a "friend" posted this on a social media site

[88GT]

I think it's funny many of you guys are friends on a networking site with people you can't stand.

Mature adults can still be friends with people who hold different opinions. Though I don't expect you to know that yet.

A Timeline Of Mass Shootings In The US Since Columbine | ThinkProgress


And

Homicide, suicide, and unintentional fi - PubMed Mobile


Anyone have any facts or statistics with references to battle this blasphemy

The Socratic Method is often effective in these discussions. Make him defend his position. Better yet, make him state his position. (We are an imprecise society these days.) Then grill the hell out of him when he makes a statement. When done right, you will never need the facts. As long as the other person's position has a logical weakness, you're golden.

 

[drillsgt]

You have to be careful going by just what an abstract states. You almost have to read the entire article to find out "the rest of the story" so to speak. You notice the author only compared high income countries because if he didn't the US wouldn't be the bad guy anymore. You also have to be careful when looking at things like rates as a lot of researchers don't know how to accurately express these and when it's gun related (at least showing guns are bad) the reviewers don't seem to care. You would have to get into the real numbers to look at the difference and if it's even statistically significant etc.
There was an article in last months APHA journal stating how college students didn't want campus carry. Reading the article the research was only conducted with students at a Houston college and a Washington State college. 10% of the students on average were okay with it and 20% were against it. What wasn't said was what did the other 70% believe? If they had for instance no opinion either way then the article was a little misleading.

 

[rockhopper46038]

Heh, the type that only read one side of an argument (pick your side) aren't worth arguing or debating with because they almost never have an understanding of both sides.

I agree with you. But after reading many, many ThinkProgress articles it has become clear to me that they are the WorldNetDaily of the left. Amusing perhaps, but not thoughtful.

 

[HandyAndy]

Food for thought, here is a quote from a speech given by one of the parents of a columbine victim to congress. It was posted by several of my "friends" and reposted my myself.

The following is a portion of the transcript of a speech Darrell Scott (father of Columbine victim, Rachel Scott) gave in front of a small House subcommittee 12 years after the Columbine tragedy. In light of this week's events... well it is a goof read at any time, but so much more poignant at the moment:

"Since the dawn of creation there has been both good &evil in the hearts of men and women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or the seeds of violence. The death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher, and the other eleven children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.

"The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used.. Neither was it the NCA, the National Club Association. The true killer was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain's heart.

"In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent or defend the NRA - because I don't believe that they are responsible for my daughter's death. Therefore I do not believe that they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do with Rachel's murder I would be their strongest opponent

I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy -- it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies! Much of the blame lies here in this room. Much of the blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves. I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best.

Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
Your words are empty air.
You've stripped away our heritage,
You've outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question "Why?"
You regulate restrictive laws,
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand,
That God is what we need!

"Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, mind, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our make-up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and wreak havoc. Spiritual presences were present within our educational systems for most of our nation's history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical fact.
What has happened to us as a nation? We have refused to honor God, and in so doing, we open the doors to hatred and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbine's tragedy occurs -- politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that contribute to erode away our personal and private liberties. We do not need more restrictive laws.
Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our own hearts.

"As my son Craig lay under that table in the school library and saw his two friends murdered before his very eyes, he did not hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right! I challenge every young person in America , and around the world, to realize that on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School prayer was brought back to our schools. Do not let the many prayers offered by those students be in vain. Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your God-given right to communicate with Him.
To those of you who would point your finger at the NRA -- I give to you a sincere challenge.. Dare to examine your own heart before casting the first stone!
My daughter's death will not be in vain! The young people of this country will not allow that to happen!"
- Darrell Scott

 

[Hookeye]

My ol' lady works in a juvi detention facility.
Bout half of the kids are jerks. The other half are truly messed up.
And when they turn 18 they get released back into society.
Right now she says only 1 for sure will be a serial killer.
She says it's not a gun issue, it's a mental health issue.

Lots of F'd up people out there, but thankfully only a small % do CNN worthy nastiness.

I wonder............if we are having more crazies now than in the past. What causes these people to be insane?

Is it bad genetics at the start or some agent of damage after birth?

 

[Hookeye]

Mature adults can still be friends with people who hold different opinions. Though I don't expect you to know that yet.



The Socratic Method is often effective in these discussions. Make him defend his position. Better yet, make him state his position. (We are an imprecise society these days.) Then grill the hell out of him when he makes a statement. When done right, you will never need the facts. As long as the other person's position has a logical weakness, you're golden.

And those who try to put forth a less than logical argument, when losing the debate...........always show themselves in 8th grade name calling.

It's a sign that you've won.

But then those who recognize your victory already knew you'd win, and the same minded as the loser ignore your triumph.

Hell, they go so far as to declare you the loser.

Can't win against stupid and or evil, not in a debate/discussion anyway.

 

[AJMD429]

THIS article is a good starting point - look for the section called "Overt Mendacity", but the entire article exposes the distortion and outright FABRICATION of "data" used to support gun control.

Guns and Public Health - epidemic of violence, of pandemic of propaganda?
(link)---> GUNS AND PUBLIC HEALTH: EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE OR PANDEMIC OF PROPAGANDA?

GUNS AND PUBLIC HEALTH: EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE OR PANDEMIC OF PROPAGANDA?

I'll add some others momentarily.

 

[techres]

First Reports Evaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies for Preventing Violence: Firearms Laws

 

[AJMD429]

Other good reading on the topic (and SOURCES for the ‘data’ in my above comments):

Edgar Suter, M.D. also documents the misinformation rampant in the 'medical literature' on gun control -

> http://rkba.org/research/suter/med-lit.html

Gary Kleck, in 'Point Blank' shows clearly how within the U.S. gun control laws have backfired, and how the individual citizen with a firearm is far better able to avoid harm than one who is unarmed, armed with any other weapon, or just 'calls for help', even if the 'cooperate with the attacker'.

> http://www.amazon.com/Point-Blank-Guns-Violence-America/dp/020230762X

R.J. Rummel of Univ. Hawaii documents the genocide -

> http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

Zelman & Stevens of JPFO document specifically how genocide CANNOT happen without tough 'gun control' laws, particularly ones prohibiting 'military-style' weapons in the hands of civilians, and which often start with the seemingly-innocent step of 'registration' under the guise of attempting to control crime.

> http://www.amazon.com/Death-Gun-Control-Victim-Disarmament/dp/0964230461

It’s out of print, but Kates also wrote a book titled “Gun Control – the Liberal Skeptics Speak Out” that is a good education for those whose cultural horizons have limited their exposure to pro-gun individuals. Too often those who are pro-environment, pro-gay-rights, or just socially ‘liberal’ assume that part of the package is they have to be reflexively anti-gun. Kates has put together a collection of articles by other liberal skeptics of gun control - Restricting Handguns- The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out (link)

http://www.amazon.com/Restricting-Handguns-Liberal-Skeptics-Speak/dp/0884270343/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355618797&sr=1-1&keywords=kates+liberal+skeptics

Robert Kukla chronicled the 1968 debate over gun control, and also documented the incredible and outright fabrications coming from gun control supporters – pictures of $19 BB-guns altered to make it appear that you could purchase full-auto machineguns for $19 via mail-order, and later on, TIME magazine published a serious article showing ‘exploding cartridges’ that implied the entire cartridge exits the firearm then explodes in a victim’s body. In 2001, senators actually cited a James Bond movie as ‘evidence’ that a bullet-hole piercing an airplane fuselage would cause “explosive decompression” and put passengers at risk, when aeronautics experts, engineers, and military experts ALL agreed that even many hundreds of bullet holes in the fuselage would cause little more than an irritating whistling sound and some ear-popping. Fear-mongers said that a pilot misdirecting a bullet inside the cockpit could hit a critical instrument and “cause the plane to crash” (which I think is even likelier to happen if the terrorist doesn’t get shot – duhhhh!), yet airplane designers said there was enough redundancy in the instrument panel that a bullet would likely cause little harm, vs. the 70,000-volt ‘stun-gun’ the FAA and TSA wanted pilots to rely on (terrorists evidently don’t wear down vests).

There is so much MISINFORMATION out there that anyone who doesn’t happen to be interested enough in “firearms” to know better, will be fooled over and over into thinking some new “law” must be passed to protect them. Firearms enthusiasts who know better are dismissed as ‘gun nuts’. This would be like ignoring the input from highway engineers or the AAA Motor Club when it concerned designing exit ramps or road signage. I have yet to see Guns&Ammo devote an issue to the topic of statin use to control cholesterol, even though their readership is surely ‘personally affected’ by cardiovascular disease – yet New England Journal of Medicine has several times published a ‘theme issue’ on “gun violence”, filled with misinformation that is sometimes likely innocent, but many times obviously intended to sway their readership. Is that kind of thing not the worst kind of quackery, and an abuse of their medical credentials? How many physicians who simply have busy lives trying to help people with their medical problems, wind up being pushed to support “gun control” due to articles filled with distortions and outright fabrications of “data”...? How many of those misled physicians are going to have or take the time to dig deeper to see if NEJM was being truthful? Why would they mistrust a journal which in other areas is generally honest? Even if they do decide to ‘dig deeper’, what information resources will those physicians really come across that aren’t just opinion pieces reiterating the ‘conclusions’ NEJM published? Remember, these are non-gun people who actually believe the “gun lobby” lobbies against ‘common-sense’ gun laws, and are blissfully unaware that Smith & Wesson, Ruger, Colt, and other gun makers have CONSISTENTLY lobbied FOR such things as magazine restrictions, and other ‘features’ to be banned, in exchange for government gun contracts, or to try to thwart a competitor whose product they can have restricted.

Instead, they’ll read how a “vertical pistol grip” on a rifle allows “spray firing from the hip” and naively accept is as true, vs. anyone who has actually FIRED a rifle with a vertical pistol grip, who immediately realizes that grip style makes it HARDER to fire from the hips, and is mostly helpful when shooting precisely as in competitive target-shooting. They’ll read how “military-style assault weapons” are so very powerful, and believe it, when any ‘gun nut’ knows they are generally anemic – in the case of the .223, most states don’t even consider them powerful enough for a humane kill for deer hunting. They won’t realize what any military historian knows – that such weapons came about because strategists realized it was better to wound a couple enemy soldiers than to kill them, because it damaged morale, caused more distraction, clogged up supply-lines providing first-aid supplies, and required manpower to evacuate and treat the wounded. They won’t realize that rifles are NOT sold “without sights” because that model is inaccurate, but rather because it is so accurate that buyers will want to mount a scope on it.

In short, the non-gun-enthusiast will be exposed constantly to misinformation, some of it quite intentionally deceptive, and all designed to lead them to conclude naturally that more “gun control” is necessary and will be effective. Even the best computer will arrive at the wrong answer if given inaccurate information.

Unfortunately, for many 'activists', they care oh-so-deeply about reducing violence if it is just a matter of hopping on the politically-correct and popular bandwagon with other naive but uninformed people, and cheering on the cause of more "gun control". HOWEVER, once they start finding out that their cause celebre is actually based on false 'data' and incorrect assumptions, they lose interest yet still back tougher gun laws, but just less enthusiastically. Evidently they believe that being wrong is still ok if you're just less assertive about it. More dead innocents will result, but they can't let go of the lingering belief that gun control laws could somehow work if we just keep trying new ones, despite all the historic and contemporary and international and domestic evidence to the contrary, coming from multiple sources. Interesting how they will not believe gun control is dangerous and counterproductive because you haven’t shown them the data – but after you do so, they STILL support gun control simply because they don’t like guns and feel a need to “do something” to reduce gun violence. Gut-feeling trumping sound data from multiple-sources, in individuals who previously insisted they had facts on their side and you were the one reacting with emotion and challenged you to ‘prove’ your case – go figure.... So sometimes it is a complete waste of time to show them ‘data’ – however many hundreds of pages you show them they remain skeptical, and still resort to the magical thinking that gun laws keep people safe.

Wait a minute - if it is really about "saving innocent lives", then once you find out that 'gun control' COSTS innocent lives, is not the action of integrity to then devote your time to actively OPPOSING gun control laws...?

The whole ‘good-intentions’ thing reminds me of when I was a medical student and one of my classmates was taking care of a COPD patient on oxygen. He was talking to a tearful family who said that grandma seemed so short of breath, and wouldn't he please help her by turning up the oxygen. After all, it was just "common sense" that it would help her. He did so about 1 am, against the advice of the nurse (“...what does she know, I’m a doctor!”), and the patient went into respiratory arrest about 4 am and could not be resuscitated. If we were using the logic of "gun control advocates", we'd have just told the student thanks for trying his best, and it was just one of those tragedies we really couldn't prevent. Instead, we took the "gun lobby" approach, and cited sound data to show him how he'd overridden her 'hypoxic drive' and CAUSED her respiratory arrest.

Gun control leads to more innocent deaths, every time and every place it's been tried.

Other things can help - keeping violent criminals (instead of pot-smokers) in jail, good security protocols, and so on, but NOT "tougher gun laws". Eventually, regardless of the "law", a violent killer WILL breach whatever security is in place, and at that life-and-death moment, the only way to deal with it is instant (not a cop in another part of the building) and effective (neutralizing the killer's central nervous system) and user-friendly (easy to learn) and able to be used by the weak against the strong ('karate' doesn't help one 110-pound grandma protect herself from one or more 200-pound men, even if they are only armed with their fists). That means GUNS. Icky, scary, dangerous, noisy GUNS.

Here's just a bit more from Kate's article - the whole thing should be REQUIRED reading for any physician who wants to 'speak out on gun control'. Unfortunately most hoplophobes won’t take the time.

The first instance represents a lamentable exception to our generalization that comparisons of gun ownership and murder rates through the 1970s and 1980s find no place in the health advocacy literature.[262] Some health sages go so far as to overtly misrepresent that murder rates increased over that period, and then correlate this misrepresentation with the same period's steadily increasing gun ownership so as to lend spurious support to their more-guns-mean-more-murder shibboleth. Thus, a 1989 Report to the United States Congress by the CDC stated that "ince the early 1970s the year-to-year fluctuations in firearm availability has [sic] paralleled the numbers of homicides."[263] We leave it to the readers of (p.577)this Article to judge how a 69% increase in handgun ownership over the fifteen year period from 1974 to 1988 could honestly be described as having "paralleled" a 14.2% decrease in homicide during that same period.[264]

Understandably, the CDC Report offered no supporting reference for its claim of parallelism. However, the inventive Dr. Diane Schetky, and two equally inventive CDC writers--Gordon Smith and Henry Falk--in a separate article actually do provide purportedly supporting citations for the claim that "[h]andguns account for only 20% of the firearms in use today, but they are involved in the majority of both criminal and unintentional firearm injuries."[265] The problems with this claim are that the claim is false in every respect and that the citations are fabrications. The purpose of the claim is to exaggerate the comparative risks of handguns vis-a-vis long guns so as to fortify the cause of handgun prohibition and avoid admitting the major problem we have already addressed--that, because handguns are innately far safer than long guns, if a handgun ban caused defensive gun owners to keep loaded long guns instead (as handgun ban advocates and experts concur would be the case), thousands more might die in fatal gun accidents annually.[266]

The only citation given by either Schetky or Smith and Falk to support their claim that handguns comprise only 20% of all guns, yet are involved in 90% of gun accidents and crime, is the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports.[267] Understandably, no page citations are given, because the citations are simply falsified. As anyone familiar with the Uniform Crime Reports knows, they provide no data on gun ownership, and thus no comparative data on handgun versus long gun ownership. Nor do the Uniform Crime Reports provide data on accidents in general, thus no data on gun accidents, and thus no comparative data on the incidence of handgun accidents versus long guns accidents. Schetky, Smith, and Falk could have found data on these matters in the National Safety Council's Accident Facts, but those data would not have suited their purpose because these statistics do not support the point they sought to make.(p.578)

Furthermore, the Uniform Crime Reports give no data on the number of persons injured in gun crimes or the number of such injures in handgun crimes versus long gun crimes. They do give such data for gun murders, but even those data do not support Schetky's claim that 90% are committed with handguns.[268] Every one of the other purported statistics given by Schetky, Smith, and Falk is not only wrong, but wrong in only one particular direction. Each false statistic errs in supporting their point, whereas an accurate rendition of the statistic would not have done so. It is, of course, elementary that innocent mistakes tend to be random and to balance each other rather than all erring in favor of the position for which they are presented.

Another instance of overt mendacity involves the remarkable Dr. Sloan. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, we classified other mischaracterizations by him as gun-aversive-dyslexia. It strains even that generous category, however, to so classify an inability to accurately read and describe one's own articles. The gravamen of the Sloan two-city comparison discussed previously was that the strict 1978 Canadian gun law caused Vancouver to have less homicide than Seattle, where any responsible adult can buy a handgun.[269] But as an NRA representative pointed out in a critical letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, the authors had made no effort to determine how Canadian homicide had changed since adopting the law.[270] In fact, the homicide rate had not fallen, but rather it had risen slightly, with handgun use unchanged at about one-eighth of homicides. Sloan tried to extricate himself from this embarrassment by mendaciously asserting that the "intent of our article was not to evaluate the effect of the 1978 Canadian gun law."[271] Readers may judge for themselves how well that squares with the article's actual conclusion: "[R]estriction of access to firearms ... is associated with lower rates of homicide."[272] Health advocate readers have certainly understood the significance of the article to be that it "demonstrated the beneficial effect of [Canada's] tighter regulation" of firearms.[273]

It is misleading to suggest that, heavily politicized though it is, the anti-gun health advocacy literature commonly exhibits overt mendacity, as opposed to fraudulent misleading by half-truth and suppression of material facts. Overt (p.579)mendacity is not infrequent, however, and numerous examples will be documented in the next section and in the balance of this Article.
​

Given all the similar findings throughout Kates’ thoroughly-referenced 83-page article, it is actually understandable that a well-meaning, intelligent person could 'support' gun control, if they have been fed nothing but the distortions and outright fabrications currently typical of the "medical literature" and the mainstream news media which parrots them. However, once such misinformation is exposed and corrected, anyone who truly cares about protecting innocent lives should not only cease supporting useless, symbolic, and dangerous ‘gun control’ proposals, but in fact should vigorously and completely oppose "gun control". Real lives are at stake, so ‘compromise’ is unacceptable – there is no such thing as a ‘tradeoff between safe streets and convenience for gun owners’ – in fact, the ONLY concern should be the safe streets and stability of our society, and widespread responsible gun ownership, as ‘scary’ as it may be to non-gun-owners, facilitates both.

That’s why even if it offends some folks, I will NOT quit exposing ‘gun control’ as a dangerous fraud, and a threat to the safety of our streets and the stability of our society. It is nothing less than my duty as a physician to help protect the public health, even if it means taking a position at odds with the fashionable one.

 

[Bigtanker]

Here is a site that might give you some info you can share.

Gun Facts - Gun Control | Facts | Debunk | Myths

 

[Manan]

Guns kill people that same way pencils misspell words and spoons make people fat.

A little lite reading -> GUNS AND PUBLIC HEALTH: EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE OR PANDEMIC OF PROPAGANDA?

 

[AJMD429]

Guns kill people that same way pencils misspell words and spoons make people fat.

A little lite reading -> GUNS AND PUBLIC HEALTH: EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE OR PANDEMIC OF PROPAGANDA?

HEY GUYS - Print up a couple copies of that article and slip them inside the books on "gun control" at the local library, so the kids doing 'book reports' will get exposure to the facts, and exposure of the outright fabrication and fraud that comprises the anti-gun 'facts' on gun-control.

Do it ASAP.

Better yet - go to the section on "A Critique of Overt Mendacity" and highlight some of the scathing stuff that follows...

 

[indyrun]

A Timeline Of Mass Shootings In The US Since Columbine | ThinkProgress


And

Homicide, suicide, and unintentional fi - PubMed Mobile


Anyone have any facts or statistics with references to battle this blasphemy

Notice they ignore 9/11/2001 when 3,000 Americans were killed with 4 box cutters.