
Just three percent of adults own half of America’s guns - smacktoward
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/19/just-three-percent-of-adults-own-half-of-americas-guns/?utm_term=.13712c6d00ce
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Turing_Machine
"The Harvard/Northeastern study is based on a survey of nearly 4,000 Americans
conducted online in 2015 by a market research company, GfK, with a nationally
representative panel of opt-in participants who are compensated to complete
surveys on a variety of issues."

So, total garbage, then? Most gun owners I know keep the fact that they own
guns private. They will not tell the truth when telephone pollsters call ("Oh,
no... no guns here!") and they certainly aren't going to be participating in
some online "opt-in" survey.

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gerdesj
Why do the words:

"according to the results of a Harvard-Northeastern survey of 4,000 gun
owners."

as opposed to say "50,000 (carefully) randomly selected people in the US"

... make me judgmental about this article?

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Turing_Machine
Change to ""50,000 (carefully) randomly selected people in the US, for whom
you have strong evidence that they won't lie about their gun ownership" and
you're going to get nearer the truth. I guess that falls under "carefully",
but it needs to be made explicit.

Basically, any study or poll on a controversial topic should be considered of
little value until positively proven otherwise. If one point of view (or
whatever) has been widely demonized (e.g., gun owners, Trump voters), you're
almost certain to get garbage results (e.g., "Hillary Clinton has a 90%
probability of winning the election").

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StanislavPetrov
So in other words, the gun disparity isn't as wide as the wealth disparity.

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gridscomputing
We Are the 97%!

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xyzzy4
Classic power law distribution.

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gerdesj
One data point and you've plotted a graph and derived an equation for it?

You are one hell of a mathematician.

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R_haterade
Never underestimate a good prior! :-)

