It Isn't What You Don't Know, It Is What You Know That Isn't True

For John, BLUF:  Low Information Voters have the wrong spin on firearms use.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

Mark Twain

The 10 May 2013 issue of The New Yorker has a sob story by Mr Arkadi Gerney, "Guns and My Mother".  Mr Gerney has until recently managed the coalition Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which was led by Mayors Michael Bloomberg♠ and Thomas Menino.♥

The news, for the past month, like so many others, has been filled with guns.  There was the gun that the Tsarnaev brothers used in Cambridge, where they killed a cop—perhaps in an effort to get his gun. There were guns used elsewhere, too.  In Akron, Ohio, four people were murdered, execution-style, in a basement of an apartment complex.  The next weekend, another four people were shot and killed in a different apartment complex, along with their killer, just south of Seattle.  A few days later, the crime scene was Manchester, Illinois, population two hundred and eighty-seven:  a man allegedly shot and killed the grandmother of his daughter and four other people, including a five-year-old and a one-year-old.  What happened in Manchester, in Washington state, and in Akron garnered little attention around the nation—part of what we’ve come to see as an unremarkable epidemic in which thirty-three Americans are murdered every day with guns.

According to the Pew Research Center, 56% of Americans believe gun violence has gone up in the last 20 years.  In comparison, 12% say gun crime has gone down.  Per the Pew Research Center, in 2010, compared to the 1993 peak, the gun homicide rate is down 49%.  Non-fatal violent firearm crime victimization is down 75%.  This is against overall non-fatal violent crime victimization, which is down 72%.  Gun ownership is up, or so we are told.

Very concerning, or it should be, is who is killed in gun violence.  Again going to Pew, while Caucasians make up 64.8% of our population, they represent 25% of firearm victims.  Hispanics and American Indians are about even-steven.  Asians are 5.2% of the population and 1.4% of firearms victims.  It is in the Black community, which is 12.8% of the population, has 54.6% of the firearms victims.  It would appear that there are serious social issues that need to be dealt with in certain segments of our society.  Every voter should be concerned about the larger implications of these disparities.  And, one would hope, every legislator.

Going to the Census Bureau, Table 117—Age-Adjusted Death Rates by Major Causes:  1960 to 2008, there are ten causes listed, with accidents being number 5 and suicide being number 10 (2008 data used to determine position).  Homicide is not one of the top ten.

There is no "Constitutional Right" to drive a car, and we license millions to do so.  Some drive illegally, and when they do and attract the attention of the police, we punish them.♦  In sum, several thens of thousands die each year from vehicular accidents and homicides, but, we aren't arguing that automobiles should be banned.

Did you notice in the quotation there was no mention of race?  Maybe you thought the Akron, Ohio, killings was Black on Black crime, but Seattle and a small town in Illinois?  Don't you think Caucasian?  The article author was no dummy in terms of writing.♣  Because we are using a broad brush to whitewash the issue of firearms, we are missing some important nuances and thus allowing ourselves to make unnecessary, and perhaps adverse, changes while not fixing the major issues we face.

And what about suicides and mass murders, as events?  Is anyone besides the Speaker of the Massachusetts General Court going to stand up and say that mental health needs to be on the table, now?

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Mayor Bloomberg is the prototypical Fascist Mayor of the modern era.
♥  It is The New Yorker, so Mayor Bloomberg is identified by name and Mayor Menino is identified by the city of which he is the mayor.  I am assuming this is just another Yankees slur against the Red Sox.
♦  Well, most of them.
♣  Although perhaps a dummy in terms of analysis.