NRA Accepts Bob Costas’s Gun Wager

Bob Costas, famed sports announcer.

Gun dot com reported that the NRA is willing to accept Bob Costa's wager.  NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox translates the terms of the bet from athletes to civilians at large and to make his point uses the extremely faulty CDC report that came out after Newtown.  In it, DGU estimates start with 500,000 per year.  This is incredibly deceptive - even our daily commenter Greg Camp is more honest and accurate than that.

But, DGU estimates are, after all, estimates.  Where they really go off the rails is in saying that in 2008 there were 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms. This is something that can be fact-checked using FBI hard numbers.

Is it possible that Chris Cox and his people didn't do that fact checking? Or was it purposely deceptive to talk about DGU estimates of half-a-million a year and up, as well as low-balling the 2008 numbers of violent crimes committed with firearms by 25% (or whatever the difference really is - TS can tell us).

Putting the ratings matter aside, and speaking to the statistical point Cox is making, the CDC put out a study in 2013, commissioned by the president in response to the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that found that firearms are much more likely to be used in a defensive manner rather than for criminal or violent activity.

“Defensive uses of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence, although the exact number remains disputed. Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008,” stated the study.

  FBI

• Information collected regarding type of weapon showed that firearms were used in 67.7 percent of the nation’s murders, 41.3 percent of robberies, and 21.2 percent of aggravated assaults. (Weapons data are not collected for forcible rape.) (See Expanded Homicide Data Table 7, Robbery Table 3, and the Aggravated Assault Table.)

FBI

murders with firearms in 2008 = 9,528

FBI

Aggravated assaults in 2008 = 843,683 of which 21% = Aggravated Assaults with firearm = 177,173

Robberies in 2008 = 443, 563 of which 41% = robberies with firearms = 181,860

Forcible rape ion 2008 = 90,750 but for some reason it's not known how many were at gun point.

The total for murders, robberies and assaults committed with guns is 368,561.

Figuring that some of the 90,000 rapes in 2008 were done at gun point, we have about 400,000 violent crimes committed with guns, not 300,000.

Another problem with the NRA argument is what we always run into when re-hashing the DGU thing. Those estimates of DGUs, even the lower ones which were conveniently omitted in this article, include things like brandishings and shooting at animals. In order to make a fair comparison, you can't compare that number to ONLY violent crimes committed with guns, you'd have to compare the DGUs to gun crimes NOT limited to murder, robbery, assault and rape.  We'd have to include the lesser offenses too, illegal brandishings, domestic abuse involving guns that doesn't rise to the level of aggravated assault, lost and dropped guns.  In order to be really fair, we'd have to ESTIMATE how many illegal and improper uses of guns take place every year. 

In other words, when counting DGUs, the gun nuts are all inclusive.  But when counting gun crimes for comparison purposes, they have very specific criteria.

This brings us to a familiar question.  If the gun-rights movement truly had right on its side, why would it continually resort to such underhanded trickery when making its point? 

Nancy Lanza's NRA Membership Certificate - Denied by the NRA

Business Insider

Back in March, separate police reports revealed that authorities discovered NRA certificates among the Lanzas' possessions. In a sharply worded statement then, the NRA said that neither were members.

"There is no record of a member relationship between Newtown killer Adam Lanza, nor between Nancy Lanza, A. Lanza or N. Lanza with the National Rifle Association. Reporting to the contrary is reckless, false and defamatory," the statement said. According to the NRA's website, the association does not give out formal certificates for membership.

NRA Rhetoric Doesn’t Change the Facts

Pittsburgh Post Gazette

I strongly repudiate the points Ted Round makes in his Nov. 25 letter “JFK and NRA.” The National Rifle Association doesn’t promote gun violence or sell guns? News to me.

Gun makers pay the NRA handsomely to make the political landscape favorable to selling guns. By blocking every sensible gun law, the NRA ensures unrestrained gun sales with nary a background check and is directly culpable for gun proliferation and violence in America.

As for JFK being a member, many famous people are. So what? How does that sanitize the image of the NRA? Besides, the NRA was a responsible group in JFK’s time and advocated a sensible balance between gun ownership and restrictions. Today, as a vociferous minority, it is the willful scourge of America.

It’s interesting that the gun apologists are so paranoid that they worry with even the smallest gun law we will descend a slippery slope to confiscation, but the same history Mr. Round extols shows just the opposite trend — a precipitous fall from the sensible regulations of Kennedy’s day to the deplorable situation we have today.

Perhaps someday, Mr. Round will set aside his solipsistic delusions and see that America would be a much safer place without so many guns. More guns equal more shootings. Fewer guns equal fewer shootings. Simple math cannot be overturned by misguided NRA rhetoric.

AL DUERIG
Greensburg

I like this guy.  He uses some of the same ideas as I do. He says the NRA is "directly culpable for gun proliferation and violence in America," that it was "a responsible group in JFK’s time," and that it represents "a vociferous minority."

NRA Opposes Laws to Store Guns Safely - "Shame on You"

The Morning Call

Accidental shooting of children is a far larger problem than previously thought. But the NRA opposes all attempts to require safe storage and has even successfully had its congressional lackeys pass legislation that prevents the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from even studying the problem. To the NRA leadership, I say: "Shame on you."

Natalie Foster, NRA Liar, Compares Guns with Spiders and Dangerous Animals

Where was the lie, I hear you gun-rights fanatics ask?

Well, how about the whole damn thing, the entire premise of the video. Pretending that gun control folks, all or most or even a significant percentage of them, have an irrational fear of the inanimate object called gun, is about as far from the truth as you can get.

This is one of the NRA's foundation lies. And like many of its falsehoods, it has an ironic twist to it.  Gun lovers are the ones who anthropomorphize firearms, often naming them. They're the ones who feel safe and secure only when carrying their best friend.  They're also the ones who push the use of the passive voice when describing gun misuse.

By removing the blame from the human person who mishandled the gun and claiming "the gun went off," for example, they are placing a power in the gun that just isn't there.

And all the while, NRA con men and women put on that smirking face and pretend their opponents are irrationally afraid of guns.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Behind the NRA's Phony UN Conspiracy Theory About the UN Arms Treaty

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More on the Tony Makris Hitler Joke - His Show Has Been Cancelled

canoe dot ca further to our post at the time of his remarks

NBC Sports Network, a broadcast partner of the NHL, made a bold move by cancelling “Under Wild Skies”, an outdoor hunting show which recently aired an elephant being shot in the face and killed.

You might think it’s for the elephant being shot. Guess again.

The show, which is sponsored by the National Rifle Association and features NRA lobbyist Tony Makris, has been criticized for airing the elephant being shot, which was filmed in Botswana.

Makris defended his actions on an NRA news show.

“And now they’re shocked. And they said ‘But they’re so big and special and they’re smarter’. And I went, you know, Hitler would have said the same thing.”

An NBC Sports spokesman confirmed to Deadspin that the show will no longer air on their network.

“Under Wild Skies will no longer air on NBC Sports Sports Network due to the program’s close association with its host, whose recent comments comparing his critics to Hitler are outrageous and unacceptable. NBCSN will continue to air all of our other quality outdoor programming.”

Good move by NBC Sports Network, although receiving criticism for the elephant shooting should have been enough reason for its cancellation.

As I pointed out last week, Mr. Makris was doing what a lot of gun-rights people do, lying. In order to make his stupid Hitler joke, he lied about what animal-rights activists say. They DO NOT say it's all right to shoot squirrels and pigeons and it's only a problem to shoot elephants. They oppose the shooting of animals, period. But, in the gun-rights debate, it's perfectly acceptable to make shit up.

The ironic twist is truly brilliant. The show has been cancelled. I'm laughing.

More on the Fast-Talking Con Artist Colion Noir

Opposing Views

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has created a new video (below), starring YouTube star Colion Noir, to demonize the U.S. government in order to encourage African-Americans to oppose gun control.

In the video, released on YouTube, Noir claims that 30,000 Americans killed each year by guns is not actually a "gun problem," but rather a 'history problem."  

Noir does not mention that the in 2008 and 2009 gun homicide was the leading cause of death among black teens, according to AmericanProgress.org.

Instead, Noir falsely claims that the U.S. federal government "hosed us down with water, attacked us with dogs,' when in reality it was the state governments of Southern states. 

It was actually the U.S. federal government that sent troops into the South to protect the rights and lives of minorities.

The President's Daughters' School has No Armed Guards

 The Washington Post

The National Rifle Association is airing a television ad (and has on its website this four-minute video) that says the private school that President Obama’s daughters attend, Sidwell Friends School, has 11 armed guards. It doesn’t.

In fact, it has no armed guards. My Post colleague Glenn Kessler, who writes The Fact Checker column, wrote about the issue here and quoted Ellis Turner, associate head of Sidwell Friends, as saying: “Sidwell Friends security officers do not carry guns.”

Parents and students say they have never seen one either.