States with the most gun control laws have the fewest gun-related deaths, according to a study that suggests sheer quantity of measures might make a difference. [More]
Looks like bait and switch to me... They start out claiming numbers, but when it comes time to prove them, they smoothly, almost imperceptibly, shift over to rates.
A larger population can have vastly more actual deaths than a small population having many fewer deaths, but because of fewer overall people it would reflect a higher rate.
The other thing they don't is make any attempt to separate any demographics, so that suburban areas with high gun ownership rates by the generally law-abiding share in the collective "guilt" the "researchers" are trying to apportion with concentrated urban areas, where there may be a lot of gun possession (distinguished from ownership, which is a legal term) and where the vast majority of criminal abuse occurs, as evidenced by, say, Chicago, where they even prosecute people for not obeying unconstitutional "laws."
This looks to me like the same agenda-driven bureaucrats who want to use tax dollars to produce "studies" with foregone conclusions designed to "legitimize" citizen disarmament (the "dirty, deadly and banned" crowd) getting some useful amplification from their pals, the Fourth Estate Fifth Columnists. And once the talking points are out there, just hear those parrots squawk!
This is as clearly agenda driven as the comparisons beween death by violent crime and that of suicide are equally infuenced by law. Kates and Mauser as well as a few others have done a fairly good job in showing that on a global scale, suicide rates are largely a social artifact and that disarmament laws do not have an attributable impact on those rates. To comingle homicide, accident, and suicide as homogeneous variables in disingenuous at best. This, coupled with the social and geographic stratifications that you point out are simply adding lipstick to the fictional strawman. If I may mix the metaphors.
ReplyDeleteReading this, I would expect a high firearms death rate in Vermont, which has Constitutional Carry and very few gun laws. However, there does not appear to be a problem:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/usa/vermont-firearms-death-rate
Ed, that effect would only be seen if the implied relationship actually existed. This is designed to be a bone thrown to the lapdog media. While they are chasing it across the floor and wagging their tales (written as meant)for the unblinking collective. This will become part of the normalized dialogue and without any medial assistance the rational dialogue about what this paper ACTUALLY contains is not going to happen. This paper might actually be telling us something. It is most assuredly not making the case that gun laws have an impact of violent crime.
ReplyDelete