Denizens of Hades will have felt a chill wind blowing through the underworld today. The Washington Post – as stout a defender of civilian disarmament (and Barack Obama) as you will find in the mainstream media – has called the President on the carpet for his inaccurate remarks about gun control at Benedict College, Columbia. S.C. No, seriously. In a piece entitled Obama’s odd series of exaggerated gun claims WaPo’s fact checker lets the Commander-in-Chief have it with both barrels. Metaphorically speaking. You gotta see this, excerpted here for your dining and dissing pleasure . . .
“What we also have to recognize is, is that our homicide rates are so much higher than other industrialized countries. I mean by like a mile.” – President Obama
So the United States certainly has a rate that is above average—and indeed, countries such as Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom all have homicide rates that are well below 1 per 100,000. But the president said that U.S. rate was higher “by a mile” when in fact the rate is five times lower than Brazil and four times lower than Mexico.
Brazil and Russia are not officially members of the OECD, though they are certainly industrialized nations. But even if they were excluded, Mexico easily exceeds the United States (and Chile) “by like a mile.”
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“It’s easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is for you to buy a fresh vegetable” – President Obama
This is just a very strange comment that appears to have no statistical basis. Perhaps one can just shrug it off as hyperbole, but is this really something the president of the United States should say to college students? As far as we know, there are no areas in the United States where background checks are needed to buy vegetables.
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“People just say well, we should have firearms in kindergarten and we should have machine guns in bars.” – President Obama
The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which supports gun restrictions, says “the vast majority of states – 48 of them – and the District of Columbia generally prohibit any person from carrying a firearm onto or possessing a firearm on school property, within safe school or gun-free school zones, on school-provided transportation, or at certain school-sponsored events.” Most states also require the expulsion of students who bring firearms onto school property, the groups says.
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The gun debate is serious enough that it should not be poisoned by exaggerated claims and faux statistics. The president earns Three Pinocchios.
How great is that?