{"id":55668,"date":"2015-10-15T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T11:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=55668"},"modified":"2016-10-17T21:26:21","modified_gmt":"2016-10-18T02:26:21","slug":"science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=55668","title":{"rendered":"Science!"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCENE: \u00a0Interior shot at local hardware store. Mitch BERG is grabbing a bag of sidewalk salt. \u00a0Suddenly, Avery LIBRELLE, holding a bag of various parts, steps around the corner<\/em>.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0Hah, Merg! \u00a0Your statistical analysis is shit!<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Say that again like you’re having a civil conversation in polite company.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0Your statistical analysis is bad.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0That’s a little more like it. \u00a0Care to get more specific?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0Tuesday on your blog, you said that urban gun violence correlates with Democrat-controlled cities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Yep. \u00a0Because when you run through the numbers, both homicide and violent crime rates are statistically much higher in cities controlled by Democrats.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0Hah! \u00a0Those were crap statistics.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0They were from the Department of Justice.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0Well, look at this! \u00a0Stats from the\u00a0CDC<\/em><\/a>! \u00a0And lookie there! \u00a0All those red counties with higher gun death rates than all those blue cities! \u00a0Hah! \u00a0You are an idiot and stupid and your head is full of poop! \u00a0Hahahahahaahahahahahaahaha!<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Yeah, Avery – we’ve dealt with this same exact chart on this blog before. \u00a0You don’t see how this is a non-sequitur, don’t you?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE! \u00a0It’s\u00a0science<\/em>!<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Yeah – it’s also comparing apples to axles. \u00a0My story yesterday covered\u00a0homicide\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0violent crime\u00a0<\/em>rates. \u00a0This chart covers\u00a0all gun deaths<\/em>. \u00a0You do see the difference, don’t you?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0I see that you are a stupid idiot.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0“All gun deaths” also counts suicides, Avery. Suicides are between 65-70%\u00a0of the gun deaths in this country. And it\u2019s a form of suicide \u201cpreferred\u201d by rural, white men, mostly lonely and socially isolated, very frequently deeply depressed\u00a0and\/or terminally ill. It\u2019s especially prevalent in\u2026the rural west. \u00a0And, being prevalent in lots of sparsely populated rural western and southern counties, it means that the gun death rate will look very high – and it comparably will be. \u00a0But that’s not the\u00a0homicide\u00a0<\/em>rate. \u00a0Which, you will note, is almost nonexistent in most of those rural, western counties with a high “gun death rate”.<\/p>\n

Suicide is\u00a0a tragedy \u2013 but no worse than any other form of suicide (the US\u2019s suicide rate is much lower than many countries that control guns strictly). \u00a0 And it’s morally not the same as murder – which is taking\u00a0someone else’s\u00a0<\/em>life, by definition against their will. \u00a0Which was what my story covered.<\/p>\n

So, Avery – what does this mean.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0It means that you hate women and science and are a racist…<\/p>\n

(LIBRELLE, gesturing expansively, knocks an elbow against a shelf. \u00a0A gallon can full of paint falls, conking LIBRELLE on the head<\/em>)<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0(Rushing to LIBRELLE’s assistance) \u00a0Are you OK?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0(head lolling about in mild delirium) What it really means is that it’s\u00a0my\u00a0<\/em>statistical analysis that is “shit”, and that I should really stop playing at being a “fact checker” until I learn how to do the job, because I make myself look like an ignorant laughingstock.<\/p>\n

HARDWARE STORE ATTENDANT: \u00a0(Rushing from the counter<\/em>) Is h…,er sh…is this person OK?<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Just having a moment of clarity. \u00a0It’ll pass.<\/p>\n

(And SCENE<\/em>)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCENE: \u00a0Interior shot at local hardware store. Mitch BERG is grabbing a bag of sidewalk salt. \u00a0Suddenly, Avery LIBRELLE, holding a bag of various parts, steps around the corner. LIBRELLE: \u00a0Hah, Merg! \u00a0Your statistical analysis is shit! BERG: \u00a0Say that again like you’re having a civil conversation in polite company. LIBRELLE: \u00a0Your statistical analysis is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[325,49,22],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-55668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-gun-control","category-science","category-victim-disarmament","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55668"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55694,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55668\/revisions\/55694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}