Latest MSN.COM Hit Piece on Guns

D

DaleA

New member
"50 Facts You Might Not Know About Guns In America"
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/5...sedgdhp&pc=U531&pfr=1&fullscreen=true#image=1

As usual I don't know whether to bring this up or just ignore it. It is one of the headlines in the MSN.COM news page so it does reach a lot of people and it does contain facts I did not know.

Vernont adolescents can own a handgun
Click to expand...
I thought the spelling of the state was 'Vermont'. Yeah it's just a nitpicking misspelling error but sheesh, I think they should be able to proof read and catch such an error.

Samuel Colt invented the first multi-shot revolver in 1873.
Click to expand...

The Second Amendment is at odds with modern politics.
Click to expand...

Under nullification laws, individual U.S. states feel they do not have to follow federal law regarding the sale of guns manufactured in the region. Since 2010, Idaho, Kansas, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Arizona have all passed federally defiant legislation based on “firearms freedom,” allowing them to make guns without national regulations and sell them without an official federal record.
Click to expand...
I think the word "feel" could make this correct...but I still think it is misleading.

A detailed Washington Post report reveals that between 1999–2017, more than 250,000 children experienced a mass shooting on school grounds. Numbers for children killed outside of school grounds are even more daunting, with nearly three times as many children killed on American land than soldiers murdered abroad. Guns killed approximately 180,000 adolescents from 1963 to 2015.
Click to expand...
Obviously I'm supposed to be aghast at the carnage of kids but IMhO they're playing games with statistics making it seem safer to be a soldier in combat than a kid going to school.

The ATF estimates that America hosts about 2,000 gun shows annually. A lack of federal and state oversight at gun shows makes the thousands of firearm displays questionable
Click to expand...

While you could argue some of the above are correct I'd say they're misleading and sensationalistic.

There's more stuff there and, IMhO, worse than the ones I quoted above.
 
Yes, if a 25 year old gang banger shoots another 25 year old gang banger at three in the morning within a mile of a school I think it counts as School Shooting or something similar.
 
Guns killed approximately 180,000 adolescents from 1963 to 2015.
Click to expand...

Now that's new. To my knowledge, in the 800 year history of firearms not a single gun has ever picked itself up, walked into a room, aimed itself at someone, and pulled its own trigger. Not one!
 
DaleA said:
A detailed Washington Post report reveals that between 1999–2017, more than 250,000 children experienced a mass shooting on school grounds. Numbers for children killed outside of school grounds are even more daunting, with nearly three times as many children killed on American land than soldiers murdered abroad. Guns killed approximately 180,000 adolescents from 1963 to 2015.
Click to expand...
Obviously I'm supposed to be aghast at the carnage of kids but IMhO they're playing games with statistics making it seem safer to be a soldier in combat than a kid going to school.
Click to expand...
Semantics. What does "experienced" mean? In order for this number to have any remote possibility of being [somewhat] valid, they have to be including every single student who was enrolled in any school where there was a mass shooting -- whether or not the student was anywhere near where the shooting actually took place. So, sure -- if there was a shooting in a math class in room 372, and you were in a music class in room 102 and your classroom was locked down because of the shooting -- they probably counted you as having "experienced" a school shooting. But did you? Did you see anyone being shot? Did you even hear a gunshot?
 
between 1999–2017, more than 250,000 children experienced a mass shooting on school grounds.
Click to expand...

How about this, over that same 18 year period, how many children WENT TO SCHOOL?? Sure, a quarter million sounds like a lot, but what percentage of the school children is it really?

A quick internet search shows that US school population has been between 72 and 76 million every year, between 1999 and 2017.

If I'm figuring the numbers right (and very, very roughly) ONE PERCENT of any given year's school population is about 3/4 million. SO, the 250,000 number would be ONE THIRD OF ONE PERCENT of any given year.

HOWEVER, that 250,000 number is a total of 18 years, so wouldn't the numbers be that the given number is really only 1/18th of 1/3 of One Percent of school childeren ? That seems like a very small percentage, to me.

Guns killed approximately 180,000 adolescents from 1963 to 2015.
Click to expand...

Now here we have an even smaller number, over a longer period of time, 52 years, and using straight math that works out to be an average of 3,461.5 per year.

Add in the lack of explanation of who is covered by "adolescents" AND the fact that this is coming from the Washington Post, which is not a paragon of accuracy or honesty in my world.

I am reminded of the numbers used by Handgun Control Inc. back in the 80s before they became Brady et.al....
They were touting a huge seeming number under the banner of "Death of a child due to a handgun".

Until it was revealed that their numbers included anyone under the age of 25 as a "child", included accidents, suicides, criminal homicides and also those people killed by the police, with ANY firearm, as "death of a child due to a handgun".

I expect a similar amount of truthfulness and accuracy from the Washington Post and MSN news, and I'm seldom disappointed.

On the positive side, they did report how gun sales have contributed billions of dollars to wildlife and conservation efforst through taxes.
I guess one correct fact out of 50 slides of incorrect facts and opinion presented as fact is the best we can hope for from these people.
 
I am heartened by the fact that that the comments to the article are almost all critical of what was written, and by almost all I mean I found one (1) anti-gun comment among about 150 comments. All the other comments were exposing some lie, or misrepresentation in the article.

Just for fun check out slide 26, the one spelling Vermont as 'Vernont' showing the three clay pigeon shooters standing, all with shotguns at the ready, in FRONT of the thrower. I suppose it COULD be done if the angle is high enough to clear the shooters or it's going to throw BETWEEN the shooters but it looks more like one of the shooters is going to get a clay pigeon right in the back.
 
Wow, where do I start?

The Atlantic reports that while the “contextual reading is quite enlightening” in the amendment, its initial and sole purpose was to permit U.S. states to create armed militias legally.
Click to expand...

Well, The Atlantic is factually wrong. We had a Supreme Court decision that found the exact opposite less than 15 years ago. It was something of a big deal, so I'm sure they're aware of it.

Firearm related deaths were the third-leading reason for adolescent fatality in 2016, behind injury-related deaths and motor vehicle crashes, respectively.
Click to expand...

Sure, if you count 19-year-olds as "adolescents," which is what the linked study does. 15-19 years old is the prime age for gang involvement.

Though federal law dictates that all licensed gun dealers perform background checks on purchasers, it does not mandate a personal history release on brick-and-mortar gun sales or firearms purchased online.
Click to expand...

Lying. Those guns still have to be transferred to the end-user through an FFL, which requires a background check.

I won't go through the rest, but I wanted to address these three points because they say quite a bit about how gun-control advocates are trying to sway public opinion.

The first is trying to re-litigate Heller in the hopes we've forgotten about it. The second is to distort data in a way that looks all sciency-like so people will blindly accept it. The third is, well...it's just flat-out lying.
 
"Samuel Colt invented the first multi-shot revolver in 1873."

If memory serves, wasn't there a flintlock revolver made by a man named Collier well before Colt brought his first gun out?
Paul B.
 
What MSN prints is the literal essence of propaganda:

“If a lie is only printed often enough, it becomes a quasi-truth, and if such a truth is repeated often enough, it becomes an article of belief, a dogma, and men will die for it.”

Isa Blagden, “The Crown of A Life”, 1869
 
"Samuel Colt invented the first multi-shot revolver in 1873."
Click to expand...

I thought this one so obvious it didn't need pointing out, but apparently not...:rolleyes:

Colt produced the Patterson model in the mid 1830s (1836?)
The famous Civil War revolvers were the 1851 Navy (.36 cal) and the 1860 Army (.44 cal)

Colts first solid frame cartridge gun was 1873, the "Model P" / Peacemaker / Single Action Army.

More than a few other companies made revolvers before that including Smith & Wesson.

so, clearly the writer didn't do one bit of research.

What really bothers me, is, how can a big name multi mega corportation like MSN PAY people who can't spell "Vermont"????

Ok, yes I'm a stumblefingered typer sometime, but how does that get past either (both?) a human proofreader or computer spellchecker??

:rolleyes:
 
I thought the spelling of the state was 'Vermont'. Yeah it's just a nitpicking misspelling error but sheesh, I think they should be able to proof read and catch such an error.
Click to expand...

What really bothers me, is, how can a big name multi mega corportation like MSN PAY people who can't spell "Vermont"????
Click to expand...

It's a typo. Nothing more.
 
Double Naught Spy said:
It's a typo. Nothing more.
Click to expand...

.. and completely discredits the so-called "journalist" and their outlet when they can't spell something taught in grade school or use correct grammar. Unfortunately, it's now endemic.

"News" outlets are rarely any better than failbook these days. Nothing but opinion pieces, very little actual news.
 
I only reviewed 24 of the 50 "Facts You Might Not Know" in the link offered above, but it's 12:28 a.m. and I fizzled out.

Slide 5: “. The Atlantic reports that while the “contextual reading is quite enlightening” in the amendment, its initial and sole purpose was to permit U.S. states to create armed militias legally.”
One cannot create armed militias legally without legal ownership of guns. Hence the right to bear arms has to precede the “sole purpose” of the Atlantic report.

Slide 6: “The report “America’s Complex Relationship with Guns” details that regardless of demographics, up to 67% of U.S. citizens claim to own firearms primarily for safety purposes.”
Is not protection from government overreach a “safety” issue? How was the question proposed?

Slide 7: “…the number of U.S. citizens who favor further firearm restrictions rose from 50% to 62% by 2019. “
Define the favored “restrictions”

Slide 12: “Firearm ownership triples the rate of self-murders”
So Suicide is now called “self-murder….

Slide 14 : “Firearm exposure begins in adolescence for almost half of Americans, with up to 48% saying they grew up with a gun in the house.”
So are 48% of the gun crimes committed by those who grew up with guns in the house?

Slide 17: “Both GOP and Democrat lawmakers agree that Americans who have a mental illness should not own a gun. Both political parties agree that anyone on a federal no-fly or watchlist should be prohibited from buying or possessing a firearm. Federal law must mandate background checks for gun purchasers who buy from a private dealer or show.
Gun shows require background checks. What is a “private dealer?” A criminal selling guns on the street? A neighbor coincidentally selling his gun to another neighbor?
Re: mental illness: who has the guts to make the diagnosis?

Slide 21: “There are more guns than people in America, with 120.5 firearms per 100 U.S. citizens, according to Vox, making the country more prone to gun violence.”
Is “more prone to violence” a fact or opinion?

Slide 22: “Harvard Injury Control Research Center Director David Hemenway states that “a wide array of empirical evidence indicates that more guns in a community leads to more homicide” in America.”
"Empirical" means "based on observation or experience," according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. That is not the same as fact-based evidence.

Slide 23: “Since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, more than 2,000 mass shootings have taken place throughout nearly every U.S. state.”
Depending on the source? From Mass Shootings in the US: See 37 Years in One Chart | Time
I counted 475 deaths from 2013-2021 in 23 States

Slide 24: “Using the Poisson distribution to breakdown data gathered from the FBI between 1996 and 2019, research proves LEO homicide rates to be three times higher in states with more gun owners.”
Eliminate Chicago, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Philadelphia and re-calculate. Are the “gun owners” killing cops with legal or illegal guns?
 
cdoc42 said:
Slide 5: “. The Atlantic reports that while the “contextual reading is quite enlightening” in the amendment, its initial and sole purpose was to permit U.S. states to create armed militias legally.”
One cannot create armed militias legally without legal ownership of guns. Hence the right to bear arms has to precede the “sole purpose” of the Atlantic report.
Click to expand...
One also can't create armed militias when they already exist. Armed militias were an integral part of colonial America. Who do they think fought the redcoats at Lexington and Concord? Are they aware that we still have armed militias in many states, and that federal law today still provides for the militia?

Here's where the Founders "created" militias -- not the Second Amendment:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Unit.../Volume_1/2nd_Congress/1st_Session/Chapter_28

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Unit.../Volume_1/2nd_Congress/1st_Session/Chapter_33


The current Militia Act:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246

State militias: https://sgaus.org/

Not all states that have state guards are members of the SGAUS. For example, I know that Connecticut has a state guard, and Connecticut is not a member.
 
cdoc42 said:
Slide 12: “Firearm ownership triples the rate of self-murders”
So Suicide is now called “self-murder….
Click to expand...
This is a non-sensical statement. There is no way to quantify such a statistic. People who really want to commit suicide will use whatever is available. If they don't have access to a firearm, they'll find another way. I have had friends who committed suicide, and other friends and family who attempted suicide. It REALLY bothers me when they trot out this tired cliche.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top