Monday, December 24, 2012

Beyond the media veil on gun violence

We really shouldn't have to have this conversation on the eve of Christmas, but...our beloved media (and by 'beloved', I of course mean loathsome) not only have salivated over this opportunity ever since the first shots rang out at Sandy Hook Elementary, but anything to detract from Christmas is an added plus in their book as well. So, let's take a stroll down the incessant road of faux journalism over the weekend...then perhaps we can venture beyond...

Debunking Piers

Piers Morgan banks on Americans being ill-educated about most things, and the latest tragedy in Connecticut and the ensuing call for more gun control is no exception. However, in all of his self-agrandizement, Piers again falls short in the realm of reality...

NRO: According to the Mail, Britons suffer 1,158,957 violent crimes per year, which works out at 2,034 per 100,000 residents. By contrast the number in notoriously violent South Africa is 1,609 per 100,000.

The U.S., meanwhile, has a rate of 466 crimes per 100,000 residents, which is lower than France’s, at 504; Finland’s, at 738; Sweden’s, at 1123; and Canada’s at 935.

As a result of both the different ways in which these statistics are collected and of varying definitions of “violent crime,” there will naturally be some discrepancies between countries. Enough to account for a 5:1 difference between Britain and the United States, though? I rather think not.


Furthermore, the deceit that Morgan, Amanpour and many others in the media project onto low information viewers (of whom are also, unfortunately, voters) utterly ignores the concrete statistics...

theRightScoop: Here are two charts. The first one is strictly homicides by firearm:


Notice that gun homicides were around 50 in 1996 the year before they banned handguns. And then notice how it never really goes below that except in 2009 and 2010. Every other year it’s at least the same or higher. Sometimes much higher. It did sky rocket after the handgun ban but it begins to descend after 2002. But I say forget about that. There still is no trend after 1996 that shows homicides by firearms decreasing below what they were before they banned handguns.

The second chart is all homicides:


Here again, notice that the homicide rate is around 600 when they banned handguns and how it never goes below 600. In fact in most years it’s much higher, just like the chart above.

If anything neither of these charts show that banning handguns has any affect on reducing homicides by firearm or by other weaponry. If anything you could make an argument that banning handguns increased it.

...instead they rely on sheer emotion, which is what these guys constantly accuse responsible Americans (gun-owning or not) of basing any and all of their arguments on. Maddening, isn't it?

And to that end, it's sometimes just easier to put it in Nuge terms...



...another excellent point that I'll use to segue into the next portion of this post...

The Gregory Contradiction

This interview is a little lengthy (and a LOT nauseating), so view at your own leisure. Wayne LaPierre once again holds his own against a liberal media mogul, but notice throughout this interrogation...err, I mean interview...how Gregory equates 'control' to 'security', as the host grows ever more frustrated that LaPierre won't concede to being boxed into Gregory's predeterminations on gun control, particularly while attempting to position LaPierre as contradictory...



It's quite peculiar that the real contradiction resides not in the guest, but in the NBC host. How ironic that Gregory appears so adamantly against actually (as opposed to theoretically) securing our schools with a policing presence, particularly when his own children are protected in just such a manner!

TheWeeklyStandard: David Gregory mocked the NRA's Wayne LaPierre for proposing that armed guards be at every school in America. But the NBC host seems to have no problem with armed guards protecting his kids everyday where they attend school in Washington, D.C.

The Gregory children go to school with the children of President Barack Obama, according to the Washington Post. That school is the co-ed Quaker school Sidwell Friends.

According to a scan of the school's online faculty-staff directory, Sidwell has a security department made up of at least 11 people. Many of those are police officers, who are presumably armed.

Moreover, with the Obama kids in attendance, there is a secret service presence at the institution, as well.

I believe that irony just transformed into another illustrative term: hypocrisy. But then again, it's always been...

Whether with Morgan or with Gregory, or with far too many for that matter, these liberal media elites continue to foster an apparatchik mentality that serves to propagandize the one-sided, closed-minded opinion of a Leftist administration who seeks more and more control over its citizenry, attacking liberty on every front, while stifling any and all opposition. I sometimes wonder how these same media propagandists might feel if the unending assault arose against the freedom provided them in that very first amendment? Eh, they'll feel it when their usefulness is one day used up, and they're no longer a necessity. But until then, they'll continue to further an agenda to disarm and strip more liberties from the average American.