Re: Gun Violence Archive

Hut-Sut Ralson wrote:

[...]

As of today, May 31, 2025, there have been zero documented defensive
gun uses in the United States for the year 2025.  You might notice
that I avoid the acronym "DGU", popularized by Dr Kleck's '90s surveys
where the researcher defines a "DGU" as an answer to an anonymous
telephone survey... if it's your survey, you may define it any way you
wish.  To be a "defensive gun use", the incident must be tested by the
scientific method

>
That's a clear misapplication of the scientific method.

Well, I did, in fact, use the term: "scientific method"; however, I
did not detail any specific application thereof.

Making it as simple as I can: when one employs the scientific method,
one assumes the "null hypothesis".  (Think: "innocent until proven
guilty"... the null hypothesis is that the accused person is innocent
and this must be rejected by evidence.)  Then one defines the standard
of proof by which the null hypothesis may be rejected: "beyond
reasonable doubt", "a preponderance of evidence", "P >= 0.5", et. al.

A person may claim "self defense" and, based on this, a criminal
proceeding might fail to reject the null hypothesis of his or her
innocence, in which case the individual remains innocent; however, the
person's innocence was the default.  It was *guilt* that was tested,
not innocence.  Also, please note that the matter of "self defense" is
entirely another matter and never tested per the scientific method.

You really should do a little bit of reading before you jump in and
demonstrate your ignorance.

Jones