Jump to content

Trib comparing gun ownership to smoking and drunk driving


vito

Recommended Posts

Article in today's Trib saying how successful efforts have been to reduce the number of people smoking, and the numbers of drunk driving deaths, so why not apply the same methods to reducing gun ownership? I guess the writer can only see guns as a negative to be done away with, with no recognition of the positive role guns can play in defending the old, weak or infirm against the predators of society, let alone against a tyrannical government. Nothing really new here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It’s an editorial from 6/22. There are similar articles going back to early 2013. The AMA was spouting this back in the late ‘90s if my recollection is accurate... I occasionally worked on a video magazine distributed to AMA members.

 

It’s nothing new, but something to watch and keep at bay.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-cigarettes-drunk-driving-guns-20180620-story,amp.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The big difference which of course the Trib glossed over or ignored completely was the no one needs a license and undergoes a background check to smoke or drive drunk.

Every gun owner has a FOID and undergoes a background check. Two very different scenarios.

 

No one is saying do not stop gun violence. What I object to is the assumption that ALL guns are bad and ALL gun owners are criminals.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just don't understand living in a country where smokers are demonized but if you fat shame anyone (other then gun owners and Republicans) everyone gets outraged. You pay higher rates for obesity on life insurance but not on health insurance.

 

You are a degenerate if you booze it up, but it's a disability if you get addicted to harder drugs.

 

The roads are filled with drivers drugged outta their minds on pharmaceuticals but I've never seen articles mentioning the dangers.

 

The double standards make my head explode. Live and let live, but I'll be darned if I pay for other people's lifestyle choices financially or with my own freedom. Whether you're likely to be a victim of gun violence has more to do with your choice of neighborhood and past criminal history then gun ownership.

 

If we gotta have big government I'd rather it be governed by actuaries then "activists".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Article in today's Trib saying how successful efforts have been to reduce the number of people kismoking, and the numbers of drunk driving deaths, so why not apply the same methods to reducing gun ownership? I guess the writer can only see guns as a negative to be done away with, with no recognition of the positive role guns can play in defending the old, weak or infirm against the predators of society, let alone against a tyrannical government. Nothing really new here.

 

They are going to create a 12-step program for gun ownership?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They are going to create a 12-step program for gun ownership?

  • Admit that you own guns.
  • Believe that the right to keep and bear arms could restore you to a normal way of thinking and living.
  • Make a decision to turn your will and your life over to the common defense.
  • Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself.
  • Admit to yourself and to another human being the exact nature of your previous failings.
  • Be entirely ready to have these defects of character removed.
  • Ask God (or your designated divine power) humbly to remove your shortcomings.
  • Make a list of all persons you could have defended, but failed, and become willing to make amends to them all.
  • Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure anyone unlawfully.
  • Continue to take personal inventory and, when you are wrong, promptly admit it.
  • Seek through reflection and training to improve your ability to defend yourself and others.
  • Carry this message to other gun owners.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Past my limit for free views to Trib for month. If I could, I would post a comment.

 

There are NO benefits/good to/from smoking or driving under the influence. There are multiple benefit's/good from owning firearms. Owning firearms IS a protected inalienable right under The Constitution. None of smoking, drinking, getting high or driving is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Past my limit for free views to Trib for month. If I could, I would post a comment.

 

There are NO benefits/good to/from smoking or driving under the influence. There are multiple benefit's/good from owning firearms. Owning firearms IS a protected inalienable right under The Constitution. None of smoking, drinking, getting high or driving is.

The Libune closed the comments section a while ago.

They are not interested in anyone elses opinion that might enter their echo chamber.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I drafted a reply to them:

 

This letter is in response to the editorial in today’s edition “Cigarettes. Drunken Driving. Next Guns?” in today’s edition.

The proposal you present in your editorial today sounds familiar.

Very familiar.

Why?

 

Because it was the same one espoused by Mark Rosenberg, director of the CDC National Center of Injury Prevention, when he told Rolling Stone magazine in a 1993 interview that he “envisions a long term campaign, similar to tobacco use and auto safety, to convince Americans that guns are, first and foremost, a public health menace.”

 

To this end the CDC – and papers like yours – have relied on tailored studies, guided questions and selective data sets to present an incomplete picture of firearm use in America, just as your headlines and editorials focus on criminal firearm use, while attempting to blame law-abiding firearm owners.

So you’ll excuse many lawful firearm owner’s suspicions - including mine -of the agency’s purported neutrality, methodology or intent.

And even though you admit “this is an inexact comparison”, such a disclaimer is ludicrous, given that the overwhelming majority of criminal homicides in our community are perpetrated by felons who are already prohibited from possessing so much as a round of ammunition, much less a firearm, but the criminal justice system rushes them back to the street.

 

Such an attitude ignores the over 800 lawful sporting, hunting and self-defense uses that take place each year for every criminal or accidental one. But that doesn’t sell papers or push your agenda, does it?

 

As an investigator in real life, if I was ever quoted as speaking with such a premeditated intent about a case I was investigating I would be disqualified from the case, no matter how legitimate my findings and determinations were. If a judge spoke about a case in such a fashion, he or she would have to recuse themselves.

 

But I guess when you blindly agree with the sentiment, they're just expressing "common sense", regardless of scientific methodology or premeditation.

 

Sincerely,

 

Imagine my shock when I received the following today:

Mr. Tango–

 

I’m interested in publishing your letter. Could you please point me toward your source for the claim that there are “over 800 lawful sporting, hunting and self-defense uses that take place each year for every criminal or accidental one”? I’m having trouble fact-checking that.

 

Please let me know as soon as possible.

 

Thank you,

XXXX XXXXXXX

Editor, Voice of the People| Chicago Tribune

 

 

I was happy to oblige:

 

 

Certainly. The number is based on statistics I obtained from publicly sourced materials, listed in the footnotes.



Based on 2016 statistics from the [sources] listed below, there were 20,176,110 target shooters [1] and 15,486,100 resident hunting license issued in the US, 2016 [2].

Adding these together gives a Total Sporting Uses of 35,662,210; although multiple surveys have indicated that most shooters participate 3-6 times each year, this number assumes that each person only participated in their sport once.

There are 891,290 Police Officers in the US[3].

Assuming each officer carries on duty 5 days per week with 2 weeks vacation each year, and has to qualify with their firearm at least annually, even though most agencies, including mine, require biannually or quarterly qualification, and not counting off-duty carry which is mandated by some agencies.

This gives us 223,713,790 “good” uses from them.

There were 16,302,280 CCW Licensees in 2016 [4].

If we assume 75% of the CCW holders only carry their firearm twice that year, and 25% carry four times (to compensate for the people who "only carry in bad neighborhoods" or not at all, and the small fraction that carry 24/7, we get the number 32,604,560.

This does not include the citizens of the “Constitutional Carry” states that are not required to have a license or permit.

This gives us a total number of "good" (lawful/legitimate) uses of 291,980,560 per year.

According to multiple studies. the number of Defensive Gun Uses (DGU’s) varies from 150,000 to 2,500,000 times per year [5], the majority not resulting in the fatality of the criminal. I'll use the smaller end of the range at 150,000.

Bad (illegal/criminal) uses often cited:

Firearm Suicides in 2016: 22,940 [6] .

Firearm Deaths, accidental in 2016: 495 [7] .

Lawfully Justified Homicides by Law Enforcement: 429 [8] .

Lawfully Justified Homicides by Private Citizen: 276 [9] .

Firearm Homicides: 11,000 [10].

Now I'm listing the Justifiable Homicides (8 & 9) here, as they're often lumped into the category of "preventable gun deaths", but not including them in my calculations, as they represent the lawful use of force in defense of self, others or property. They are deaths by guns, but neither illegal nor criminal, and in some of the studies are included in the Defensive Gun Uses listed above.

While there's a valid argument that the suicides wouldn't be prevented by the laws many call for either, I've included them for the sake of discussion.

To expand the review to a larger group of incidents, and realizing that the number of Homicides by Firearm doesn’t reflect the whole of firearm injuries any more than justified homicides are the sole examples of lawful DGUs, I recalculated, and included the 189,720 Aggravated Assault w/Firearms in the FBI UCR [11] and the 125,289 cases of Aggravated Robbery w/firearm [12].

The total number of illegal/criminal/negligent gun deaths and injuries in 2016 was 326,504.

Comparing the two numbers results in a good:bad use ratio of 836:1.

Sources:

1: "Target Shooting in America", National Shooting Sports Foundation, Going Plinking: Target Shooting by the Numbers

2: US Fish And Wildlife Service "National Hunting License Data"

3: US Department of Justice "National Sources of Law Enforcement Employment Data"

4: Crime Prevention Research Center "Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States: 2017", Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States: 2017

5: National Academies Press, "Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence", P. 45

6: WISQARS query, 2016, United States Suicide Firearm Deaths, All Races, Both Sexes, All Ages , ICD-10 Codes: X72-X74

7: WISQARS query,2016, United States Unintentional Firearm Deaths and Rates per 100,000 , All Races, Both Sexes, All Ages, ICD-10 Codes: W32-W34

8: Federal Bureau of Investigation. "Crime in the United States, 2016", Expanded Homicide Data Table 5 "Justifiable Homicide by Weapon, Law Enforcement"

9: Federal Bureau of Investigation. "Crime in the United States, 2016", Expanded Homicide Data Table 6 "Justifiable Homicide by Weapon, Private Citizen"

10: Federal Bureau of Investigation. "Crime in the United States, 2016", Expanded Homicide Data Table 4 "Murder Victims, by weapon"

11: Federal Bureau of Investigation "Crime in the United States, 2016" Violent Crime Table 14: Aggravated Assault by State, Types of Weapons”

12: Federal Bureau of Investigation "Crime in the United States, 2016" Violent Crime Table 13: Robbery, by State, Types of Weapons”

 

We'll see if it passes their muster, or if the only statistical data they support is material that supports their preconceived notions.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That might pass muster. I’ve found Liz Gwiere to be almost reasonable for a journalist.

 

Here's hoping. The fact that I provide actual verifiable sources and not just opinions should help.

 

ETA - apparently it passed muster, and should be in ink and virtual versions tomorrow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

That might pass muster. I’ve found Liz Gwiere to be almost reasonable for a journalist.

 

Here's hoping. The fact that I provide actual verifiable sources and not just opinions should help.

 

ETA - apparently it passed muster, and should be in ink and virtual versions tomorrow.

 

You might emphasize that 8xx to 1 number is on the LOW end, as you always took the stat, or rounded down to minimize 'good uses' and took the biggest 'bad uses" numbers. The real number is likely a substantially greater ratio in favor of good uses.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You might emphasize that 8xx to 1 number is on the LOW end, as you always took the stat, or rounded down to minimize 'good uses' and took the biggest 'bad uses" numbers. The real number is likely a substantially greater ratio in favor of good uses.

 

 

 

 

I mentioned my use of the low-end number in the stats I provided, while including the 2,500,000 that was the high end, but that actually only changes the stat from 836:1 to 843:1.

 

Excel is a great program if you know how to make it sing and dance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

...

I'm having trouble fact-checking that.

...

I was happy to oblige:

...

 

We'll see if it passes their muster, or if the only statistical data they support is material that supports their preconceived notions.

 

It's more likely that they'd reject your conclusion based on it being "original research" synthesizing/compiling statistics rather than quoting someone else's peer-reviewed, open-source paper published in a reputable journal. Fact-checkers don't want (or need) to be subject matter experts, which is what would be required to verify the validity of your conclusion. From a newspaper publisher's point of view, it would make more sense simply to print an article that includes the details of your math, assuming they want to devote the column-inches to it in the first place.

 

So rather than "print/don't print" a simple letter to the editor, there are a couple directions this could go. Indeed, it will be interesting to see what they decide.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

That might pass muster. I’ve found Liz Gwiere to be almost reasonable for a journalist.

 

Here's hoping. The fact that I provide actual verifiable sources and not just opinions should help.

 

ETA - apparently it passed muster, and should be in ink and virtual versions tomorrow.

I just read it in the dead tree edition of the Chicago Tribune. Nice job.

 

Did she edit it much?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Here's hoping. The fact that I provide actual verifiable sources and not just opinions should help.

 

ETA - apparently it passed muster, and should be in ink and virtual versions tomorrow.

I just read it in the dead tree edition of the Chicago Tribune. Nice job.

 

Did she edit it much?

 

 

Thank you! <tips hat>

 

Actually no. She appreciated my providing my sources, and they apparently passed muster, although I'd feared the scenario Euler described, where factual findings would be suppressed simply because I lacked the appropriate alphabets behind my name or financial backing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

That might pass muster. I’ve found Liz Gwiere to be almost reasonable for a journalist.

Here's hoping. The fact that I provide actual verifiable sources and not just opinions should help.

 

ETA - apparently it passed muster, and should be in ink and virtual versions tomorrow.

I just read it in the dead tree edition of the Chicago Tribune. Nice job.

Did she edit it much?

I haven’t seen it online yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The linked letter attempts to convince me that I'm going to shoot myself with my own guns and that stronger gun control is the answer to save me from myself, if only I'd stop and think for a second instead of reacting emotionally when politicians want to outlaw guns.

 

I'm not sure that's what you wanted to say.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...