Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. -- MaxedOutMama

I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. -- Kim du Toit

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.-- Moshe Ben-David

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. -- Sultan Knish

All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war. -- Billy Beck

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Cherry-Picking

Or just plain lying.

First, read SayUncle's Quote of the Day.

Then, read Joe Huffman's Quote of the Day.

Then, read the article Joe's QotD comes from.

The specific bit I'd like to point out from an article ostensibly about the accidental death of an eight-year-old is this:
Data collected by the Centre For Disease Control And Prevention shows that on an average day, three American children die in gun accidents or suicides.
(Emphasis mine.)

Are they intimating here that young Christopher Bizilj intentionally shot himself?

I went to the CDC's WISQARS site to check on their statistics.  Let's stipulate that "children" are 17 years old or younger.  Accidental deaths by firearm for children up through 17 years of age for the year 2007 (latest data available):  112.  Suicide by firearm for children up through 17 years of age for the same year:  325.  Combined, 437.

Four hundred thirty-seven divided by three hundred sixty-five is (carry the one):  not quite 1.2 per day.

Not three (3).  Not two (2).  One point two.

And to get THAT number, they have to combine accidents AND SUICIDES, where suicides represent THREE QUARTERS of the total.

I have to ask again:  The real numbers are bad enough - why must they inflate them?

(Edited to add)  More of the same here:
Meanwhile, the shootings continue – more than 30,000 deaths a year, most of them individual killings that are barely reported,
That's because more than half of them are suicides, by definition "individual killings" that don't merit much reporting seeing that the US is firmly in the middle-of-the-road for suicide rates, and at the lower-end for high GDP nations.

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