So much for the impartiality and credibility of the people Politifact is relying on to coax its Truth-O-Meter to register in the green. Which means, in the absence of expert analysis from researchers without a long history of self-interest-advancing citizen disarmament advocacy, those of us who are not statisticians must rely on that thing Mark and Gabby claim to represent, “common sense.” [More]When it comes to guns, if you can’t believe the Politifact Truth-O-Meter, the Brady Campaign, Mark and Gabby, and a gaggle of anti-gun academics and researchers, who can you believe?
[Via Mack H]
2 comments:
I smell a rat. Ms. Signer's degree is in social work and she has a certificate in nonprofit management. Some 'mental health' expert.
Also interesting is that she supports gun laws in America that are remarkably like the gun laws in Australia, which are also supported by the adultering perjurer's wife. And if I'm not mistaken, those gun laws were ramrodded thru with the help of a woman who was a former employee of George Soros' Open Society Foundation.
I rate Politifact's rating of Mira Signer's statement 5 Pinocchios.
The statement may be true, but until they break out the various causes of self-inflicted death by whatever means, by every ICD-10 code available (discharge, firearm, suicide by handgun/rifle/larger/shotgun codes are in the code range of X72 - X74), it's misleading.
The majority of deaths, and the percentages or rate, by taking overdoses of drugs could be much higher than by firearms. Doing yourself in that way is much easier and less violent than by gun, and I expect that would be the case. But their readers are going to make the (illogical) association between firearm ownership rates and suicide rates.
Also, the state comparison is misleading when compared to urban centers. Illinois or New York as states may have a low firearm ownership rates, but the suicide rates of Chicago or New York city, respectively, are probably going to be pretty high (I haven't generated the report using CDC's WONDER database yet but "common sense" tells me that would be the result).
One can use statistics and the related terms to manipulate any data to suit one's own agenda, which is obviously what they're doing.
-MadMagyar
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