Question: How little does the media know about guns?Here's a direct link to the Bee editorial. Here's the link to my blogpost on how 33,o93 people killed themselves in Japan last year. This may be a shock to even the editorial writers at the Bee, but 33,093 is larger than 30,000, the combined total in the U.S. of suicides, homicides and accidents...and this in a country with a population of less than 1/2 the U.S!
Answer: From the AP, the actual MSNBC headline: “Surprising fact: Half of gun deaths are suicides.” This should surprise no one — except those who have fallen for the manipulation of statistics by the anti-gun lobby.
Question: Does this stop the media from pretending it is expert on guns?
Answer: No. From a Sacramento Bee editorial: “Some 30,000 Americans die every year from gun violence, a gun death toll greater than anywhere in Europe or Japan.” Plod on, oh Ignoramus Rex. Oblivion awaits.
Here's the email address for Editorial Page Editor David Holwerk: dholwerk@sacbee.com
You might send him a link to my blogpost...he won't answer, because the MSM is doesn't answer to anyone...especially the truth.
"Here's the link to my blogpost on ....."
ReplyDeleteLink? What link? Have you been drinking and posting again, Mr. Bane? ;)
Good stuff otherwise.
I believe this is the link Michael's referring to.
ReplyDeleteThis CDC web site can be used to analyze gun deaths (or other causes of death too):
ReplyDeletehttp://webappa.cdc.gov:80/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html
Michael,
ReplyDeleteI think you may still be tired from your latest conference (or hung over from celebrating the Heller decision!)... While I don't agree with the Bee's editorial (and I did e-mail him to call B.S. on the majority of it; the Tiahrt Amendment, the "gun show loophole", and the "fire sales" claims), they refer to gun deaths being higher in the U.S. than Japan, not suicides. So of the 33,093 suicides in Japan last year, how many were gun related? The Bee's claim of 30,000 U.S. gun related deaths per year being higher than Europe's and Japan's isn't refuted by your statement.
We want the anti's to get their facts straight, so should we!
This is the reason not to blindly trust the media on anything. If you are an expert on a subject (doctor, lawyer, whatever) look at any news story and see how much they get wrong on a subject you know something about. It is safe to assume they get the things you don’t know a lot about wrong also.
ReplyDeleteGosh...my point is...or was...that "gun violence" is a false metric, a piece of propaganda cooked up by the antigun forces and ther shills int eh media.
ReplyDeleteMy point, had I made it better, would be that Americans would be quite literally stunned by a per capita suicide rate equal to Japan.
Gun suicides should NEVER be lumped into violent death stats, because suicide appears to be a consistent percentage of specific cultures. If every gun in America disappeared tomorrow, exactly the same percentage of population would kill themselves by other means. There are apparently "x" numberof people in a society with defective wiring.
In America, we have the most suicide-aversive culture in history, and it has had exactly zero effect on the percentage of suicides.
Suicide intervention/prevention is primarily for us, not them. We feel better for having 'done something." the fact that the something we done doesn't work doesn't enter into it. I say this as someone who has had close friends kill themselves.
There is NO SUCH THING as "gun violence." There is violence related to spousal/child abuse; violence related to the huge drug culture our incredibly stupid War on Drugs has engendered; violence caused by gang warfare; and, rarely, random violence. But the GUN has nothing to do with eigther the causes or the potential prevention of such violence.
Whwn we talk about "gun violence," we in essence agree that there is the possibility of a cure or prevention for this false metric.
As long as we go along with this "gun violence" crap, we are playing along with our enemies.
Michael B
Now that was put much better! I agree "gun violence" is a label that is equivalent to "pencil libel", since it isn't the tool but rahter the act that's criminal.
ReplyDeleteMy point was simply that we need to not fall into their trap of using their false statistics. It's one thing to call B.S. on their statistic, it's quite another to try and use/refute it. Comparing apples to AK's doesn't make much sense. Your reply above was definately clearer and something I think we can all agree with. Thanks!