"States with less gun laws have more gun violence" & the real issues
Short version: It's a lie. It's been making the rounds lately among the left. I got into it with someone about it today.
This is going to be a mess because I'm too tired to assemble and edit it. These are excerpts from my arguments. If you can make sense of it there are some important points here.
First off: The two main sources for this are a leftist academic study that sources THE BRADY CAMPAIGN for information and then some site called 24/7 Wall Street. The former should obviously immediately be disqualified. The latter might have meant well, but as soon as you look at their definition of "violence" problems arrive for rational and honest people.
___
Note: USA Today titles this "States with the most gun violence", a perfect headline for the left to spread. The definition of "violence" that you and I would think of isn't theirs.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/13/24-7-wall-st-states-most-gun-violence/71003050/
Skip USA Today and just keep reading. The next link was their source...
___
http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/06/26/231958/
From that link, watch the propaganda...
"As mass shootings continue to appear in the news, many Americans and state leaders are asking how to address the problem without restricting constitutional rights."
So the premise is mass shootings, right? That's what this whole "states with most violence" is all about, right?
Nope...
"Suicide is the leading cause of gun-related deaths across the nation in recent years. Of the 32,351 firearm deaths in 2011, nearly 20,000 were suicides. In all but one state with the most gun-related deaths, suicide accounted for the majority of fatalities.
Their definition of gun "violence" includes SUICIDE. Do YOU think "suicide" when you think "gun violence"?
__
Why does it matter?
Because to rational, honest people VIOLENCE statistics don't include killing oneself. If they do then we have to start talking about pill violence, water violence, and rope violence. Poor Robin Williams suffered BELT VIOLENCE!
Do you see how ludicrous it is when we take guns out of the equation and replace them with any other method of suicide?
__
To think it should be included among violence statistics has only one of two possible motivators:
1) Either the person doing so is so personally biased against firearms and firearm ownership themselves that they are sympathetic to the point of irrationality, so much so that anything firearm equals violence (see above) even when other objects for the same end goal don't or
2) It is deliberate inflation and manipulation of the numbers by anti gun propagandists with the goal of banning guns.
Those are the two choices.
While homicide technically means death by human, it is irrational or dishonest to include suicide in those statistics. When people are discussing violence in Chicago we aren't talking about some Gold Coast resident swallowing a bottle of pills.
"Why would gun suicides being minimized be a bad thing?"
If you want to reduce SUICIDE, do so. Wanting to reduce the phenomenon of suicide is noble. Deal with the overall issue. Hiding behind firearms being a fast method is just a way to attack guns. Period.
If you want to hinder or deprive law abiding Americans of their right to defend themselves and their families because of suicides, absolutely not.
Using the tragedy of suicide is not acceptable.
____
This is an orchestrated propaganda campaign. This is all SOP Goebbels Democrats.
When I went looking for the info on Alaska to debunk it I found this.
"Alaska has a lot of suicide. Over 80% of firearm deaths in Alaska were self-inflicted, and Alaska has the highest suicide rate in the US - nearly double the average."
EIGHTY percent.
So what the left is doing is USING the tragedy of suicide to paint Alaska as a dangerous place, blaming the gun freedoms.
It's really remarkably evil. Sadly, it's not unusual when one drills into leftist statistics.
I'm sure between that deceit and Democrat cities in the other states they target most of the stats would be accounted for.
An ideology so superior it requires constant deceit.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-state-where-youre-most-likely-to-be-killed-by-a-gun-is-one-of-the-most-beautiful-places-on-earth-2015-6
_______________________________
And now some thoughts on what we should really be looking at...
___
Democrats are focusing on states because they want to federalize all gun control in the ceaseless march to a ban. Simply looking at gun laws or lack thereof in a state is transparently flawed. If there are areas of near total lawlessness (like Chicago, Detroit, etc) in those "lax" gun control states, it matters. It doesn't matter _to Democrats_ because your interest is the agenda. I get that. It matters to others, who aren't just interested in more gun control as a panacea (especially when it won't be) or for the sake of disarming the populace.
___
There is a meme running around, I forget the details. It cites a state that has a million plus hunting licenses, more armed people walking around than the armies of many nations, and low or no gun killings/accidents.
The point of the meme, at least to me, is the problem is about culture, not guns.
Democrats absolutely _must_ not allow it to be about culture. If they do then they have to look at education, unemployment, godlessness, and other failures in leftist areas. If they do they have to take responsibility for Democrat governance. Responsibility and solutions are hard. Blaming guns is easy, and fits the agenda of disarming the populace.
Below is a link to a story about the top ten most dangerous, violent cities in the country. I'm certain you'd get the same results if you looked up the top gun violence cities, or the top 50 violent cities, or the top 50 gun violence cities. No leftist is going to perform those studies, though. Because the agenda isn't solutions, it's disarming the public.
Next to the name of the cities is the result of my looking to the history of the cities' Mayors. It's incredible to me.
10. Stockton, California - GOP currently. It's too much a pain to look further.
9. Cleveland, Ohio - Democrat since 1990, two GOP since 1942
8. Baltimore, Maryland - Democrat since 1967, five GOP in the entire 20th century
7. Little Rock, Arkansas - Democrat since at least 1993
6. Milwaukee, Wisconsin - Democrat or SOCIALIST with one brief "nonpartisan" exception since 1916
5. Birmingham, Alabama - Democrat since at least 1999 and probably long before
4. St. Louis, Missouri - Democrat since 1949
3. Oakland, California - Democrat since 1966 when I stopped checking.
2. Memphis, Tennessee - Democrat since at least 1992
1. Detroit, Michigan - Democrat since 1962
Democrats won't look at any of this and consider the real problems.
"For example, nine of the country’s 10 most dangerous cities had a smaller share of adults with a high school diploma than the national share. Similarly, unemployment rates exceeded the national average in all 10 of the country’s most dangerous cities. In Stockton, California, the 10th most dangerous city in the U.S., the unemployment rate of 11.5% nearly doubled the national unemployment rate of 6.2%.
'When you have cities where the schools aren’t good [and] the job prospects are bad, you almost always tend to have greater crime,' Roman said.
In addition to low educational attainment and high unemployment, poverty is pervasive in the country’s most dangerous cities. All 10 of the country’s most dangerous cities, the poverty rate exceeded the national rate of 15.5%. In Detroit, the nation’s most dangerous city, 39.3% of residents lived below the poverty line last year."
Democrats don't have SOLUTIONS to those problems.
And frankly, Democrats don't CARE. The more miserable and afraid the populace the more they vote Democrat, as we can see.
What they care about is disarming the populace, turning the entire country into those top ten cities.
http://247wallst.com/special-report/2015/09/30/the-most-dangerous-cities-in-america-5/
___
A favored current talking point is "states with lax gun laws", "the states", "the states". I'd like to see those stats redone when the "state with lax gun laws" removes (SUICIDE then) the black holes of failure, misery, and crime that are long term Democrat run cities. A competent Governor of any party pretty much has to just suck up the entropic holes that dot the state landscape, as the powers that be (incl. media) in those holes will resist any state influence to fix anything.
This is going to be a mess because I'm too tired to assemble and edit it. These are excerpts from my arguments. If you can make sense of it there are some important points here.
First off: The two main sources for this are a leftist academic study that sources THE BRADY CAMPAIGN for information and then some site called 24/7 Wall Street. The former should obviously immediately be disqualified. The latter might have meant well, but as soon as you look at their definition of "violence" problems arrive for rational and honest people.
___
Note: USA Today titles this "States with the most gun violence", a perfect headline for the left to spread. The definition of "violence" that you and I would think of isn't theirs.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/13/24-7-wall-st-states-most-gun-violence/71003050/
Skip USA Today and just keep reading. The next link was their source...
___
http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/06/26/231958/
From that link, watch the propaganda...
"As mass shootings continue to appear in the news, many Americans and state leaders are asking how to address the problem without restricting constitutional rights."
So the premise is mass shootings, right? That's what this whole "states with most violence" is all about, right?
Nope...
"Suicide is the leading cause of gun-related deaths across the nation in recent years. Of the 32,351 firearm deaths in 2011, nearly 20,000 were suicides. In all but one state with the most gun-related deaths, suicide accounted for the majority of fatalities.
Their definition of gun "violence" includes SUICIDE. Do YOU think "suicide" when you think "gun violence"?
__
Why does it matter?
Because to rational, honest people VIOLENCE statistics don't include killing oneself. If they do then we have to start talking about pill violence, water violence, and rope violence. Poor Robin Williams suffered BELT VIOLENCE!
Do you see how ludicrous it is when we take guns out of the equation and replace them with any other method of suicide?
__
To think it should be included among violence statistics has only one of two possible motivators:
1) Either the person doing so is so personally biased against firearms and firearm ownership themselves that they are sympathetic to the point of irrationality, so much so that anything firearm equals violence (see above) even when other objects for the same end goal don't or
2) It is deliberate inflation and manipulation of the numbers by anti gun propagandists with the goal of banning guns.
Those are the two choices.
While homicide technically means death by human, it is irrational or dishonest to include suicide in those statistics. When people are discussing violence in Chicago we aren't talking about some Gold Coast resident swallowing a bottle of pills.
"Why would gun suicides being minimized be a bad thing?"
If you want to reduce SUICIDE, do so. Wanting to reduce the phenomenon of suicide is noble. Deal with the overall issue. Hiding behind firearms being a fast method is just a way to attack guns. Period.
If you want to hinder or deprive law abiding Americans of their right to defend themselves and their families because of suicides, absolutely not.
Using the tragedy of suicide is not acceptable.
____
This is an orchestrated propaganda campaign. This is all SOP Goebbels Democrats.
When I went looking for the info on Alaska to debunk it I found this.
"Alaska has a lot of suicide. Over 80% of firearm deaths in Alaska were self-inflicted, and Alaska has the highest suicide rate in the US - nearly double the average."
EIGHTY percent.
So what the left is doing is USING the tragedy of suicide to paint Alaska as a dangerous place, blaming the gun freedoms.
It's really remarkably evil. Sadly, it's not unusual when one drills into leftist statistics.
I'm sure between that deceit and Democrat cities in the other states they target most of the stats would be accounted for.
An ideology so superior it requires constant deceit.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-state-where-youre-most-likely-to-be-killed-by-a-gun-is-one-of-the-most-beautiful-places-on-earth-2015-6
_______________________________
And now some thoughts on what we should really be looking at...
___
Democrats are focusing on states because they want to federalize all gun control in the ceaseless march to a ban. Simply looking at gun laws or lack thereof in a state is transparently flawed. If there are areas of near total lawlessness (like Chicago, Detroit, etc) in those "lax" gun control states, it matters. It doesn't matter _to Democrats_ because your interest is the agenda. I get that. It matters to others, who aren't just interested in more gun control as a panacea (especially when it won't be) or for the sake of disarming the populace.
___
There is a meme running around, I forget the details. It cites a state that has a million plus hunting licenses, more armed people walking around than the armies of many nations, and low or no gun killings/accidents.
The point of the meme, at least to me, is the problem is about culture, not guns.
Democrats absolutely _must_ not allow it to be about culture. If they do then they have to look at education, unemployment, godlessness, and other failures in leftist areas. If they do they have to take responsibility for Democrat governance. Responsibility and solutions are hard. Blaming guns is easy, and fits the agenda of disarming the populace.
Below is a link to a story about the top ten most dangerous, violent cities in the country. I'm certain you'd get the same results if you looked up the top gun violence cities, or the top 50 violent cities, or the top 50 gun violence cities. No leftist is going to perform those studies, though. Because the agenda isn't solutions, it's disarming the public.
Next to the name of the cities is the result of my looking to the history of the cities' Mayors. It's incredible to me.
10. Stockton, California - GOP currently. It's too much a pain to look further.
9. Cleveland, Ohio - Democrat since 1990, two GOP since 1942
8. Baltimore, Maryland - Democrat since 1967, five GOP in the entire 20th century
7. Little Rock, Arkansas - Democrat since at least 1993
6. Milwaukee, Wisconsin - Democrat or SOCIALIST with one brief "nonpartisan" exception since 1916
5. Birmingham, Alabama - Democrat since at least 1999 and probably long before
4. St. Louis, Missouri - Democrat since 1949
3. Oakland, California - Democrat since 1966 when I stopped checking.
2. Memphis, Tennessee - Democrat since at least 1992
1. Detroit, Michigan - Democrat since 1962
Democrats won't look at any of this and consider the real problems.
"For example, nine of the country’s 10 most dangerous cities had a smaller share of adults with a high school diploma than the national share. Similarly, unemployment rates exceeded the national average in all 10 of the country’s most dangerous cities. In Stockton, California, the 10th most dangerous city in the U.S., the unemployment rate of 11.5% nearly doubled the national unemployment rate of 6.2%.
'When you have cities where the schools aren’t good [and] the job prospects are bad, you almost always tend to have greater crime,' Roman said.
In addition to low educational attainment and high unemployment, poverty is pervasive in the country’s most dangerous cities. All 10 of the country’s most dangerous cities, the poverty rate exceeded the national rate of 15.5%. In Detroit, the nation’s most dangerous city, 39.3% of residents lived below the poverty line last year."
Democrats don't have SOLUTIONS to those problems.
And frankly, Democrats don't CARE. The more miserable and afraid the populace the more they vote Democrat, as we can see.
What they care about is disarming the populace, turning the entire country into those top ten cities.
http://247wallst.com/special-report/2015/09/30/the-most-dangerous-cities-in-america-5/
___
A favored current talking point is "states with lax gun laws", "the states", "the states". I'd like to see those stats redone when the "state with lax gun laws" removes (SUICIDE then) the black holes of failure, misery, and crime that are long term Democrat run cities. A competent Governor of any party pretty much has to just suck up the entropic holes that dot the state landscape, as the powers that be (incl. media) in those holes will resist any state influence to fix anything.