Posted on 11/18/2017 4:57:12 AM PST by marktwain
The latest weird failure of fact by proponents of a disarmed public is offset somewhat by a refreshing honesty of stated desire. The opinion piece is in a university paper, written by a student, so they deserve a gentler treatment than a professional journalist.
Right or wrong, the differentiation between editorials and factual articles has been mostly destroyed in the last 20 years. The article is from the University Press at Lamar University. Lamar University is located near Houston, in Texas.
Unfortunately, the conversation about gun control only arises after an incident where several people are killed at one time. But what about the 90 people who the Center for Disease Control states are killed on average each day in the U.S. (excluding suicides)? Even if we take mass shootings out of the equation, Everytown Research found more than 10,000 people still die each year from gun deaths in this country.
In the immediate aftermath of such events, talk about banning assault rifles is also sensationalized, but most gun deaths in the U.S. actually occur by handguns.
The writer got basic facts wrong, claiming that “The CDC reports 90 people each day are killed by guns (excluding suicides)”. Simple math shows that 90 x 365 = 32,850 deaths a year.
For 2015, there were 36,252 deaths associated with firearms, a bit more than the figure claimed. But of those deaths, 22,018 of them were suicides, leaving 14,234 deaths for homicides, accidents, and unknown intentions. Perhaps due to a simple math error, the number of non-suicidal deaths inflicted with a gun were increased from 39 a day (in 2015) to 90 a day.
I am thankful to the writer for stating one of the primary purposes of
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
They think that as soon as they state a number their argument becomes irrefutable. And they usually pull a number out of the air. At least this dumb kid cited a source.
“People who push for infringements on the exercise of Second Amendment rights often have difficulty with simple math.”
They flat out lie even more often.
L
Minor factual correction. Lamar University is in Beaumont, TX, not Houston.
The only “gun control bill” that should be introduced is a bill authorizing the establishment of training courses in the care, feeding, grooming, and proper respect for projectile weapons of all sizes and manner of design, at the high school age level or before. A passing score on this course of study, including range safety and the elements of firing for accuracy at targets of acceptable and established designation, would be required before the sale to an individual would be permitted.
Also, with this sort of training becoming universal, as is family-focused sex education or driver’s training, the oddities and the crazy eyes would be identified and brought to the attention of someone in position of authority, a lot sooner than after they had gone on a rampage.
Problems with math are not limited to gun control. Throughout our society many college educated people in math heavy careers cannot do simple math.
Consider the field of Artificial Intelligence, Predictive Modeling, Retrospective Modeling, Analytics, and related.
Not just in climate change, but also in healthcare, in performance of computer systems themselves, people paid to be experts in math have no clue what they are doing.
There are many types of bias. Bias is a major problem in AI. The experts think they know what the answer should be. So they constantly juggle the model until the model finally comes up with the “correct” answer.
But it is worse. Many math problems are based on a numerator and a denominator. There are two classes of such math problems.
1) Those in which the numerator is contained in the denominator... when number of green apples in the barrel is compared to all apples in the barrel
2) Those in which the numerator is not contained in the denominator...when # of green apples in the barrel is compared to # of cherries in the box.
You would be amazed the number of simple math errors of numerator and denominator made in AI.
The government can’t be trusted to not let homicidal maniacs loose on the general population. Why trust them to protect you.
Liberal math being taught is: if you’re answer is close enough you get an “A” because you tried.
I am less concerned about the mathematical errors in a gun control advocate’s argument, than I am about that person’s utter failure to understand the role of firearms in this country. Mathematical errors can always be corrected, as they were here, and errors in assumptions underlying statistics can similarly be demonstrated.
What is missing in the arguments of the gun controllers is a basic understanding of why we have the right to own firearms in this country without interference from the government. The Second Amendment guarantees this pre-existing right, and it does so for a very simple reason: the people who drafted and ratified it had just fought a revolution against what was then the world’s most powerful empire. They understood from personal experience, as well as historical knowledge, the nature of power, and how it corrupts people, and they wanted to be certain that the people of this country would always have in their hands the means to preserve the liberties that had recently been fought for at such a horrific cost.
Getting to the numbers related to gun crimes, there is not a single person, gun owner or gun rights advocate, or not, who is happy with the fact that there are something like 15,000 people murdered each year by other people using a firearm to do so (and I will not even deal with the issue of whether those murderers would have used other means had a firearm not been available - suffice it to say that the instrument is not the cause of these murders). However, if one takes a step back and looks at the big picture, this number is actually not as bad as we think it is. Remember, the reason we have firearms in civilian hands in this country is because the Founding Generation wished for us to have the ability to preserve our liberties. Well, against whom are we protecting our liberties? The simple answer is a tyrant, or a tyrannical regime. Let’s take a look at what a couple of tyrannical regimes did in the 20th century, in order to gauge the benefit of preventing such a regime from gaining power. The Communist regime in the Soviet Union, principally under the rule of Joseph Stalin, murdered over 20 million of its citizens for political purposes. That does not include any deaths in World War II that are attributable to the German invasion. This was just a government murdering its own people. The Communist regime in China, mainly under Mao, probably murdered about 60 million of its own citizens. The Pol Pot regime in Cambodia murdered about one-third of its roughly 6 million citizens, in only a few short years. This list could go on and on, including what the Nazis did to not only the citizens of Germany, but to those of the continent of Europe. The upshot is that tyrannical governments in the 20th century alone murdered well in excess of 100 million people. People in this country who are interested in overthrowing our government, particularly one Bill Ayers, have made mention of the fact that several tens of millions of Americans will need to be “disposed of” (i.e. murdered, by the government) in order to impose the system of government that they would like to see in this country. So, we already KNOW what is in store for us if a tyrannical regime comes to power here, based not only on history elsewhere, but on actual statements of would-be revolutionaries here.
The bottom line is that due to the very negative aspects of human nature, we are faced with two very bad, but nevertheless distinguishable, choices. Choice number one is to continue with our laws as they are, and suffer approximately 15000 murders committed by people armed with firearms each year. Choice number 2 is to somehow confiscate the approximately 400 million firearms that are held by ordinary citizens in this country (and I very, very strongly believe that such an effort - all by itself - will lead to a spasm of violence that will make 15000 murders per year seem like child’s play), and to then run the risk of a tyrannical regime coming to power and then murdering perhaps 30 million people. Again, we are not dealing with good choices here, but when I see one choice being 15000 people dying each year, and the other choice being the very real potential of 2000 times that number being murdered by our own government, I will choose to stick with the present, very regrettable, situation every single time.
As an aside, my paternal grandfather came from Russia at the very end of their revolution in the 1920s. His family, meaning my family, was rather severely victimized by the communist regime in that country during the course of the 20th century. On my mother’s side, approximately 100 family members were murdered by the Nazis in Poland. So my own family history is proof of what can happen when a tyrannical regime comes to power. Based on my intimate knowledge of those consequences, I am absolutely certain that there is no way that I will voluntarily submit to any type of confiscation of firearms. Some tyrant may, someday, murder me and/or my family, but it will not be for free this time.
Minor factual correction. Lamar University is in Beaumont, TX, not Houston.
Most people know where Houston is.
There is a third choice, which we have been pusueing:
Restore enforcement of the Second Amendment and its exercise.
We have been on that path for about 20 years. The murder rate, and murder rate with guns, (before the Ferguson effect bumped up murders in a few inner cities) dropped by half in that 20 years.
Yeah, I caught that on my read-through of the whole article on "Ammoland".
...not Free this time.
Yup!
2nd Amendment bump for later.....
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