What do the data show about
effectiveness of gun use for disrupting crime? (210-212)
What are the effects of gun
use on avoiding injury related to the criminal incident? (213)
Can you think in SPECIFIC
ways the findings immediately above might be limited or misleading?
Black (p. 214) takes apart
the idea of "active victim resistance" and shows how that
CONSTRUCT needs to be further REFINED. When he did this what did he
find? Does this finding have support from another source?
Chapter 8
What
are the major features of DGUs? (p. 225, table 8.1)
AUthors note the limits of
their data when getting at seriousness of incidents (230). What are
some of these limits?
What do the authors make of
the high fraction of women reporting DGUs, and how do they explain
this away? (234). How does this explaining away highlight the
problems with the survey method for these questions?
Questions for 235-257 from K&K
How do the felon reports
(237 on) support the survey results?
If you had to sum up the
evidence for the deterrence hypothesis, based on both the survey data
and the offender data, what would you say?
On p.
239 (top) the authors introduce their logic for "evaluating"
gun awareness programs. What are the flaws in the general argument
being proposed?
What happened in the
Orlando training experience? What was the intervention? What were the
results? How do K&K interpret the results? What was Green's
interpretation of the crime drop seen?
What happened in the Kansas
City program? What was the intervention; what were the results? Was
there a "control area" in the Kansas City study? How do
K&K interpret the pattern seen?
What happened in Kennesaw
(GA)? What features of the locale made it difficult to show a
significant drop? What features of the analysis used (and criticised
by K&K) also made it hard to show an effect?
What happened with the
Evanston and Morton Grove (IL) handgun bans? (247 on). What were the
problems with this intervention? What effects appeared? Why do K&K
conclude "these handgun ban episodes were consistent with the
gun deterrence hypothesis?
With these various
"experiments" what is actually going on, according to
K&K (bottom 248, top 249).
What conclusions do K&K
reach (249, middle) about evaluating quasi-experimental evidence?
What is the point of the
discussion about burglary? (249 on).
Of the various policy
conclusions raised by the authors (252 on) which ones do you feel are
BEST supported by the evidence (be clear about which specific
evidence) This would be a great mini-essay question. Which are
most weakly supported? Why?
Questions for Guns in America
These are ALL the questions for GIA. Just pick the ones that correspond to the pages assigned.
pp. 1-28
How were respondent households contacted?
What sampling method was used?
How were respondents selected within the household?
What was their response rate?
How did they estimate gun ownership and how did their
estimates differ from estimates in other studies and why?
Were there differences between self and household gun
ownership reports? Why?
What are gun stocks like? If someone owns a handgun
how likely are they to own another gun?
How are guns stored?
How are guns acquired? Does it look like people are
waiting for cheap handguns?
pp. 31-56
What are the patterns of handgun ownership? Are the
different from the pattern of gun ownership? What are the
implications? What are reasons for owning guns vs. handguns? What are
reasons for not owning?
Are sporting gun owners different from nonsporting gun
owners? What are the implications?
How did they determine gun accidents?
How did they determine gun carrying and what did they find?
pp. 77-84
How did they ask about support for handgun control?
What did they find? Does the support depend on the type of control in question?
pp.57-76
What are DGUS, how did they get at them, what did they
find, and what do they conclude about the possibility of getting at
DGUS with this methodology?
pp. 85-87
What are their main conclusions? What do these say
about the limits of the social science enterprise?