Date: Thu, 23 May 91 09:05:47 PDT From: phil@brahms.AMD.COM (Phil Ngai) To: firearms-politics@cis.ohio-state.edu Subject: Re: objections to NEJM studies? did you see 2 last night? #! /bin/sh # This is a shell archive, meaning: # 1. Remove everything above the #! /bin/sh line. # 2. Save the resulting text in a file. # 3. Execute the file with /bin/sh (not csh) to create the files: # guns/nejm/blackman # guns/nejm/chesler # guns/nejm/dlm # guns/nejm/jat # guns/nejm/josh # guns/nejm/lazarus # guns/nejm/nelson # This archive created: Thu May 23 09:05:19 1991 export PATH; PATH=/bin:$PATH if test -f 'guns/nejm/blackman' then echo shar: will not over-write existing file "'guns/nejm/blackman'" else cat << \SHAR_EOF > 'guns/nejm/blackman' ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Open letter by Dr. Paul H. Blackman, Research Coordinator for NRA-ILA. NRA Official Journal 1/89. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear sir: By now, we are used to the New England Journal of Medicine's publication of small-scale studies related to firearms from which conclusions are drawn which are quantum leaps from the data, followed by announcements of momentous "scientific" findings. These are regularly released to the press without the caveats which riddle the conclusory paragraphs, and often accompanied by an editorial calling attention to the findings. Generally, while they at least present a few interesting data, however meaningless, the studies misinterpret statistics, and ignore or belittle serious studies by criminologists. The latest effort -- "Handgun Regulations, Crime, Assaults, and Homicide: A Tale of Two Cities," by J.H. Sloan, et al., with the accompanying editorial, "Firearms Injuries: A Call for Science," by two employees of the Centers for Disease Control (November 10), however, is an insult to the intelligence of any serious scholar in any field and have so few data and so many flaws that I feel compelled to write at some length to call attention to various major and minor failings, in no particular order. 1. The authors misleadingly cite Wright, et al. (Ref. 1) to support the statement that "some have argued that restricting access to handguns could substantially reduce our annual rate of homicide." Wright, et al., in fact studied and rejected that contention. 2. The authors pretended that Vancouver and Seattle are very similar cities with similar economic circumstances, histories, demographic characteristics, and the like. In fact, the cities are very different with very different demographic characteristics which appear to explain completely the higher homicide rate in Seattle. Both cities are over three-forths non-Hispanic white and *the non-Hispanic white homicide rates are reported to be the same in Seattle and Vancouver*. It is the different back- grounds, problems, circumstances, and behaviors of the various ethnic minorities which explain the difference in homicide. 3. The authors pretend they are evaluating Canada's gun law, compared to Washington State's. But they do not examine at all the situation in Vancouver prior to the gun law taking effect in 1978. As it happens, in the three years prior to that (1975- 1977), Vancouver averaged 23 homicides per year, one-eighth involving handguns, (Ref. 2) and in the seven years of the NEJM article there were 29 homicides per year, one-eigth involving handguns. Surely even the medical profession recognizes that one must look to see the prior situation was before concluding that a change made a difference? Would a physician conclude that a patient was benefiting from eating oat bran muffin each day for seven years because his cholesterol level was 200 without at least seeing if it was 180 before he started the regimen? 4. The authors pick two medium-sized cities to evaluate a national gun law. Nothing can be learned from such a tiny and arbitrarily selected sample. Seattle appears to have been selected because it was convenient for the authors rather than for any scientific reason. Would physicians call something a scientific study which involved one experimental subject and one dissimilar "control"? Had different arbitrarily selected cities been chosen, opposite "scientific" conclusions would follow: Vancouver's homicide rate *exceeds* that of such "wild west" cities in Texas as El Paso, Corpus Christi, Austen, and, in Colorado, Colorado Springs. (Ref. 3) 5. The authors fail to clearly demonstrate that firearms or handguns "are far more commonly owned in Seattle than in Vancouver." They use two surrogate approaches in pretending to study the availability of firearms/handguns. The first is an apples-and-oranges effort to compare the number of carry permits in Seattle to the number of registered handguns in Vancouver. But the number clearly understates the number of handguns in Seattle, and counts primarily *protective* handgun owners. The second, however, tells nothing about the number of handguns in Vancouver, and counts *non-protective* handguns for the most part. Where is it difficult to obtain handguns legally for protection, registration figures are meaningless. There are 66,000 registered handguns in New York City (New York Daily News, Sept. 27, 1987). Comparing the two, that method suggests about 930 handguns per 100,000 population in New York City compared to 960 in Vancouver, meaning Vancouver has a greater "prevalence of weapons" than New York City. The second method of measuring gun density is "Cook's gun prevalence index, a previously validated measure of intercity differences." But the validation was by Cook of his own theory. (Ref. 4) Normally, second opinions are sought from a different doctor. More significantly, the Cook index is based on the average of the percentage of firearms involvement in suicide and homicide. So the authors are basically taking a measure of misuse. Unsurprisingly, gun misuse in homicide (42% in Seattle, 14% in Vancouver) is related to gun misuse in homicide plus suicide, divided by two (41% in Seattle, 12% in Vancouver). The authors are not measuring the relative avail- ability of firearms, or of handguns, in Seattle and Vancouver. 6. The authors misstate the laws of both Washington and Canada. They neglect to mention the significant fact that Washington has a waiting period and background check prior to the purchase of a handgun, and that provisions exist in Canadian law for owning and carrying handguns for personal protection. The authors also make it appear that it is more difficult to get a handgun legally in Canada than is actually the case. 7. The authors ignore all other factors which might explain the differences in crime rate, beyond some vague mention of the penalities provided by law and the roughest of estimates of clearance for one particular offense -- homicide involving a firearm. There is no measure of: the differences in the number of law enforcement officers; their aggressiveness in making arrests for gun law violations in the two jurisdictions; arrest rates for other offenses; conviction rates; actual sentences imposed for gun-related crimes, violent crimes without guns, or gun law violations; or incarceration rates. Whereas social scientists would attempt to measure and hold for such differences, the authors of the NEJM "tale of two cities" fail even to mention most factors related to crime control. 8. The authors dismiss claims that handguns are an effective means for protection unless the criminal is killed. Such is not the case. Criminologists (Ref. 5-8) have found that almost 650,000 Americans annually use handguns for protection from criminals, and that using a gun for protection reduces the likelihood that a crime -- rape, robbery, assault -- will be completed by the criminal and reduces the likelihood of injury to the victim. It is interesting, nonetheless, that the authors reported the same number (four) of civilian justifiable homicides without firearms in each city but that less restrictive Seattle accounted for 100% of the reported civilian justifiable homicides involving firearms. 9. The Centers for Disease Control, which funded the "study," editorially praised the paper, (Ref. 9) saying it "applied scientific methods to examine a focus of contention between advocates of stricter regulation of firearms, particularly handguns." There is nothing in the paper which could possibly be mistaken for "scientific methods" by a sociologists or criminologists. The Vancouver-Seattle "study" is the equivalent of testing an experimental drug to control hypertension by finding two ordinary-looking middle-class white males, one aged 25 and the other 40, and without first taking their vital signs, administering the experimental drug to the 25-year-old while giving the 40-year-old a placebo, then taking their blood pressure and, on finding the younger man had a lower blood pressure, announcing in a "special article" a new medical breakthrough. It would be nice to think that such a "study" would neither be funded by the CDC or printed by the NEJM. Since the longstanding anti-gun biases of the NEJM and the CDC make them willing to present shoddy research as "scientific breakthroughs" in "special articles" and editorials relating to firearms, we are obligated to correct the record by notifying the news media and those with congressional and executive oversight over the activities of the Centers for Disease Control about the distortions contained in "Handgun Regulations, Crime, Assaults, and Homicides: A Tale of Two Cities" and "Firearm Injuries: A Call for Science." Clearly, all scientific standards go by the wayside whenever the CDC and the New England Journal of Medicine seize an opportunity to attack firearms ownership in America. REFERENCES 1. Wright JD, et al, *Weapons, crime and violence in America*: a literature review and research agenda, Washington, D.C.: Department of Justice, 1981. 2. Scarff E. *Evaluation of the Canadian gun control legislation*: final report. Ottawa: Ministry of the Solicitor General of Canada, 1983, p. 87. 3. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, *Crime in the United States*, 1987 (Uniform Crime Reports). Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1988 4. Cook PJ. *The role of firearms in violent crime*. In: Wolfgang M. Weiner NA, eds. *Criminal violence*, Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1982: 236-90, pp. 270-271. 5. Kleck G. *Crime control through the private use of armed force*. Social Problems 1988: 35:1-21. 6. Ziegenhagen EA, Brosnan D. *Victim responses to robbery and crime control policy*. Criminology. 1985: 23:675-695. 7. Lizotte AJ. *Determinants of completeing rape and assault*. Journal of Quantitative Criminology. 1986: 2:203-217. 8. Sayles SL, Kleck G. *Rape and resistance*. Paper at the American Society of Criminology convention, Chicago, 1988. 9. Mercy JA, Houk VN. *Firearm injuries: a call for science*. NEJM: 319:1283-1285. SHAR_EOF fi # end of overwriting check if test -f 'guns/nejm/chesler' then echo shar: will not over-write existing file "'guns/nejm/chesler'" else cat << \SHAR_EOF > 'guns/nejm/chesler' From: uw-beaver!prism.tmc.com!david (David Chesler) Subject: NEJM - the rebuttal This is from "The Message" Feb. 1989. The message serves as the official news publications for several New England sportsmen's organizations, including GOAL, which shares its address in Southboro, Mass. CUT & POST The truth about ... the Vancouver Study WHAT IS THE VANCOUVER STUDY? Recently, the New England Journal of Medicine released a "study" claiming that people living in cities with strict firearm regulations have a sharply reduced risk of being murdered. This so-called study claimed Seattle, Wash- ington's homicide rate, higher than that of Vancouver, Canada, is a direct result of the less stringent gun laws in Seattle. We are indebted to Prof- essor Paul H. Blackman, Ph.D., NRA Research Coordinator, for shedding light on the questionable methods of the study. WHY IS THE STUDY'S VALIDITY QUESTIONABLE? The city of Vancouver, Canada passed a strict law regarding the possession of handguns in 1978. The study failed to examine the situation in Vancouver prior to the law taking effect. As it happens, in the three years prior to the law taking effect (1975-1977), Vancouver averaged 23 homicides per year, one-eighth involving handguns. During the seven years of the study, there were 29 homicides per year, one eighth involving handguns. How then can one conclude that the law made any difference? ARE THE TWO CITIES REALLY COMPARABLE? No, the demographics of each city are very different. The non-hispanic white homicide rates are _the same_ in Vancouver and Seattle, which demon- strates that other variables must be considered. Further, a sample of only two cities can not be considered statistically significant. Seattle appears to have been selected for the sake of convenience. In fact, had other similar size American cities been chosen, the study's conclusions would have been very different. Vancouver's homicide rate exceeds that of El Paso, Texas, Austin, Texas, and Colorado Springs, Colorado. ARE HANDGUNS REALLY NOT AVAILABLE IN VANCOUVER, AND EASY TO GET IN SEATTLE? The study misrepresents the actual situation. The state of Washington has a waiting period and background check prior to the purchase of a handgun. Provisions do exist in Canadian law for owning and carrying a handgun for personal protection. WHAT OTHER VARIABLES WERE NOT CONSIDERED IN THE STUDY? There was no measure in the differences in the number of law enforcement officers, their aggressivenes in making arrests for gun law violations, arrest rate for other offenses, conviction rates, actual sentences imposed for gun-related crimes, violent crimes without guns, or gun law violations, or incarceration rates, in the two jurisdictions. To conclude, as professor Blackman states, the "study" is the "equivalent of testing an experimental drug to control hypertension by finding two ordinary looking middle-class white males, one aged 25, and the other 40... Without first taking their vital signs, administering the experimental drug to the 25-year-old, while giving the 40-year-old a placebo, then taking their blood pressure, and on finding the younger man to have lower blood pressure, announcing in a special article a `new medical breakthrough'." David Chesler (david@prism.tmc.com, mirror!david) SHAR_EOF fi # end of overwriting check if test -f 'guns/nejm/dlm' then echo shar: will not over-write existing file "'guns/nejm/dlm'" else cat << \SHAR_EOF > 'guns/nejm/dlm' From: grace!codas.att.com!dlm (Don_Million) Bill - Your mail came through the first time. Reason you never got a response was because it got bounced. Hope this gets through. I don't have the complete studies on hand - only summaries, and some specifics. Here are the complete references, maybe they'll help you find the originals (though the Solicitor Generals report is quite voluminous): Scarff, E. "Evaluation of the Canadian gun control legislation: final report" Ottawa: Ministry of the Solicitor General of Canada, 1983, p. 87. Mercy, J. A. "Firearm injuries: a call for science" New England Journal of Medicine, 1988, 319:1283-1285. To title Mercy's article "a call for science" is a bad joke. It was nothing more than a desparate search for data that would support a pre-determined conclusion. There was nothing scientific at all about the "research." In fact, Mercy studiously ignored the scientific method. Check the Jan. 1989 issue of The American Rifleman for a review of the article, and a list of its flaws. The report for the Solicitor General of Canada is a little better, but its conclusion is, in my opinion, flawed. Scarff concludes that Canada's gun laws work because crime was down following the passage of the laws. He ignores, however, his own statistics that clearly show that this was just a continuation of a downward trend that started several years earlier, and ended shortly after the gun control laws were put in effect. In other words, if you put it on a graph, it would look something like this: | |. R | . . a | . t | . . e | . | . . | . . ----------------------------------------------------- 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 ^ year | gun control enacted here The gun control laws did nothing to accelerate the downward trend of crime rates, and obviously didn't prevent them from going back up. In fact, a pro-gun activist might be inclined to argue that the gun control laws contributed to the reversal of the downward trend. Personally, I wouldn't make that argument; I think it's clear, however, that their gun laws are only controlling guns, and are NOT controlling crime in any way. Don Million SHAR_EOF fi # end of overwriting check if test -f 'guns/nejm/jat' then echo shar: will not over-write existing file "'guns/nejm/jat'" else cat << \SHAR_EOF > 'guns/nejm/jat' From: jat@hpsemc.HP.COM (Joe Talmadge) Subject: Vancouver Study Rick Wojcik writes: >Michael Friedman writes: >>Ahh, finally - someone who has read that study. Questions - > >Sorry, Mike, but I have yet to see the actual study. I'm hoping that D Woo I've read it. >will get a copy of the Nov. 10 New England Journal of Medicine and reprint the >whole thing for us. (Fat chance :-) I don't have access to a library with >the NEJM, but I'll bet that you can find it somewhere at MIT. The questions >you ask are all good questions. I encourage skepticism; I only ask that you >be just as skeptical of studies that actually support your preconceptions. That's a good attitude. Gun control legislation has been attempted for decades. Over these decades, particularly in the '70s, those who were especially in favor of gun control attempted to perform "studies" of the effects of gun control. The fact that a long list of gun control victories does not exist is a telling fact on either the effectiveness of gun control or those "studies" (note that I believe that if the government is going to pass a law, the burden of Proof of Effectiveness is on the law-passers). The gun control "studies" of the '70s were nothing but bad jokes. This study, entitled "Handgun Regulations, Crime, Assaults, and Homicide: A Tale of Two Cities", is also flawed, in my opinion. The authors themselves [ John Henry Sloan, et. al. ] provide a number of possible weaknesses of their own study at the end. I will paraphrase these weaknesses a little later. Here are some words from the fourth paragraph of that study: However, the value of comparing data from different countries to support or refute the effectiveness of gun control is severly compromised by the large number of potentially confounding social, behavioral, and economic factors that characterize large national groups.(1) This is undoubtedly true. Why, then, did the authors not justify their position that comparing two cities, from two DIFFERENT countries and cultures, was valid? No matter how much Americans think of Canada as the 51st state, Canada, which is obviously influenced by the US a great deal, is nevertheless a separate country with different "social, behavioral, and economic factors". Again, when discussing previous studies: "The validity of [previous gun control studies] has been compromised by the large number of confounding factors that characterize national groups." (2) How then can it be valid to compare two cities from different countries, regardless of physical proximity? Next, the study admits the two cities might not even be good models: "In many ways, these two cities have more in common with each other than they do with other major cities in their respective countries". The study goes on to point out that Seattle's homicide rate is "consistently half to two thirds that reported in cities such as Chicago, New York, ... ". Vancouver's, on the other hand, is "two to three times higher than those reported in Ottawa, Toronto, ..."(3). Why, then, is it more valid to compare these two "model" cities to each other, instead of cities in the countries they are situated in? The study shows that it is a bit harder to obtain a weapons permit in Vancouver than a concealed-weapons permit in Seattle. However, the study does not, and can not, explain why 15,289 Seattle citizens went through the trouble of obtaining concealed-weapons permits, while only 4,137 Vancouver citizens went through the trouble of obtaining weapons permits. Why did 4 times as many people (who already had weapons, and wanted *concealed* weapons) in Seattle get concealed weapons permits as the number of people in Vancouver who wanted weapons AT ALL? Perhaps a large CULTURAL difference between the two countries? Perhaps the nature of the criminal subculture is vastly different in each city? The fact that the study cannot explain this is very important. Here are the "three limitations" that the authors feel might invalidate their study, paraphrased by me: 1. The study may not accurately represent the availability of firearms in each of the cities. The method the study used, "Cook's gun prevelance index", has *never* been proved valid outside the United States. 2. "Seattle and Vancouver may well differ in other aspects that could affect their rates of homicide"(4). The study cites as examples the degree of illegal drug-related activity and illegal gun sales. 3. "Conclusions based on a comparison of two cities in the Pacific Northwest may not be generalizable to other urban areas in North America." (5) Further on, the study says that the high ownership rates of firearms in America might nullify any attempt at gun control. The study makes no attempt to analyze the effectiveness of the criminal subcultures of each country to supply illegal weapons if demanded by the public, another flaw, in my opinion. For the record, the study states that the number of justifiable homicides in self-defense in Seattle exceeds that of Vancouver by more than 400%. So there you are. If anyone would like actual statistics from the article, I'd be happy to post them, but I reserve the right to editorialize on the meaningfulness of any such statistics. Joe Talmadge hplabs!hpda!hpsemc!jat jat%hpsemc@hplabs.HP.COM Footnotes: 1. _New England Journal of Medicine_, "Handgun Regulations, Crime, Assaults, and Homicide: A Tale of Two Cities", John H. Sloan, Arthur L. Kellermann, Donald T. Reay, James A. Ferris, Thomas Koepsell, Frederick P. Rivara, Charles Rice, Laurel Gray, and James LoGerfo, November 1988, Vol. 319, p. 1256 2. Ibid., p. 1259 3. Ibid., p. 1259 4. Ibid., p. 1261 5. Ibid., p. 1261 From: jat@hpsemc.HP.COM (Joe Talmadge) Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc Subject: Vancouver study Message-ID: <1640063@hpsemc.HP.COM> Date: 4 Apr 89 21:04:13 GMT Michael Friedman writes: >}objective observors in the matter. There have been no serious comparisons of >}crime before and after the Canadian gun laws went into effect. The .}Seattle-Vancouver study was statistically sound. It takes more than a casual >}glance at some figures to call it 'fatally flawed'. > >I. I don't need to rely on the gun lobby - I'm pronouncing it fatally >flawed based upon my understanding of the scientific method. > >II. I'm not taking a casual glance at some figures. I'm not looking >at any figures at all. Any study that does not look at before and >after is fatally flawed. > >Do you agree that if a study showed that the gun violence rate was >similarly lower in Vancouver even before the Canadian gun law was >passed then the Seattle-Vancouver study would be proven worthless? From: Open letter by Dr. Paul H. Blackman, Research Coordinator for NRA-ILA. NRA Official Journal 1/89. 3. The authors pretend they are evaluating Canada's gun law, compared to Washington State's. But they do not examine at all the situation in Vancouver prior to the gun law taking effect in 1978. As it happens, in the three years prior to that (1975- 1977), Vancouver averaged 23 homicides per year, one-eighth involving handguns, (Ref. 2) and in the seven years of the NEJM article there were 29 homicides per year, one-eigth involving handguns. Surely even the medical profession recognizes that one must look to see the prior situation was before concluding that a change made a difference? Would a physician conclude that a patient was benefiting from eating oat bran muffin each day for seven years because his cholesterol level was 200 without at least seeing if it was 180 before he started the regimen? The "Ref. 2" referred to above is: 2. Scarff E. *Evaluation of the Canadian gun control legislation*: final report. Ottawa: Ministry of the Solicitor General of Canada, 1983, p. 87. The entire letter of refutation was posted originally by d woo. I have the entire thing, but I'm not sure about copyrights, so maybe d woo will post it again. SHAR_EOF fi # end of overwriting check if test -f 'guns/nejm/josh' then echo shar: will not over-write existing file "'guns/nejm/josh'" else cat << \SHAR_EOF > 'guns/nejm/josh' From: josh@klaatu.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) Subject: Re: Raveling Flogs the NEJM Study Some More There's a good article about the NEJM study in the most recent Reason, (July 89, p 46). A few interesting points: both cities have roughly 3/4 white population, and the murder rates of whites are virtually identical. Seattle has 20 times as many blacks as Vancouver, and the rates among Seattle's blacks are 4 times those of Vancouver's. Indeed the entire difference in murder rates disappears when minority groups are discounted. The gun control advocates are left with two alternatives: either the laws have no effect, and the difference is due to socio-economic effects, or the laws *really are* aimed at the blacks. Here's a question for all those who love to try to draw causal inferences from slapdash surveys and gun control laws: do a quick correlation between murder and welfare (killers and killees on versus off the welfare rolls). You'll find overwhelming evidence, by your current methodology, that welfare causes crime. SHAR_EOF fi # end of overwriting check if test -f 'guns/nejm/lazarus' then echo shar: will not over-write existing file "'guns/nejm/lazarus'" else cat << \SHAR_EOF > 'guns/nejm/lazarus' From: lazarus@athena.mit.edu (Michael Friedman) Subject: Re: Gun Blather (Was Re: Re: Re: Liberal Bashers) In article <8785@bcsaic.UUCP> rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) writes: >In article <1640031@hpsemc.HP.COM> jat@hpsemc.HP.COM (Joe Talmadge) writes: >>...I reject the view that you can look >>at two cities in TWO DIFFERENT COUNTRIES, and then blame one certain >>problem or another on one single source. Comparing an American city >>to Canadian city is simply not valid, and many of the conclusions >>people are drawing from the study are non sequitors. >The authors of this study looked very carefully at this issue. Theirs is >probably the best study yet that tries to meet your criteria. They found that >Seattle and Vancouver have no appreciable differences in unemployment, >education levels, or income. The demographics of the two cities seem >identical for the purposes of comparing crime statistics. Ahh, finally - someone who has read that study. Questions - I. What are the gun ownership rates in Vancouver and Seattle? II. What are the weapons of choice among criminals? In other words, when they arrest robbers who don't kill anyone what weapons do they find on them? III. The news reports cite murders only. What are the numbers on injuries? IV. How high is the murder rate? Are the numbers statistically significant? V. Does Vancouver have any special laws aimed at the criminal use of guns, for example a mandatory added sentence if you use a gun in a crime? VI. How does the break down in murders look? What are the individual results among random crime victims, among domestic disputes, etc? VII. What are the estimated gun ownership rates in both cities? SHAR_EOF fi # end of overwriting check if test -f 'guns/nejm/nelson' then echo shar: will not over-write existing file "'guns/nejm/nelson'" else cat << \SHAR_EOF > 'guns/nejm/nelson' From: nelson_p@apollo.COM (Peter Nelson) Subject: re guns and murder rates Rick Wojcik csnet: rwojcik@boeing.com posts... >You have yet to come up with a decent argument against the Seattle-Vancouver >study, which shows a direct relationship between high murder rates and lax gun >control laws. But it doesn't. At *best* it shows a correlation. And even that's stretching things. The researchers tried to match demographics, i.e., income, racial makeup, population, etc. But you can't match everything. For example, one big difference between the two cities is that Vancouver has a lot more *CANADIANS*. I'm not being a smart-ass. Despite many Americans' fantasies to the contrary, Canadians are NOT just Americans who say 'ay?' all the time. There's a whole different national personality up there. I was watching a documentary recently on the Canadian national health care system (I'm not suggesting that that is a relevant factor, but then, you never know). They pointed out that the red tape and lines and bureaucracy was much more than the average American would tolerate but the Canadians are more patient. They suggested that Canadians might be more rule-abiding or group (as opposed to individual-) oriented. I don't know if any of that is true but it is not unreasonable that Canada's unique history and culture may produce a different personality. At minimum the researchers should have compared two cities where the populations showed similar profiles on an MMPI or similar test. The social sciences are not sciences in the sense that the physical and natural sciences are. We simply do not have the kind of systematic understanding of social phenomena that we would like. Social sciences are more like religions: you can say 'carrots' and I can say 'sticks' and our grandchildren will still be debating the issue. There is no evidence that what the study purports to do can even be done; i.e., that in something as complex and chaotic as a modern human, urban environment, a simple, linear cause-and-effect relationship can be drawn between two such phenomena. SHAR_EOF fi # end of overwriting check # End of shell archive exit 0