Posted on 08/01/2007 11:13:48 AM PDT by Mobile Vulgus
In another example of hand-wringing, excessive, faux compassion that ignores the real statistics, the Charlotte Observer has given space to one of their propagandists... I mean writers... to vent against the evil gun, once again. I love how these people want to present themselves as more "caring" than an evil, stupid gun owner, yet their "compassion" is predicated not on facts, but on mere feelings.
The Observer's Dannye Romine-Powell (God save us from another hyphenated named, female liberal) gets all amush over the "unruffled thinking" of her gun hating husband and tries her hand at citing statistics to such poor effect... poor once some perspective and reality is brought to bear on the issue, that is.
Romine-Powell blathers on how her husband told her they didn't need a gun because they wanted to save the lives of their grandchildren who might be unlucky enough to find it in their grandparent's home where they might play with it, accidentally injuring or killing themselves. Of course, one wonders why these supposedly intelligent, caring grandparents would leave such a thing laying around where a child could so easily get to it, so with that it makes one glad they have decided not to get one.
Now to her absurd use of statistics.
About 200 people in the United States kill someone each year in self-defense.First of all, it is misleading to make it seem like the "200 people" each year who use their firearms in self-defense is such a low number when compared with the supposed "486 children under 18" who died from "gun-related injuries." After all, Romine-Powell uses one year of pro-gun statistics and matches that up with 10 years of anti-gun statistics. Not a very fair comparison there. By simple extension, her stats for 10 years of guns being used to save a life would be somewhere near 2,000 compared to only 486 instance of misused firearms. Suddenly the numbers don't seem as far out of whack when looked at it that way.
But how many die each year -- innocently -- from guns?
Let me tell you.
In the 10 years ending in 2006, 486 children under age 18 in North Carolina, alone, died from gun-related injuries.
But, even that academic exercise pales when more numbers are reviewed.
According to the CDC between 2000 and 2002, there were only 542 accidental gun deaths in the USA. Naturally, we mourn the accidental loss of each and every one of those children and, should such an accident have happened to your own child, that loss is 100%. Compassion makes each and every one of us feel bad about these accidents.
...but they ARE accidents.
Let's look at the CDC's stats on some more accidents:
Now, one of the arguments that anti-gun propagandists make is that guns deaths are "preventable," and shouldn't we, they ask, try to prevent them? Well, yes, of course we should is the sensible answer. But the logical follow up to that overly simplistic thinking would be to also eliminate swimming pools and to do so with far more urgency than we would to eliminate guns. After all, many thousands more children die a year by drowning than die by gun misuse. For that matter, many, many thousands more die by misuse of automobiles. Or, shouldn't we eliminate houses since the CDC shows us that well over one thousand more children died from accidental house fires than accidental gunfire?
Looking the REAL statistics over certainly makes the brainless "compassion" of an anti-gun nut seem... well... rather brainless, doesn't it?
One last quibble. Our Mrs. Romine-Powell fancies herself a poet with a few Poetic tomes published here and there. The style of this piece seems the result of that predilection all too much. With short, single lines, she seems to have been going for some sort of lyrical style that completely fails here.
Let's just say this:
I didn't like it.
The sentences were too short.
And I don't want my grandchildren exposed to such simple-minded writing.
In my house, we'll remain free of Romine-Powell's work.
Free of her work is better than discovering someone I love dead because they listened to her.
AMEN!
What do you expect from the nattering nabobs of negativism?
I don’t understand why this continues to be a debate. Gun ownership is a fundamental right, preserved in the Bill of Rights. As enshrined in that document, it’s every bit as important as free speech and freedom of religion. If you don’t like citizen gun ownership, then work on amending the Constitution...otherwise, you libs have no right to limit it, so shut up already.
Ping for later.
How many swimming pool deaths, car crashes, choking, stabbings, etc?
It isn't stats that are important, it's how they can be used to sway opinion that matters to them.
Gun's?
Soon it WILL be swimming pools, SUV's, personal hand in upbring of children, smoking a legal product, or getting fat...or skinny...
The list goes on.
It isn't the product of concern at the time that should be concerning but the mindset behind the want to stifle all products for our own benefit.
Crisis begets attention and agenda requires crisis to be furthered.
Thus, for the sake of control and the loss of personal freedom, everything will be considered a crisis.
You are just the party pooper arn't you!
We want to get serious about this and protect our children!
Well, falls kill lots of people so they need to ban gravity. No more gravity.
And a huge number of college age kids die in auto accidents, so they must ban cars.
No more swim team. Lots`a folks drown. Better off just banning water.
And burns. Ouch! Ban that fire thing!
A surprising number of people freeze to death each year. Pass a law banning cold.
Ooooh! A BUNCH of young people are killed each year while riding bikes. Better ban bicycles, right?
Ok, finally, here is something they don't have to worry about... kangaroos. The kangaroos can stay. WHEW! That was close.
< /twlghtzn >
The greatest cause of death is never part of the equation in these stats.
Being blessed with living in the first place - ALL
The argument between individual liberty and state or collective control is and always will be eternal.
This is but one form of it.
Good rebuttal to the hysterical reefer, I mean gun, madness of the left.
Skin cancer because of the "evil" sun and eye disease because our children don't wear "blocker" sunglasses.
Oh, of course you’re right, and I fully understand the dynamic...mine was an angry rhetorical point.
Too many for comfort.
It's the "ect" that really makes my mind ponder.
What next?
I'm going to guess that if you subtracted the number of "children" who died while committing a violent felony from that list it would be much smaller than 486.
I didn’t like it.
The sentences were too short.
And I don’t want my grandchildren exposed to such simple-minded writing.
Dunno about NC, but there was an article on FR that talked about this very stat - often quoted national gun death stats on "Children" include everyone up to 21 (I think). If the numbers on "kids" 18-21 years old, and gang-related crime, are thrown out...then the true accidental numbers are amazingly low. I vaguely remember being astonished - for the particular study cited, it was in the single digits, I think.
Of course 78.4% of all statistics are made up on the spot. And who's to say that this particular study was right...but I remember being really amazed. I'll dig around on FR and see what I can find. Maybe some other Freepers on the thread remember the article?
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