UC Davis Study: Gun Ownership Linked To Heavy Drinking

June 15, 2011 11:58 AM

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SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – A new study from UC Davis finds a disturbing link between people who own guns and heavy alcohol use.

UCD researchers found that gun owners are twice as likely to engage in binge drinking, chronic heavy drinking, and drinking and driving as people who don’t own guns.

Perhaps more disturbing, the study found alcohol abuse was most common among gun-owners who engage in risky behavior like having a loaded, unlocked gun in the home and driving or riding in a vehicle with a loaded gun.

“It’s not surprising that risky behaviors go together,” said Garen J. Wintemute, author of the study and director of the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program. “This is of particular concern given that alcohol intoxication also impairs a gun user’s accuracy as well as his judgment on whether to shoot.”

The UC Davis study is published online in the journal Injury Prevention. Researchers analyzed telephone survey results for more than 15,000 people in eight states.

The article does not say owning guns is the reason for the drinking or vice-versa. However it suggests that drinking can impair judgment and lead people to use guns in dangerous ways. It also suggests that personality traits, such as impulsiveness or risk-taking, could lead to an increase in dangerous behavior involving alcohol and guns.

UC Davis Study: Gun Ownership Linked To Heavy Drinking

Bob

I am not surprised at all that this study came out of California. It is the only place it WOULD come out of. Hell, living in California is enough to drive you to drinking. Cali… just become your own country, you don’t want to be a member of the USA anyway.
MICHAEL GALMUKOFF

As a Federally Licensed Firearms Manufacture, I can tell you with confidence that Wintemute’s disingenuous research is well established.
Where is the UC Davis Ethics & Compliance Risk Committee when the public needs them?
Skip

Bad Science at any level should be questioned, This is why Peer review of articles for publication is so necessary. Personal agenda has to be discounted and this article feeds another witch hunt called gun control. Where would this Professor be without the second amendment…oh yeah…Europe.
Jackie

The results of my latest research…college professors with agendas, collecting taxpayer dollars will 99.9% of the time produce results that are biased.
Aundre

Wham bam thank you, maam, my questions are asnerewd!
Sing141

Me thinks any study coming out of UC Davis is never going to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Rafael

Study: Lack of gun ownership linked to heavy marijuana smoking.

See? I can make stuff up, too.
Scott

When a professor decides that he or she wants to make up a study, I mean start one they usually start with the outcome instead of looking at the data. You can get any answer you want when you want to look for somehting specific. It would be interesting to actually see the statitics on how this plays out. What deviation was used to score this study? What is disturbing is that this is being passed off as news.

Ken Hamlett

I find it important to report this because the public needs to know of misguided “research”. Otherwise someone in the future will site it after the actual data is long gone and pretend that it is valid. We are forewarned and won’t be fooled .
Otherwise your post is quite valid and I would also like to see the raw data and protocol used.

Dr Phill

ROFL.! And we’re supposed to believe a study coming out of UC Davis? About GUNS? Wow, Liberals really DO think we’re rubes, don’t they. I can just hear them in the faculty lounge…”Second Amendment, What Second Amendment?
http://recoveryradio.net/2011/08/20/gun-owners-twice-as-likely-to-binge-drink-as-those-without-firearms/ Recovery Radio Network Blog » Blog Archive » Gun Owners Twice as Likely to Binge Drink as Those Without Firearms

[...] author of the study and director of the university’s Violence Prevention Research Program, told CBS 13 Sacramento. “This is of particular concern given that alcohol intoxication also impairs a gun user’s [...]