Guns and alcohol: Gun owners drink more and take more risks, study says

[MikePapa1]

Guns and alcohol: Gun owners drink more and take more risks, study says - latimes.com

Interesting study. It doesn't really match my personal experience, however.

[hkgonra]

From my personal experience this is pure fiction.

[Will Carry]

The British Medical Journal ? 37% of suicides were drunk? Duhhh! I can't believe that 63% were sober.

[Guest UberDuper]

Some new laws should take care of this no problem.

[strickj]

That's LA for ya. I bet a dollar to a weeble that most of their study group are of questionable nature.

[bigwakes]

So if we outlaw all firearms than drunk driving will go decrease?

[bajabuc]

When I had to take the Mine Safety Course, the man giving the test said people with tattoos are risk takers and might have problems getting a well paying high school education only job. He also said loud music in cars may disqualify many from jobs where good hearing is required. The "thumpers" destroy the lower sounds that voices make.

[Guest kickstand]

Flawed logic... Sure, "live life on the edge" type folks own guns, but that doesn't mean gun owners are eccentric. That article's line of thinking is like saying rectangles are squares, because squares are rectangles.

[Patrick Henry]

Lots of questions. Does not say if the study went through peer review. Is the sample size biased towards legal or illegal gun ownership or criminals or other risk takers? If the study is valid then gun owners should have a higher conviction rate of drunk driving, moving vehicle violations, accidents, etc....than the general population/control group. However, while not a statistically valid comparison other studies show legal gun owners as among the most law abiding citizens. When was the last time the LA Times wrote a pro gun article?

[1gewehr]

British Medical Journal and Centers for Disease Control? Hardly objective sources when it comes to firearms. Both are notorious for anti-gun 'studies' that prove to be full of bovine patties.

[MikePapa1]

I wonder way they didn't do a correlation with auto ownership. I'm sure that would produce even more "shocking" results.

[RobertNashville]

I would say that whoever conducted this "study" and whoever wrote this article has NEVER taken a course in rational thinking.

[Guest friesepferd]

yet another vague article with "stats" from some random "study". It means nothing to me.

Personally, I don't drink a drop of alcohol.

I drank a little in college. Never had the gun with me, and always was locked in a safe when I did, reguardless of how much I was drinking.

Gun and alcohol don't mix. Cars and alcohol dont mix. Children and alcohol dont mix... pretty much anything and alcohol dont mix.

I am glad that our country allows it, and I wish they would crack down a lot harder on those who drink and drive, etc.

[DaveTN]

It doesn't surprise me that a high percentage of shootings and suicides involve alcohol. Most crimes in general involve alcohol or drugs. No news there.

I am very likely to down 5 or more drinks in a single sitting.

I have zero chance of driving after I have had even one drink. (I know that's rare though)

The story seems to be mainly about alcohol/criminals/suicides with firearms owners thrown in as an after thought.

People who commit suicide can't read the article, criminals probubly won't read the article.... but hey, by throwing firearm owners in the story it got posted on Internet forums.

[Jonnin]

Garbage or not, I keep thinking of the now rather long and often revived thread here "what is your adult beverage tonight" or whatever the exact title is...

The story is junk, plenty of hard drinking folks out there that don't have a gun. Plenty that do. There is no correlation. Most of the gun owners I know are not risk takers at all, and drink but little if at all, which also means nothing. Like anyone else I tend to hang with people with similar lifestyles and I was tired of booze (and drunks!) by the time I got out of college, so I hang with folks that drink very little, if any. All I can say is there are plenty of gun owners that are quite sober -- what % of them that may be, I have no idea.

[Ebow1]

All I can say is that I was a drunk long before I was a gun owner.