Posted on 07/12/2012 6:43:26 AM PDT by marktwain
In a recent gun-related article, Fox News had space to repeat anti-rights propaganda:
“States with the highest levels of gun ownership have 114 percent higher firearm homicide rates and 60 percent higher homicide rates than states with the lowest gun ownership.”
Here’s the problem: Journalists should report what’s told them by their sources, so including statements like the one above, even if you disagree, is reasonable. But if Fox is “fair and balanced,” shouldn’t they also present data from the other side?
“Don’t Kill a Dream” runs gun turn-ins in Chicago, posts these “statistics” on their Gun Facts page. So including them is truthful copy. But their “facts” are mostly lies.
For example, they claim: “Gun death rates are 7 times higher in the states with the highest compared with the lowest household gun ownership.”
The gun ownership data comes from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which ran Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System surveys in 2001 and 2002.
In 2001, the state (Wyoming) with the highest “gun death” rate in 2001 had 3.7 times the total rate as the lowest (Hawaii). In 2002, it was 6.5 times higher (same states). With a little rounding you get your “7 times higher.” But that’s where the truth ends and data manipulation begins.
Their mortality data comes from the CDC, too. The CDC includes Washington D.C. in their “state-level” selection window. The FBI does likewise in their annual “state-level” crime reports.
Because D.C.—a self-governing entity with a population larger than Wyoming—is the deadliest jurisdiction in American, it behooves anti-rights propagandists to ignore it in order to produce prettier results.
Here’s their problem: D.C. had the lowest gun ownership rates. Comparing Wyoming to D.C. shows that D.C. had a 50% higher total firearms death rate than Wyoming in 2001, and 76% higher in 2002.
They must have done similar fudging in order to claim that higher gun ownership means higher firearms homicide rates. In both 2001 and 2002, states with the lowest firearms were the deadliest, averaging the highest firearms and non-firearms homicide rates (see table below). For both years, the Spearman’s correlation coefficient (Rho) indicated a fair to strong negative values: As gun ownership increased, firearms homicide decreased.
This isn’t the first time we’ve caught Fox doing this to the Second Amendment.
Were Fox “fair and balanced,” it seems reasonable they would have included some vetting like this, instead of a major media outlet lending credence to anti-rights lies by simply repeating them unchallenged.
one wonders how much of the “114%” increase are defensive uses that svae innocent lives...just wonderin’
I agree. I had a liberal aquaintence exclaim in proud fashion that JUSTIFIABLE homicides have tripled in Florida since Stand your Ground. I asked him that since they were JUSTIFIABLE, what is the problem. He then went into Liberal mode and said killing is bad. Blah blah
You know, the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) and the so called "small arms" treaty to turn us and our 2nd Amendment over to the UN.
Kumbaya, ya'll.
;-\
“He then went into Liberal mode and said killing is bad.”
I know a couple of people like that who used to love to sing that tune.... until they got mugged. How their tunes have changed...
Yeah. They live in a dream world were things go perfectly and there is no evil. I even asked if he would kill someone raping his family and he said no. I stopped talking at that point. No point to continue.
“I stopped talking at that point. No point to continue.”
You’re absolutely right; sometimes you just have to say, “God bless ‘em” and walk away while shaking your head.
I'm not a conspiracy guy, but this conspiracy can no longer be denied.
There is a MARKET for right-of-center, or even NEUTRAL news, but if it never seems to manifest, it is because someone is actively preventing it.
Getting killed is worse...
“He then went into Liberal mode and said killing is bad.”
Depends on who’s getting killed and why.
True. But he was using it as a blanket statement.
"O’Sullivan’s First Law" states that "All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing." And although O'Sullivan himself gives some examples as a lame "proof," his law is demonstrably true. My proof follows:
- Journalism is negative (if it bleeds, it leads)
- Journalism is superficial (because of deadline pressure)
- Journalism is arrogant (in claiming the virtue of objectivity, and also in its belief that "you never get into an argument with someone who buys ink by the truckload").
- Journalism is cowardly (in that each journalist fears all the others - taking the "you never get into an argument with someone who buys ink by the truckload" warning to heart when journalism in general needs to be opposed by a courageous voice.
- It follows that journalism is cynical and bullying.
- It follows that any organization or individual such as a SCOTUS justice which is courageous and principled will be labeled "right wing" or, perhaps, "out of the mainstream." Anyone who lacks courage and principle will be pulled to conformity with the left wing by the flattery and derision of journalism - and be praised as "moderate' and "mainstream" (and, before they ran the word into the ground, "liberal").
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