Citation

Alcorn T, Burris S. Lancet 2016; 388(10041): 233.

Affiliation

Legal Science, LLC, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Comment On:

DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(15)01026-0

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31036-4

PMID

27479562

Abstract

The study of a phenomenon as complex as the impact of gun laws requires strong theory and study designs capable of untangling causal pathways, attention to implementation, and precision in the measurement of legal variables. Other scholars have criticised the study by Bindu Kalesan and colleagues [DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(15)01026-0] in those regards—the cross-sectional design, absence of theoretical framework, and failure to observe that some of the laws studied had not actually been implemented. We note another weakness that is all too common in legal evaluations: imprecise and opaque measurement of legal variables....

Language: en