I had to write a 1 page report for my shotgun class. It could be about anything having to do with shotguns. Here what I belched up.
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Xxxx Xxxxxx Skarrina
11-25-07
Shotgun Sports Paper
Shotguns and Happiness
INTRODUCTION
In my sociology class, we’ve been learning how to use the General Social Survey (GSS) data to make observations about trends. The General Social Survey is a national survey that has been asking different types of questions to people in the United States since 1972. The results of the survey are made available to the public in the archives http://sda.berkeley.edu. For this paper I’d like to show that there is a statistically backed trend that people who have a shotgun in their home tend to be happier.
METHODS
I looked at two different variables, one asking about the happiness of the person and another about whether or not the person has a shotgun in their home. The exact phrasing of the questions and the resulting tables (Tables 1 and 2) are listed in the appendix at the back of this paper. Then I ran a bivariate table (Table 3), with happiness being the dependent variable and having a shotgun in the home being the independent variable. This is because I wanted to see whether having a shotgun in the home or not would affect the happiness of the person. The variables were limited to the year 2006 so that I could have the most recent information.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Table 1 shows that overall, 35.0% of the people surveyed say they are very happy, 54.7% of the people say they are pretty happy, and 12.1% of the people say they are not too happy. Table 2 shows that 20.7% of these people have a shotgun in their home while 54.7% do not.
If having a shotgun in the home has no effect on the happiness of the person, you would expect that the percentages of ‘happiness’ would remain the same regardless of the presence of a shotgun in the home. However, Table 3 shows that the people who have a shotgun in their home also have a highest percentage of the most happy people. 40.2% of the people who have a shotgun in their home report that they are very happy, while only 31.1% of the people without shotguns report to be very happy. Inversely, unhappiness tended to decrease when there was a shotgun in the home. 7.0% of the people with a shotgun in the home reported to be not too happy, and 13.0% of the people without a shotgun reported to be not too happy.
It is important to note that correlation does not mean causality. There could be other factors that are influencing these results. Those who keep shotguns in their homes may also have other parts of their lifestyle, like religion or education, which influences their overall happiness.
However, I can still make predictions that shotgun-ownership is directly linked to happiness. Perhaps participating in a stress-relieving sport like shotgun shooting can help your mood. Or maybe having a weapon in your home makes you feel more secure and thus you are happier. Whatever is actually the case, I think the GSS’s data is significant evidence that having a shotgun in your home can make you a happier person.
REFERENCE
Davis, James A., Tom W. Smith, and Peter V. Marsden. GENERAL SOCIAL SURVEYS, 1972-2004: [CUMULATIVE FILE] [Computer file]. 2nd ICPSR version. Chicago, IL: National Opinion Research Center [producer], 2005. Storrs, CT: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut / Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research / Berkeley, CA: Computer-assisted Survey Methods Program (http://sda.berkeley.edu), University of California [distributors], 2005.
