By Sam Hoober
There are a number of facts, figures and ideas that gun control advocates like to throw around as support for their arguments. On paper, there may be something approaching truth to them. But, ultimately, they’re lying.
The problem with statistics is that any sample without context is worthless. Say you fill a glass with seawater at the beach. Based on that sample, you could say there aren’t any fish in the sea.
That’s how gun control advocates roll.
While there may be something approaching a good intention somewhere (wanting fewer people to die is a good thing), antis use facts and statistics that either lack context and/or fail to directly address the problem they’re supposedly addressing.
For example, they use the oft-quoted figure that America suffers somewhere in the neighborhood of around 30,000 gun-related (or rather, gunshot wound-related) deaths every year. These figures are published every year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, so it can generally be taken as true.
What they don’t tell you is that roughly two-thirds are intentionally self-inflicted wounds or, in other words, the majority of firearms deaths are suicides. Slightly less than one-third of those fatalities are murders. The remainder are accidental deaths due to gunshots (which have been decreasing for years).
Regarding homicides committed by firearm, the CDC doesn’t separate the numbers into mass murders, “regular murders” and murders stemming from organized crime activity.
Mass shootings, while certainly tragic and horrifying, are actually quite rare in the grand scheme of things. Far more common: violent crimes committed by members of organized crime. In fact, they account for the majority of violent crime in America.
Once suicides and organized crime are removed from the equation, fewer than 5,000 deaths per annum are the result of non-gang related or accidental shootings.
And how do hoodlums GET those guns? Mostly illegally, which leads us to excessive regulations on purchasing.
Very few people would disagree with the idea that it’s a good idea to “keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people”: violent felons, spouse abusers, the mentally ill and so on. Which is why – for good or ill – we have the background check system.
[In some jurisdictions, there are universal background checks that require an NICS or state background check be done for ANY gun purchase including private sales.]
Truth be told, the kind of people that commit most gun crimes don’t buy them in a store. Most studies into the matter indicate they obtain them from friends and family or steal them (they also don’t buy them at gun shows).
This doesn’t stop the gun control lobby from spreading their anti-gun rights propaganda.
CrimAdvisor is a website run by the Brady Campaign that purports to tell you where it’s easy for criminals to buy guns. The site highlights states that have more lax background check statutes. They maintain that these states are veritable oases of criminal purchases of firearms.
One of the best states for controlling purchases, and therefore cutting down on crime, according to this site? Illinois. Where they keep Chicago. Apparently the state is a “low” contributor to the national gun violence problem!
I’m not the first person to say this and I won’t be the last: gun control laws only hamper the people that follow the laws.
With rare exceptions (which can be rounded down to zero, statistically speaking), the kind of person who bothers to get a concealed carry permit is not the person causing problems. In fact, the vast majority of gun owners are not going to commit any crime.
Gun control advocates also favor magazine restrictions. Thankfully, only a few states have magazine restrictions in place. But “standard” capacity magazines are a perennial target of the civilian disarmament complex.
Some mass shooters have used high-capacity magazines. However, they also carry a lot of them and reload numerous times. For instance, the Virginia Tech shooter had nineteen magazines on his person and 400 rounds of ammunition in total. When Charles Whitman ascended the clock tower in Austin, he was carrying 700 rounds with him.
And so on. My point: people who carry out mass murders often plan ahead by having plenty of ammunition on hand. A few fewer rounds in a magazine isn’t going to make much difference.
Gun control advocates are unwilling to listen to reason or use facts appropriately or in context. Why would they? The facts don’t support gun control. Which is why they rely on emotion; waving the bloody shirt.
Until and unless Americans examine the issue of gun control on a logical, rational basis, gun rights will always in imminent danger. Which is why they will always be in imminent danger.
3 Things Gun Control Advocates Lie About
1) Goals of legislation
2) Facts agaisnt them
3) Statistics
“facts, figures and ideas” just about covers it…
Why are these “safety” “groups” always a coven of chicks?
Not chicks, harpies. Chicks grow up into something edible.
Because the majority of women are devoid of logic and thoughts are based on feelings not rooted in reality.
“Because the majority of women WILLING TO SPEND ANY TIME AROUND ME are devoid of logic and thoughts are based on feelings not rooted in reality.”
FTFY
Seriously? Your sexist comments only serve to make gun owners look bad. We’re fighting a war of public opinion and your comments are not helping.
While I agree with your statement, it’s not just limited to women; it applies to all people including men.
I have gotten rid of all my shit. I now own only a spear and a knife. Now don’t let everyone give this story away, yeah right.
There’s lies, damned lies and the statistics
Also 67% of statistics are made up on the spot
60% of the time, it works 100%
Apparently nowhere to leave comments on the state pages of crimadvisor.
Imagine that, an antigun web page that doesn’t allow comments.
Whoda thunk ?
Only 3? I thought the real number was closer to ‘every-single-damn-thing’.
That’s a bingo!
Gun control Advocates are really like children very emotional don’t want to listen to reason it’s almost like you’re told your young daughter that she can’t use the car this weekend and she throws a hissy fit it’s exactly like that when you’re talking with these people you start bringing up facts and statistics and they start crying and screaming and yelling that you’re a racist Nazi and so on it’s ridiculous you can’t even have a decent conversation with these people.
Thats just liberals in general.
I was about to ask Mr. Hoffa to specify which progressives he was attempting describing but I see you beat me to the answer
Things the antis lie about:
1) Facts – regarding the law, statistics, the way firearms operate, public opinion, legislation, etc.
2) The definition of the word “grassroots”
3) The motivation behind their efforts
4) Everything else.
What they don’t tell you is that roughly two-thirds are intentionally self-inflicted wounds or, in other words, the majority of firearms deaths are suicides. Slightly less than one-third of those fatalities are murders. The remainder are accidental deaths due to gunshots (which have been decreasing for years).
So, the number of justifiable homicides via firearms was ZERO???
When you combine police and non-police justified homicides, I think the total is around 1,000 annually.
Pedantic person, justifiable homicide is still murder……
@Dan Cancellieri – No, it isn’t. “Homicide” means (legally) the killing of a person by another person. “Murder” means (legally) the UNjustified killing of a person by another, and is further broken down (in most places) into essentially 3 “degrees” of homicide, dependent mostly upon the degree on “intent” present. So called “1st degree murder” involves clear and reasoned intent beforehand, the “malice aforethought” issue (ie, a planned killing), 2nd degree murder involves unpremeditated, but unjustified killing of another, as in a sudden fit of rage (ie an intentional, but unplanned, killing), and the last category is called various things, usually variations on the term “Manslaughter,” and typically involves the unintentional killing of another person, but through gross negligence, such as by driving drunk and killing someone in an accident.
Thus, by definition, “murder” for which you go to prison, definitely is NOT the same thing as “justifiable homicide,” for which you will either not be charged at all, or will be “no billed” by a Grand Jury. If I shoot and kill someone who is trying to kill me, my actions are both legally and morally justified. That means that, while I have certainly committed a “homicide,” no guilt attaches to me for doing so, and I have NOT committed a “murder.”
Oldshooter, you may have missed the sarcasm… 😉
I start off with the premise that logic doesn’t apply when dealing with liberals/progressives/useful fools. Therefore it is a waste of time to deal with them.
Occasionally I will bait one to get a rise but quickly tire of their tirade, not conversation.
As I said, a waste of time.
Past, Present and Future?
Another one of their tricks is refusing to distinguish between shootings. Criminals shooting each other are counted. Police shootings are counted until ruled justifiable. Civilian shootings are always counted even when ruled justifiable. Violent crimes not involving firearms are ignored. That means the two Boston doctors won’t be counted because their throats were cut. On the other hand, the Oklahoma homeowner who shot three invaders will count for three. If they had killed him, he wouldn’t count since the invaders weren’t carrying firearms.
It is important, when considering these kinds of statistics, to recognize that “Homicides,” are not at all the same thing as “Murders,” because the “Homicide” statistic includes ALL killings of one person by another, whether done by police or ordinary citizens, whether justified or not, and whether intentional or not. ANY time one person kills another, a “homicide” has occurred.
Just as any time a person kills him/herself, a “Suicide” has occurred, regardless of the means chosen, and intent to do so is implied. An UNintentional suicide, such as occurs in autoerotic strangulation cases (like the way the actor David Carradine died) are typically defined/reported separately, in another category, as “death by mischance” or “accidental death”, rather than “suicide.” I personally suspect that there are at least SOME suicides by gun, that should actually be classified in the latter category, because the person wasn’t SURE he wanted to do it, or just wanted to see what it felt like to be “4 pounds of pressure away from eternity,” but accidentally pressed too hard on the trigger, got startled, etc. We will, of course, never know in these cases, and they will all be classified as “Suicides.”
In any case, we must keep in mind that the “homicide” statistics normally include not only murders, but also the justified self-defensive shootings (that resulted in death) by both police and civilians, and may also include (unless they are specifically taken out by the researcher) accidental shooting deaths (which are technically “negligent homicides”). So it is entirely possible, depending on the source data and the researcher, for “homicides” to include not only murders and justified killings, as well as accidental shooting deaths, even when the latter 2 categories are ALSO reported separately. For example a “homicide” number of 100, might break down into 50 murders, 40 justified killings, and 10 accidental killings – and, while the three categories may be separately reported, they are STILL included in the overall “homicide” numbers too. That is, although there were only 50 murders, there actually WERE 100 “Homicides.”
What about the debunked facts this fake news hate site and it’s neo nazi cowardly owner promotes.
Like the fairy tale called “defensive gun use”
Or how you philistines lie about how the civilized world is dangerous due to strict guns laws despite the opposite.
Or how about the fact you or a loved one are more likely to be murdered or commit suicide with a gun in the home than stopping a criminal attack.
Or how is proper criminal and mental health background checks considered “tyrannical”.
Europe, Asia, Canada let alone Australia have not turned into fascist regimes people like you continue to lie about.
Or how about the fact you support a russian puppet for a leader that plans to turn our country into a 3rd world banana republic.
Keep living in your fantasy land that you gun will keep you safe.
I’ll stick to cold hard reality and live my life as a patriotic american that will not stand for the tyrannical cult known as “people of the gun” or the oldest terror group in the country known as the NRA which has sold weapons to various terror groups around the world.
“I’ll stick to cold hard reality…”
I have a cold, hard reality for you, ‘progressive’ boy –
Suck on it.
For the next 3.5 LONG years, suck on it. Daily.
Always a pleasure *snickering* at you…
“Keep living in your fantasy land that you[r] gun will keep you safe.”
Will do.
Four countries — Russia, China, North Korea, and Viet Nam — which together comprise about 95% of Asia — are the textbook definition of fascist* regimes.
I could go on and debunk your other points … but I won’t make readers go through the trouble. Soundly debunking this single point means we should pay no attention to anything else that you said.
* If you want to be technical, I suppose you could argue that those four countries are merely communist regimes. Either way, they are countries where the governments do whatever they want and the little people are irrelevant.
And the non tyrannies in Asia all have HIGHER suicide+homicide rate than the US.
The gun control lobby aggregates gun suicide plus gun homicide and compares it to gun suicide plus gun homicide.
What they will never do is compare those rates in Japan, S. korea etc by all means of suicide plus homicide, because the Asian democracies all have massively higher rates than the US.
Go to wikipeda and add together the suicide plus homicide rate by all means per 100,000 of S. Korea. It is about double the total all means US suicide plus homicide rate. japan is also higher than the US.
Why is suicide by gun worse than higher rates of suicide by jumping in the mids of the bloomberg paid gun control nuts?
Quick question for The_Resistance, do you do any research before you parrot you cheap propaganda on this website? The fact that your first paragraph is entirely an ad hominem attack suggests otherwise.
You call defensive gun use a fairy tale, despite numerous studies suggesting anywhere from 100,000 to several million DGU’s per year.
You argue a point which has been debunked numerous times since it was first stated as part of a faulty study 30 years ago.
uncommon_sense already adressed your ridiculous claims about tyranical regimes.
Your points on Donald Trump are completelt irrelevant, suggesting that you can’t even keep your uninformed ad hominem attacks straight.
Patriotic American? I take you have never studied history, because without the “people of the gun” you denounce, you would be a proud citizen of the British empire.
And calling the NRA terrorists? What on earth are you basing this on? The only people selling guns to terrorists work do the BATF, and the only people who have any reason to be scared of the NRA are criminals and terrorists.
the 100,000 was not a question about guns. Neither the word gun nor the word firearm appeared in the question.
the range that deal specifically with non law enforcement civilians using guns to prevent a crime is 500,000 to three million per year.
As the obama ordered report for the CDC noted about two years ago, the range dealing with guns is 500,000 to three million and the lowest estimate, a whole lot higher than violent crimes (and that includes threats with guns) committed with guns.
this is also why every study that bothers to compare similar US demographic areas in age, income, race, education, emplyment level, finds those with more guns and less gun laws ALL have less crime.
What’s debunked? I see you say that repeatedly. There are certain facts here that are said that are the subject of intense debate, but hardly debunked. “You’re more likely to be killed by your gun.” This is an average. Some people are dumbasses. Some people are safe with their guns. Your chances of getting hurt by your gun varies depending on your practices. “sold weapons to terrorists” Is there any evidence of this? It is the 44th President and the ATF who HAS sold weapons to people you could call terrorists.
Ok, I should clarify here, you are right, i was specifically reffering the kellerman study, which is the study mid commonly quoted when someone says that guns are not liekly to be misused than to save lives. I agree, I may have been too quick to say debunked, however there is no evidence in any study that I have seen which suggests that accidents are more common than DGU’s
“The more likely to be harmed by your own gun” is virtually all a) suicide b) illegal gun owners with active criminal activity
Kellerman has been debunked in all his claims. since he has been around a long while there is a lot of data to test his predictions. Another junk researcher by the name of Hemingway. Kellerman and hemenway have been wrong about everything. it is amazing these guys did not run away and hide by now.
Hemenway famously refused to account — at all –in any of his studies for example on guns in the home for active criminals, despite the clear evidence from every police study that has looked at it, that the huge majority of murder victims are criminals (91% in Baltimore, 92% in DC, a whopping 91% in Chicago are prior criminals, with 2/3 of them being person with six or more arrests (career criminals). In fact in Newark NJ they found that not one single shooting of a child in a home with an home owner or guest was with a legal firearm. all illegal firearms ownd by thug dads, boyfriends and the like.
when you a) control out “gun owners” in gangs, selling drugs or with clear crime patterns, the remain gun owning homes in crime, with prior felonies; and b) use total suicide rates not just gun suicide — it turns out legal gun owning households of non criminals are about 25% safer from violence than homes with no guns!
The obvious nature of the craven flaw in the research by hemenway and kellerman actually unwittingly by those two numbskulls INCREASED Americans knowledge that if you are not a criminal owning a gun makes you and your family safer.
Look at this:
http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/zcbporzweuevfe2v1kcnmw.png
the latest thing in bloomberg paid research at the university and journals is on whether concealed carry makes a a jurisdictions more dangerous.
In those studies, not one, seriously not one, compares similar demographic, within a region, with and without more carry. T
A great example is the suburbs around DC. They are in he same region, in fact share the same major metro, and have very close age, income, education level, employment level demographics. The virginia suburbs have (way) more guns, (massively) more carry, and way less restrictions. The virginia suburbs also have much lower average violent crime rates.
Oh, man.
Attention. Clean up needed on aisle 3. Someone took a big steaming dump here.
And we was just talking about liars and up jumps the resistance. The biggest liar on this site.
There are 8 different studies on defensive gun use, by a variety of researches at a variety academic intuitions using a variety of methods. The lowest estimate oid 500,000 per year and the highest is 3 million per year.
for you to say the CDC report from about a year and a half ago under Obama, which noted that range was a “lie” is bizarre
Even the lowest is many many times more rapes, murders, assaults and other crimes prevented by gun owners than committed with guns.
Europe, Asia, Canada let alone Australia have not turned into fascist regimes people like you continue to lie about.
1) Firstly Australia proves gun control makes things worse.
a) its suicide rate by gun decreased, but all those suicide shifted to other means. Six peer reviewed studies in Australia and a parliamentary commission run by a pro gun control parliament found suicide did not fall at all due to gun control. Self caused death by mean associated with suicide did not change one iota in Australia in the ten years after mass confiscation the US gun control lobby advocates
b) Australia’s decline in murder — counting homicide the same way the US does- was 38% in the 20 years after gun control. Worldwide decline in murder was 40%, the Us decline in the same period was 59%.
notes:
Australia suicide after gun control:
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/revealed-australias-suicide-epidemic-20090820-es3p.html
2) Canada. Areas of Canada that are demographically similar to areas of the US have no difference whatsoever in murder rates from similar areas in the US. None.
3) Asia. you in anther post put up the 30,000. So that is US gun suicide+homicide. The US rate of OVERALL Suicide+homicide is way way LOWER than Asian suicide+homicide. S. koreas sucide plus homicide rate by all means is more than double the US rate, and Japan 45% higher tha the US rate.
I can only thing you think that jumping from a building or being knifed to death is good while gun suicide or gun murder is bad?
The suicide rates in gunless South Korea and Japan are higher than the US suicide rate and murder rate COMBINED.
Mexico has stricter gun control than America and even many European countries, and their murder rate is several times that of the US.
Russia has stricter control than Mexico, and yet their murder rate (last I checked) was approximately 4 times higher than America’s.
The states in America with demographics similar to Australia or Austria have very low murder rates. When comparing America to other countries, it helps to compare America to other countries with similar demographics.
And final point: crime went UP after Britain and Australia essentially banned handguns. It’s still lower than American crime rates, but banning guns actually caused an increase in crime.
Oh, the keyboard antifas have arrived. Tell me, were you covering your face as you typed this ignorant drivel? Or do you reserve that for when you jack off to Das Kapital?
“Like the fairy tale called “defensive gun use”….”
Really, a fairy tale, then what’s this- http://concealednation.org/2017/05/surveillance-video-released-of-concealed-carrier-shooting-armed-man-in-self-defense-at-gas-station/
And this- http://concealednation.org/2017/04/intruder-with-crowbar-vs-homeowner-with-gun-who-wins/
The NRA doesn’t sell guns to ANYONE, idiot. It’s a lobby and educational group. It trains responsible gun owners and protects gun rights because people like you have problems with simple sentences like, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
@ The Resistance – The ignorance evident in your post is simply overwhelming, not only in its entirety, but in each of the areas you specifically detailed. I’m amazed you could get so many specific things wrong in a single post. I won’t go into detail on most, though each and every item you mentioned was either factually false or very misleading, but even YOU might learn from the following data. Certainly some other posters may find it interesting.
You claim that it is a fact that “you (meaning, in this case, those who keep a gun in the home) or a loved one are more likely to be murdered or commit suicide with a gun in the home than stopping a criminal attack.” There is NO research study that has EVER concluded this, even erroneously. You are apparently referring to an early, entirely misleading Kellerman study published decades ago in the New England Journal of Medicine, that actually concluded something quite different. The study concluded that it was 43 times more likely that a member of the family (that kept a gun in the home) would be killed by it, than that it would be used to KILL (emphasis mine) a criminal. Suicide was never considered, nor were gun uses (like the vast majority of defensive gun uses) that didn’t actually KILL a criminal. If you are going to keep reporting even misleading “facts,” the least you can do is get them right.
Further, the study has been thoroughly debunked as, if perhaps technically “factual,” it is very misleading, and its reported conclusions are illogical. It was misleading because of the way the sample was chosen, and the way the reported “facts” were “cherry-picked” to create an erroneous conclusion. For example, the families in the study were visited by police, over the 12 months preceding the study, on average more than once a month. How many times have the police been called to YOUR house? They’ve NEVER been called to mine (and I have guns in the house). Does that really look like “typical gun owning families” to anyone?
So the sample used for the study was an aberrant group, although this was not highlighted, and this means it is not reasonable to draw conclusions about gun owners generally from the study, which the author did.
Second, of the intra-family shootings that resulted in death of a family member, about two-thirds (68 percent) involved a battered spouse killing her abusive partner while being assaulted, about three quarters of which cases were “No Billed” by the Grand Jury because they were considered to be justifiable self-defensive killings. For those folks, having a gun in the home, even though it was used to kill a family member, was clearly a GOOD thing. The anti-gun media’s failure to pick up on these details (which are actually IN the original study as written) is misleading because it makes it look like these were “typical” gun owning families (they clearly were not), and the killings appear to be BAD things, although most arguably were not.
So while some of the specific data as reported may be technically “factual” the way they were reported, including by the study’s author, was clearly intended to create a patently false impression. There are other more technical statistical and design problems with the study, but these two alone are enough to discredit it.
Like Russia, Jamaica, and Mexico?
President Barack Obama disagreed with you, as he armed his Secret Service detail.
Ah, the Russian interference fairy tale.
You hold on to this fairy tale regardless of the facts, just like Holocaust deniers do.
Having worked in a psychiatric hospital for 10 years and being part of stopping 3 suicides of the 21 attempted, I’ll say, if someone is mentally unstable and wishes to commit suicide, they will do it, regardless of the method. Having or knowing a firearm is in a home or nearby makes the process somewhat easier, it’s fast for that unstable person. A gun isn’t the impedes for the suicidal act, it’s simply a method. YEARS (>3) of therapy were typically required to provide what was thought to be the proper treatment to help these people cope with life situations that more reasonably adapted people shrug off as part of life. Having written the above, those that have a full intent of not wishing to live will find a way, they’re hopeless, desperate but not incapable nor undetermined in ending their lives. One final note, of the 21 attempted suicides which were stopped and patients then, went on to a more aggressive intense therapy, that lasted 3-6 years in that hospital, 4 of those patients committed suicide within 8-14 months of being discharged. Before guns became a main point in politics and news, people committed suicide with narcotics, hangings, razor blades, knives, inhaling CO, and jumping from tall buildings or bridges and yes, there are numerous other methods however, those listed are most common.
Your belief is also borne out by the data. Statistics show that the RATE of suicides doesn’t change at all when access to guns becomes more difficult – only the means used change.
Gunless South Korea and Japan have suicide rates far higher than the American murder rates and suicide rates COMBINED.
Just remember that next time some anti-gunner starts talking about banning guns to reduce suicide (which they bring up every once in a while).
Sam did an excellent job on this article.
ONLY three???
Only Holocaust deniers are bigger liars than gun control cultists, and not by much. Of course I’ve seen no small amount of overlap in membership between the two.
Only 3 things?
Wow, you’re being generous.
What’s the old line, ‘statistics don’t lie, but statisticians do’?
Only three things they lie about?