Good, Evil and Statistics

                “Two things can be true at once: guns can be used for evil and guns can be used for good.” –Colion Noir, recently.

                It seems this nation is at a new “crossroads” every week or so. That may be overly dramatic and naïve but there’s no doubt the new hot topic at the water cooler is gun control. Or not.

                One side clamors for an outright ban of all firearms at the extreme to more gun control laws on the more moderate end of the “It’s the gun’s fault,” argument. The other side wants to put hand guns in their kid’s lunchboxes at the extreme and they want more armed presence and protection in general and at schools in particular at their more moderate end.

                One side is quick to want to abandon the Second Amendment of the Constitution and the other side wants rocket launchers on their patios. And neither side seems willing to listen to the other side, which is nothing new in the last nine years or so of political discussions.

                But we should.

                I am so sick of pie charts, bar charts and adjusted data that I could scream. You should only draw conclusions using facts but it can be awfully confusing even discerning what the facts are and as usual, you can’t rely on today’s media for much help with the truth.

                Two weeks ago I tried to research existing gun laws and discovered that there are literally thousands of them. That is partially due to the fact that most gun regulations are left up to individual states and the duplication of some of the basics is overwhelming. Oh sure, there are federal gun laws that override everything but there are some states that allow local municipalities to override state gun laws and that really compounds the number of regulations.

                My conclusion is that we already have plenty of gun laws. What we may have is an enforcement problem, and good luck with that. Start at the top with murder is illegal and we have people willing to overlook that one a few thousand times every year.

                Enter the pie charts. The U.S. has 88.8 guns per 100 people. Far more than second place so obviously that’s the problem, right? If you cherry pick your data you can find 71 other “developed” countries with a lower per capita gun murder rate that the United States.

                If you don’t want to offend an awful lot of countries who didn’t realize they were shitholes instead of developed nations by cherry picking your control group there are actually 111 other countries that have higher gun homicide rates than the U.S.

                We do have a lot of guns. I have friends who need more than one gun safe. I have more friends who don’t own a single gun. Anecdotally, gun owners seem to be split about 50/50 conservative or liberal either way. Lots of my liberal pals own a dozen firearms and get real quiet when the “ban the NRA” conversations start.

                Fact, I think: only 34-39% of U.S. households account for 100% of gun ownership. That’s a range from Forbes Magazine, The Guardian and the F.B.I.

                Here’s another interesting statistic if you want to keep pulling out your bar graphs: in national gun-related homicides per million guns, Taiwan is #1 at 177. The oft cited, peaceful, gun-controlled Nederlands has 108.

                The U.S. has 34, lower than Italy, Ireland and Belgium, among others.

                Please, I am not trying to say guns are not used for nefarious and deadly purposes. C’mon. That’s why we conservatives need to shut up for a minute and listen to those on the left. Their concerns are real. Their feelings are genuine. The same people who wore uniforms died for them to have their crazy liberal opinions just like we are entitled to our conservative thoughts.

                Besides, I suppose there is always the chance they will have a good idea. But if they do they need to be louder than the media and the politicians they constantly let speak for them because those idiots can’t seem to do anything but parrot the same old lines.

                Plus, you know what, the people on the left need to listen to us as well because this Mexican standoff over the second amendment isn’t saving the lives of kids at schools when active shooters show up. We are never going to give up all of our guns and I have the distinct impression that like Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot, the left is never going to stop asking us to.

                I love doing research, partly because there is so much information out there at a keystroke and partly because some of it is so astoundingly inaccurate it can be amusing. I found a Vox video asserting all the facts worth knowing about the “obvious and undeniable gun problem in America.” They didn’t cite their sources but they claimed 130 “mass shootings” in the U.S. from 2000-2013.

                I was shocked because my own research using multiple sources turned up 30 mass shootings from 1999-current. Trying to find where Vox got their info I turned up another timeline that had the count at 32 since 2000. Close enough for government work and amateur blogs.

                I did finally stumble on a September 24, 2014 NYT article claiming the F.B.I. statistic of 160 “mass shootings” involving active shooters in confined and populated areas between 2000 and 2013. Of course, I also found the NYT retraction on page A19 on October 14, 2014 (the only way to read the NYT is to google “retractions {subject matter} after you read anything those creative writers print) in which they clarified that the actual FBI statistic cited “active shooter incidents,” not “mass shootings.” An active shooter incident is any situation where shooting is in progress when law enforcement is contacted.

                Sort of different a little bit, but I figure Vox must’ve gotten their info similarly confused.

                Vox had other statistics on guns and homicides that they failed to attribute so I kept digging and found that most of their info was based on an early 1990’s study by Hemeway and Miller and then applied to and mixed with incidents in the 21^st century.  There is a Forbes article (Google it yourself, I can’t do everything for you) discrediting the Hemeway-Miller study as being based on a great deal of conjecture because the gun ownership data they claimed was not available at the time of the study.

                Forbes also put forth an updated correlation of the Hemeway-Miller study using actual gun-ownership data that says 92% of gun homicides cannot be explained simply by gun availability, although it does seem rather self-explanatory that at the moment of each gun homicide a gun was available.  Statistics, eh?             

                Here’s another fun thing to think about while you’re picking the lint out of your navel: according to The National Research Council the United States does lead most nations annually in the rate of non-gun homicides. Google the FBI stats on murders by knives and hammers if you want to lay awake nights. 

                If we’re going to have a discussion then let’s be honest and use real facts, and for goodness sakes, listen to each other even if it makes your blood boil. Don’t tell me how swell things are in Australia and Norway and we won’t tell you how great they are in Switzerland or Israel.

                The mass shootings I care about stopping the most are the ones occurring here in the U.S. of A. I don’t know what’s going on for sure in other countries cultures. I can barely understand what is going on in this one most of the time.

                Here’s one last set of statistics: In 2011 according to something I saw last week that I forgot to document (sorry if you dispute it) we passed the tipping point in the U.S. wherein over 50% of the country officially had cell phones. I can only imagine what the percentage is today.

Cell phones are great for a lot of stuff. Not so great for other stuff.  I don’t know if anyone knows the number but a huge percentage of us are addicted to social media on our phones.  Fun stuff. Also a terrific platform making it impossible to escape bullying, political vitriol, gossip, rumors, lies, truths you’d have been better off not knowing and other subtle and not-so-subtle stressors.

For those of you who follow my stuff, two weeks ago I documented (assuming my mass shooting timeline is right because I believe it) 30 mass shootings in the last 19 years corresponding to the introduction of violent video games with five mass shootings in the previous 50 years. Of those 30 21^st century (for the most part) shootings 23 of them occurred after the 2011 cell phone majority threshold. Twenty three. Seven years.

Not sure how many cell phones or what social media platforms there are in Australia or Norway but sure, we can keep blaming guns and only guns because cell phones don’t kill people, people kill…hey wait a minute.

But you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

So if the left would please listen to the right for just a second because, believe it or not, our opinions count too even though we don’t wear pink hats with kitty ears on them or watch as much CNN, we don’t think any number of laws will solve “America’s gun problem,” mostly because we don’t think there’s a gun problem no matter how mad that makes the left.

Our solution tends more toward preparedness in lieu of changing reality. Start with taking down those ridiculous “gun free zone” targets. Yes indeed, we are in favor of fewer school nutritionists and extra vice principals and administrators and instead put a few armed retired military or police officers on every high school campus in America and put up signs that let the Dylan’s, Klebold’s and Cruz’s of the world know that if they come in the door with a gun they are likely to leave on a stretcher.

If there are teachers who wish to undergo training and carry or safe a weapon in their classrooms, please, let them.  Way more effective than a can of corn or a thrown book at stopping a sick kid with a gun.

And oh my goodness, save the “it’s not a Hollywood movie, what about kids in the crossfire,” argument for when you lefties are hanging out on your own talking about how crazy we conservatives are. At least there would be bullets flying in the general direction of the crazy bastard shooting up your local high school. Don’t spill your wine.

I raised ultra-fine kids too and I have a grandchild and more coming some day and that is my belief as a patriarch in my little tribe and whether you like it or not I am entitled to my opinion.