Atrocious Study of Social Gun Culture Undermines Credibility of Public Health Research on Guns

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Gun Culture 2.0

I was interested to learn recently about the SOUL Study — SOUL here standing for SOial gUn cuLture.

The terrible acronym here, unfortunately, is matched by the poor quality of the survey being fielded.

Although I am particularly sensitive to those who say they are studying American gun culture, here I think an objective analysis of the survey yields this conclusion.

In the first place, the study purports to be “designed to understand social gun culture among adult US residents (citizens and non-citizens) who currently use social media.” But few of the 77 total questions ask about participation in social gun culture.

The principal investigator is somewhat more honest in the flier put together to publicize the study, which makes clear the primary interest is in gun violence and gun control, not gun culture.

Which is fine, but don’t pretend you are studying something you are not.

 SOcial…

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