Search Results for: "firearm deaths"

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 →

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and Unintentional Firearm Fatality: Comparing the United States With Other High-Income Countries, 2003” is a somewhat outdated piece of gun control industry funded effluvium (the give-away was in the footnotes, one of which reads “David Hemenway received partial support from the Joyce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 →

Everytown Agitprop

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Michael Bloomberg, the avenging fallen angel for the gun control industry, is a progenitor of Everytown, the new gun control juggernaut. This organization has been the subject of scathing reviews given their habit of making statistical claims for which they do not cite their sources, or citing sources that are in effect gun control organizations. In short, they are con(wo)men. People interested in honesty concerning gun control (the Gun Facts mission) forward me Everytown emails. Of late, emails emanating from Everytown have devolved into the absurd. So, as a public service to those who like debunking political fraud (and have yet to read the book on modern propaganda analysis), here are some selected snippets from Everytown emails and a bit of backlash. A world where it’s fine to shoot first and ask questions later. A world where anyone can carry a gun anywhere — schools, churches, bars. A world where … Continue reading →

AKs and ARs: Real assault rifles vs. mythical “assault weapons”

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When Mikhail Kalashnikov, the inventor of the AK-47 assault rifle, passed away, some media reports estimated that about 100 million AKs around the world. They are full-fledged and full-auto war weapons. There are between 3-10 million AR-15s in the United States. These are civilian, semi-automatic sporting rifles, and not weapons of war. This perspective is important. In the worst of the worst places around the globe − Syria, Rwanda, Somalia − AK-47s are the norm and the corpses are plenty. Civilian AR-15s are nearly never used in homicides in the U.S. (yes, it has happened, but statistically it is so rare you cannot assign statistical accuracy to their use in crimes). Mexican drug cartels show how this all gets in the way of gun policy. Drug cartels like AK-47s … a lot. South America is awash in Soviet made AK-47s left over from when the former communist block was exporting their ideology one bullet at … Continue reading →

74 School Shootings Bunk

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How you define a thing defines that thing. Recently the President of the United States, echoing without analysis a gun control group sound bite, talked about how there have been 74 school shootings since the Sandy Hook massacre. He did not elaborate on how he came by this number because, frankly, he doesn’t know what he is talking about (surprise). Like many criminological things, the definition of a “school shooting” is borderline nonsensical and defined by government criminologists. In the Bureau of Justice Statistics publication Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2013, they note: School associated violent deaths include those that occurred while the victim was on the way to or returning from regular sessions at school or while the victim was attending or traveling to or from an official school sponsored event. Ponder this for a moment. A kid wearing the wrong colors while dashing from school to home through a gang-infested … Continue reading →

Suicides and Guns

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Gun control groups love to say that there are “30,000 deaths from gun violence every year.” What they don’t say is that 62% of those are suicides, almost all of which are committed with legally acquired handguns (no assault weapons or extra capacity magazines required). The common retort is that if America had fewer guns, there would be fewer suicides. Yet a brief examination of international data shows this to be utter buncombe. The World Health Organization (WHO) tallied suicides around the globe, and the Small Arms Survey estimated private gun ownership rates. WHO also noted how people exit this life when it gets too rough for them. The chart to the right pretty well debunks that guns are the determinant variable for suicides. The United States has way more guns than anyone else, yet their suicide rate is not terribly higher than international averages (11.1 suicides for every 100,000 … Continue reading →

LCPGV: The 20 Year Canard

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The new anti-gun agitprop masters are in the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. I’ll be writing about them frequently because they are: Getting good at creating falsehoods. Are drafting laws and getting them passed in California. Have money … and lots of it. Their most recent con is claiming that California’s 20 year drop in gun deaths is due to gun control laws. “Proof in the Data: Thousands of Lives Saved” is their tag line and is accompanied by a chart showing the firearm death rate in the Golden State. There are a number of major problems with their numbers (mainly Cal’s fast falling suicide rate) but more importantly is what they omit, namely criminal control laws. Their chart begins in 1993, a year with no significant gun control laws in California and the year when violent crime nationwide was peaking. If anything Cal rode a national wave. But … Continue reading →

Mass Shootings

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There are two criminology definitions for public shootings, and they are very different: Active Shooter Events (ASE): Where a person shoots at multiple people in public, though there may be no deaths. Mass Public Shootings (MPS): Public shooting events where four or more people are killed, not including perpetrator(s). Note: a 2012 definition created by Congress uses 3+ victims as their definition, but criminologists adhere the original 4+ baseline. Mass Shooting (MS): Event, regardless of public/private locations, with four or more people are killed (not including the perpetrator) within a 24 hour period. Myth: U.S. Leads World in Mass Shootings Fact: This conclusion was in a paper with multiple problems: Does not list the shooting events, so there is no way of validating the conclusion. Issues with the author’s unique definition of “mass shooting”, which does not align with those commonly used in criminology. Data collection methodologies, such as only gathering … Continue reading →

Laws, Social Costs

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Myth: Gun control reduces crime Fact: There are more than 22,000 gun laws at the city, county, state, and federal level.  If gun control worked, then we should be free of crime. Yet the U.S. government “found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes”   and also concluded in one study that none of the attackers interviewed was “hindered by any law – federal, state or local –that has ever been established to prevent gun ownership. They just laughed at gun laws.” Fact: Violent crime appears to be encouraged by gun control.  Most gun control laws in the United States have been written since 1968, yet the murder rate rose during the 70s, 80s and early 90s. Fact: In 1976, Washington, D.C. enacted one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation. The city’s murder rate rose … Continue reading →