DOG BITES MAN: New York Times guilty of shoddy journalism on gun story.
Plus, more scorn aimed at the Times, from gun journalist Bob Owens. “In other words, 200 permit holders were convicted of felonies out of 240,000 permit holders, or 0.0833333334-percent of NC concealed carry permit population. I would love for the New York Times to do the research and see what percentage of the NYPD, Chicago PD, Los Angeles PD, or New Orleans PD is convicted of felonies in any given year.”
Research? Where guns and the NYT are concerned, “research” means copying the latest press release from Brady or Bloomberg.
And, from SayUncle: “Of course, no expose into the Mayors Against Guns crowd, who are 45 times more likely to be a criminal than a FL permit holder.”
He’s not joking about that. “Comparatively speaking, Mayors Against Illegal Guns members are almost eight times more likely to be convicted of crimes than Florida concealed firearm license holders – but that number is based off 23 years of licenses versus four years of MAIG. Assuming the mayors had as much history as the licenses, and assuming the same trend (11 mayors convicted in four years – a sizeable assumption, but it is all the data we have to operate on), you are looking at MAIG members being over 45 times more likely to be convicted of crimes than Florida concealed firearm license holders. How funny is that?”
Related: BlackFive: Misused Gun Statistics Kill The Truth. “Did you know there is a nationwide rampage going on where crazed fanatics with concealed carry permits are slaughtering innocent citizens? Neither did I, but thankfully the NY Times is on the story. With their usual, thoroughly accurate, fact-checked, journalistic professionalism propaganda, they have concocted a faux outrage that simply doesn’t add up.”
Plus, from Robert VerBruggen:
All of these numbers are completely meaningless; in any large population, there will be some crime. The only way to see what these numbers mean is to compare concealed-carry holders to the general population. Fortunately, state-level murder data are easy to find.
North Carolina has a statewide murder rate of about 5 per 100,000. Even without counting manslaughter, that’s 25 murders committed per 100,000 North Carolinians every five years. There are about 230,000 valid concealed-carry permits in North Carolina, so by pure chance, you’d expect these folks to be responsible for nearly 60 murders over five years. And yet only ten of them committed murder or manslaughter. Instead of “rais[ing] questions,” the Times has demonstrated yet again that permit holders are more peaceful than the general population.
Oft evil will shall evil mar.