WTF - the numbers don't agree...

[tortoise1956]

Recently, there was a post that contained the following link:

http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2582988

According to the researchers, there was an immediate and sustained increase in the number of gun homicides in Florida after the Stand Your Ground law was passed in 1998. I didn't buy the paper, so I don't know exactly what they based their research on other than it was a CDC website, but they did throw some pieces of info at you in the abstract - enough to extrapolate that the initial homicide rate was ~5.9/100,000, and that it went up by 24% (~7.3/100,000) after the law was passed.

HOWEVER - some fast research showed that the Murder rate in Florida has held pretty much constant over the years, based on the FBI UCR data. The last time that the Murder rate exceed 7.3/100,000 was in 1996 - before the SYG law was passed.:

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/flcrime.htm

Does anybody want to hazard a guess on what method they used to arrive at some pretty unsubstantiated numbers? My best guess is that they tried to include all homicides in this rate - criminal or otherwise. Which I would expect to be identified in the abstract...

In any event, I pronounce this research paper to be a

FAIL!!!!!!!!!!