Anatomy Of A Chanting Point

Some years ago, an anti-gun group published a “study” showing that the rate of gun deaths was higher in red, square, stereotypically conservative flyover states where guns were plentiful and available to the law-abiding.

Of course, it’s a misleading point – in keeping with the gun control dictum to “Lie First, Lie Last, Lie Always”. The vast majority of gun deaths are suicides – and this is especially true in the rural west, as a disproportionate number of people, usually older, male, depressed, often very ill, decide to check out via the most reliable means they have available, their firearms. It’s tragic; it’s also not the same as murder, robbery, kidnapping, rape, aggravated assault or other violent crimes committed against others. And it doesn’t take many suicides in a thinly-populated rural western county to send that per capita death rate soaring.

But no mind; fake as it is, this particular narrative made the usual rounds:

Through the various far-left blogs that pretty much exist to recite the left’s chanting points
To the various gun grabber groups, whose only real source of “information” is the chanting points they’re fed by their superiors in the “progressive” food chain
And finally, mainstream “news” organizations.

And so – barely a decade after having been chastened to a fine sheen for using fraudulent sources, CBS News is still in the business of mindlessly parroting fake chanting points.

Posted

December 2, 2015

Chanting Points Memo, Lie First, Lie Always, Narrative For Sale!

Mitch Berg

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11 responses to “Anatomy Of A Chanting Point”

Joe Doakes

December 2, 2015

The state with the highest rate of gun death: Alaska. Yes, that sounds right. Whenever I think of places too dangerous to walk down the street, it’s never Detroit, Chicago or East St. Louis that springs to mind: Anchorage, that’s the place that gives me the shivers.

On the other hand, the state with the lowest rate of gun death is Hawaii. Weirdly, very few people who live in paradise, kill themselves. Who wouldda thunk it?

Yes, it’s all about the gun laws, I see that now. Plainly, correlation DOES equal causation. If only we had known sooner.
justplainangry

December 2, 2015

Anchorage, that’s the place that gives me the shivers.

Well, duh! It’s cold there. Of course you will shiver.
justplainangry

December 2, 2015

You know where else you will get shivers? San Bernardino. But there must be some kind of mistake – CA has strict gun laws and restricts magazine capacity. Oh, it’s global warming that’s responsible. MmmmK, then. Ban guns and global warming will be halted and we will all enjoy 72F weather around the world, 24/7/365(6) for all eternity.
SmithStCrx

December 2, 2015

At least CBS admits up front that it’s all gun deaths. Unfortunately they then compare to vehicular deaths (how many of those are suicide?). In the second slide they quote the Brady Campaign, a totally unbiased organization with a history of never spinning the numbers. I quit by the fourth slide. Got tired of reading “no permit required.” Was tempted to ask in the comments if CBS News thinks permits should be required to publish news or to vote.
Bento Guzman

December 2, 2015

Going by the first picture in the slideshow, you need to associate ‘gun deaths’ with well-dressed white men.
Joe Doakes

December 2, 2015

Well dressed White men who carry their pistols gansta style, down the front of the pants, right behind the belt buckle, without a holster. Yeah, that’s where I want my auto pointing . . . then I can walk around with my hand clutching my crotch so the gun doesn’t fall out my leg. That always looks sharp in a suit.
Emery

December 3, 2015

Why even have a comments section? Just use the same ones each time there’s a mass shooting in the USA.
bosshoss429

December 3, 2015

You’re spot on, Emery!

We can just like the Democraps that politicize every one of them with the same old crap!
bikebubba

December 3, 2015

Yup, the comments are about the same. The gun control advocates point to things like the Kellerman study and Michael Bellesiles, and liberty advocates point out that these ideas were discredited decades ago.

Got a hint for gun control advocates; if you don’t want to see the same factual responses, give up the lying claims. Just sayin’.
The Big Stink

December 3, 2015

Regulating guns makes as much sense as regulating mosquitoes.
Bento Guzman

December 3, 2015

I remember the Bellesiles book. A liberal friend at work held it up as the last word on America’s manufactured ‘gun culture.’ This was before it was exposed as a fraud. For those who haven’t read it, Bellesiles claimed that gun ownership was rare in early America. His book (Arming America) won the Bancroft prize.
Bellesiles’ thesis depended heavily on the lack of probate records showing gun ownership on death.
The whole thing seemed fishy to me. Being a midwesterner, I know that guns are frequently handed off to other family members or friends when the owner becomes to old to hunt or use it safely. Those guns don’t appear in probate records.
Anyway, Belleisiles’ research was shown to be fraudulent. His meticulous spreadsheets of probate records could not be reproduced. If I remember correctly, he claimed as one source probate records that had been destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Bellisles’ Bancroft prize and his NEH grant were revoked.
Bellesiles blamed the NRA.