Polling Pollution

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The gun control industry claims that firearm ownership is on the decline. Then again they also claimed that gun control works, and that has been roundly debunked. Members of the gun control industry like to bandy two tracking polls that show a downward trend in the number of households in which respondents claim someone there owns a gun. Yet two other tracking poll say gun ownership has remained steady over the decades and even ticked-up in recent years. The difference in the polls is telling. The four gun ownership polls Poll Gun Ownership Trend Registered Voter Isolation ABC/Post Steady Yes Gallup Steady Yes Pew Declining No GSS Declining No Pew Research and the General Social Survey (GSS) report declining household gun ownership rates. ABC/Post Polls and Gallup show steady gun ownership rates (in the data and resulting chart, we averaged years in which the various organizations did not conduct gun … Continue reading →

Child Gun Deaths

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When the gun control industry mentions children, it’s time to hunt for bunk. Our species would not have survived for long had we not acquired a knee-jerk response to keep kids safe. Politicos know this, which is why they hoist kids a high for everything from gun control to Head Start. Our communal desire to protect kids is used by the gun control industry to create fear that children are endangered by guns on every street corner. As with most gun control industry pronouncements, it is far from the truth. Age is the first thing First off, over time the gun control industry has modified their public utterance. They used to claim 13 children die each day from firearms, but that statistic included active gang members up to age 24 … not what you think of a “children”. In adult conversations, a “child” is one who has not yet reached … Continue reading →

Permitless Carry

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Five states require no permit to carry a concealed handgun in public. Twenty more are considering it. Needless to say the gun control industry is apoplectic. They are riled as they have not been since states started following Florida’s lead and passing shall-issue, permitted concealed carry throughout the 1990s. Back then the gun control industry said permitted concealed carry was a terrible idea, and watched as violence rates dropped nationwide. Today they think permitless (constitutional) carry is a bad idea. For them it is a bad idea, because it is proving to be a non-problem. Currently four states have had permitless concealed carry laws enacted long enough to see what, if any, effect it might have in terms of violent crime. Kansas just passed their permitless carry legislation, so it is too soon to see if tornados kill more folks in Kansas than people packing pieces. Arkansas’ permitless carry law … Continue reading →

Research Resilience

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Gun Facts started due to bad research. Having a degree in quantitative management, and thus having better-than-average knowledge about research methodologies, I was keen to spotting when a “research report” was likely a propaganda piece. It wasn’t until I started exploring gun control that I saw the perfect exploitation of rigged research and politics. The gun control industry is adept at sponsoring research designed to reach a conclusion and rightfully assuming the average voter lacked the diligence to determine if the research was sound or not. Sadly, the gun control industry has not stopped this unsavory practice. A recent review of gun control related studies by Gary Kleck – the best in the business and a criminologist at Florida State University – shows quite plainly that the gun control industry con job still works, and why the media (a profession not known for their statistical prowess) parrots gun control industry … Continue reading →

Ammo Ban Asininities

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Leave it to a politician to hide behind cops (must have been out of children to use as shields). Today the administration employed regulations to ban a popular type of ammunition for a very popular type of rifle, namely “green tip” rounds for AR-15s. Their excuse claim was that it would save the lives of police officers. Having grown-up with cops and having married into a cop family, I found this as provocative as it was craven. In the last year tallied by the National law Enforcement Officers Memorial, 50 cops were shot dead in 2014. That’s 50 too many, but that is lower than the childhood accidental firearm death rate (69 in the last available year’s data). According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (the same people tasked with banning AR-15 ammo), of all recovered crime guns, 19% were rifles, and some undefined subset of those … Continue reading →

Suicides and Propaganda

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It is no secret that when a member of the gun control industry speaks of “gun deaths” they are purposefully including suicides by gun. By not disclosing that suicides are about 65% of all guns deaths, they create dread in the public by making “gun deaths” appear to be a growing menace. But this got me to wondering if there is a hidden agenda to them broadcasting this canard more frequently. There is. Because over the last seven years of records, more people have been killing themselves. Since in the U.S. guns are a preferred means of suicide (where as in Canada poison is more popular), any upward change in suicide rates makes it look like guns are a growing problem. Firearm homicides have remained rather static in recent years, as the chart shows. However, suicides started rising sharply along with the Great Recession. This is a common occurrence — hard times cause some people … Continue reading →

Bloomberg’s (latest) Blunder

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How in the Sam Heck did Michael Bloomberg ever become a billionaire? He can’t count that well. Recently, the Former New York City Mayor said of minorities age 15 to 25 “95 percent of all murders fall into this category.” Rephrased, Bloomberg believes (or, more accurately, he wants you to believe) that young minority men are responsible for nearly all gun murders. Racist! The FBI begs to differ, and they are pretty good at this criminology thing. In their “Expanded Homicide Data Table 3” they present counts of murder offenders by race and age. It is pretty easy to sum-up the homicide counts for an age range, then divide it by the total number of homicides. Now, in fairness, Bloomberg did specify minority males ages 15-25. Unfortunately the FBI brackets ages differently than Bloomberg (which makes you wonder from where Michael got his data). But the FBI’s 17 through 24 bracket is good enough, … Continue reading →

Suicide Women

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“86% of all women killed by firearms are U.S. women,” says a disturbingly biased medical journal article. Shame that the same research shows that the “problem” isn’t guns but mental health. “Homicide, Suicide, and Unintentional Firearm Fatality: Comparing the United States With Other High-Income Countries, 2003” is a somewhat outdated piece of gun control industry funded effluvium (the give-away was in the footnotes, one of which reads “David Hemenway received partial support from the Joyce Foundation”). Any study that begins with a conclusion – in this case the assumption that guns are a problem, and a unique problem in the United States – is instantly invalid. Had the authors studied what causes people to die, then slowly dug to discover which mode of demise were statistically important, the research would be allowed. This academic sanitary paper will not. What the gun control industry bought and published are a number of … Continue reading →

VPC Gun Death Dumb-Down

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A recent news report revealed something astounding, namely that the Violence Policy Center is still in business (given the serial discrediting VPC and it’s head henchman Josh Sugarmann receive, that the VPC and Sugarmann are still active only proves that zombism may not be as fanciful as previously thought). The recurring VPC con The VPC recently stole some media recognition. They rehashed their previously debunked reporting of the alleged link between gun ownership rates and “gun deaths”. For new comers, whenever a member of the gun control industry uses the terms “gun death” it typically includes: Suicides (63% of all “gun deaths”) Legal interventions (plugging your rapist) Accidents (tiny and dropping at 1.5%) And then, finally, criminal homicides (what you normally think of as a “gun death”) Their “analysis” looked at gun ownership and “gun death” rates from the top and bottom five states ranked by total “gun deaths” (e.g., all categories above). VPC’s numbers … Continue reading →

Interstate Gun Trafficking Mythology

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Why “lax” gun control states don’t send guns to “strict” states Most crime guns come from the state where the crime was committed. For states with strict gun control laws, most come from other “strict law” states. You would not know this if you listened to the gun control industry. They routinely claim that states with “weak gun laws” are the source for guns used in crime. Nationally this theory is nonsense, and it doesn’t even hold up well for states with strict gun laws. Background The claim is simple and designed to generate voter fear in places where gun owner rights are not well represented. The insinuation is that states where gun control laws are not burdensome are the source for guns in states where such laws are onerous. There is no doubt that in a free country where people roam at will, guns follow with them. But they … Continue reading →