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yes_its_him t1_izf0se9 wrote

Reply to comment by Series_G in [OC] Guns in the US and Canada by pigecoin69420

The official numbers are linked in the post and appear to support the presentation without overt misrepresentations or unrepresentative data where it can be compared

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Series_G t1_izf6ca8 wrote

No. Not buying it. There's such a thing as substantive incompatibility in data and the author is always responsible for that. The responses above about rrends in reporting crime and what falls into property and violent crime buckets are spot on.

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pigecoin69420 OP t1_j2dus3s wrote

Thanks for this point. I'm sure there are differences in the crime reporting methods between US and Canada, and frankly between each agency keeping and aggregating crime records from the lowest levels of policing orgs on up the hierarchy. It would take more time than I had to try and fully understand what difference there may be, though I would appreciate if you had a suggestion on a practical methodology to go about adjusting for biases in these sorts of comparisons.
The potential for bias in the gun violence data sets is why I chose to focus on comparisons between US and Canada, which share a lot of cultural norms, if that makes sense. All potential for bias aside, I think the data are at least interesting and informative, and most importantly to me, got some healthy debate going on several fronts.

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Series_G t1_j2dzjo7 wrote

Fair enough. I just think it is the researcher's responsibility to understand if the definitions of "gun violence" and general reporting trends are directionally consistent across countries. If there are significant differences, then make some adjustments to the include/exclude rules and state them for your readers. If you don't do that, then we just spiral down into whataboutism in the thread. Also, we can't collectively draw any conclusions from your otherwise good work. Thanks for doing this.

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