{"id":41424,"date":"2014-01-27T12:00:26","date_gmt":"2014-01-27T18:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=41424"},"modified":"2014-12-12T14:37:00","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T20:37:00","slug":"chanting-points-memo-will-susan-perry-ever-stop-treating-readers-like-morons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=41424","title":{"rendered":"Chanting Points Memo: Will Susan Perry Ever Stop Treating Readers Like Junior High Kids?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There must be a legislative session coming up; the MinnPost<\/em> – a local group-blog funded by liberals with deep pockets employing a rogue’s gallery of recycled local big-media people – is back on the gun beat.<\/p>\n

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Last week, Susan Perry – their “consumer health reporter”, whose sloppy reporting on this subject we’ve repeatedly, even routinely, beaten up in this space<\/a> – wrote a fluff piece about a metastudy (a repackaging of the data in other studies) appearing in the\u00a0Annals of Internal Medicine<\/em> that shows that having a gun in the home doubles chance of a murder, and triples the chance of suicide.<\/p>\n

And it reminded me of an episode from twenty years ago.<\/p>\n

Let’s flash back, shall we?<\/p>\n

The Gullible, Biased Hack Beat<\/strong>: \u00a0Back in the early nineties, the anti-gun media (which was most of them, back then) breathlessly recited a factoid; a study in the New England Journal of Medicine<\/em> had showed, we were told, that a gun in the home was\u00a043 times<\/em> as likely to kill the owner, or someone the owner knew, than it was to kill a criminal.<\/p>\n

The media reported this uncritically, without question, much less the faintest pretense of analysis of the data that led to that very specific number.<\/p>\n

Of course, some Real Americans in the Second Amendment movement did <\/em>dig into the study<\/a>, back when “the internet” was still “Usenet” for most people.<\/p>\n

They found that the data came from King County, Washington, during a period of several years in the late eighties. \u00a0And the “43:1” ratio actually broke out, over the period of time, to nine justifiable deaths of criminals that the shooter didn’t know, <\/em>against something like 380-odd other firearms deaths.<\/p>\n

And of those 380-odd firearm deaths, the vast majority were suicides – enough to account for 36-37 of the “43”. \u00a0Of the remaining 6 from the “43” – 50-odd firearms deaths – there were a few accidents; the rest were murders or manslaughters of one kind or another. \u00a0And note that it only counted the presence of a gun in the home, not whether it was used; if someone broke into your home and shot you as you were peeling potatoes at your kitchen counter, but there was a gun in the house, it went into the “43”.<\/p>\n

Suicide is obviously a problem – but it doesn’t depend on firearms. \u00a0Japan, where guns are unobtainable, has double the US’ suicide rate. \u00a0 But leaving out suicides, the rate dropped to more like six to one.<\/p>\n

But there were other clinkers in the way the “43:1”, or even the 6:1, figures were generated, and related to the public by a media that, at best, didn’t know what it was talking about and, at worst, didn’t care.<\/p>\n

Walt White Knew Jack Welker!<\/strong>: \u00a0The phrase “gun owner or someone they know” was the first problem.<\/p>\n

Someone who shoots himself, obviously, is “killing themselves or someone they know”. \u00a0But then so is a drug dealer shooting a rival, or a customer that owes them money, is “killing someone they know”, as is a gang-banger shooting a long-time rival So is a woman shooting an ex-husband that’s been stalking and threatening her. \u00a0So is someone killing a robber that they had met, even once, ever.<\/p>\n

The NEJM study didn’t distinguish between those types of killings. \u00a0The “1” in the “43:1” ratio only <\/em>included justifiable homicides where the shooter had never met the victim.<\/p>\n

Why So Bloodthirsty?<\/strong>: \u00a0Did you notice that the only “good” results in the New England Journal study – the “1” in “43:1” – were the nine justifiable killings of complete\u00a0strangers?<\/p>\n

Leaving aside the likelihood (indeed, fact) that some of the homicides of acquaintances were justifiable – why is a justifiable killing of a complete, malevolent stranger the only legitimate use of a firearm?<\/p>\n

The study didn’t account for deterrences of other crimes. \u00a0A gun used to scare away a burglar or a stalker doesn’t have to kill anyone to have a beneficial effect – deterring a felony without a shot being fired.<\/p>\n

The Real Results?<\/strong>: \u00a0So when you take the numbers from the “43:1” ratio, and then…:<\/p>\n