I chose an article from Vox. Vox has been known to many as a reliable news source and has been cited by multiple politicians is the end all be all of news sources. The article which is titled America's gun problem, explained, attempts to give a large number of statistics and then links these "facts" together to form a statement (I will come to this statement later). There is also a video from Vox that accompanies the article, and I will include all of the facts and statements that they make there into this blog.
The first claim that Vox makes is that America's gun problem is completely unique compared to the rest of the developed world. They do this by comparing homicide rates between countries (in the article) and by comparing mass shooting occurrences between countries (in the video). After this claim, they then go on to claim that more guns means more death. They even show an entire chart of all of the states and shows that a larger percentage of legal gun ownership equates to more gun deaths and a chart of all of the countries that have a measurable amount of gun deaths and gun ownership. They then even go on to state that guns cause more violence and death than what guns prevent (which I have already debunked in depth in a previous article on this blog).
After these claims, German Lopez begins to go into some of the policies and restrictions of those policies from passing. The first organization that is attacked in this article is the NRA. First, they make the very true claim that crime was in fact at its peak during the 60s and 70s. Then, they claim that the NRA has changed its values based on the increase in crime and that it reacted to the new policies put in place in 1968. They claim that the perfect example of a politician being controlled by the NRA is Ted Cruz and his bacon cooking on a machine gun (they claim that it is a machine gun, but it is actually a perfectly legal ar 15 variant). The final claims that they make are that other countries have had huge success with gun control and that mass shootings are only a very small percentage of actual gun deaths.
My previous entry into this blog was very pro-gun. This time... nothing has really changed. All of the claims and statistics in this article and video are all true in some ways, but Vox uses the data in an abusive way to further push their agenda. The first example of this is when they compare statistics across countries when it comes to gun homicides. They "forget" to mention the fact that the term homicide is completely different across different countries. That is why comparing data between countries should be done very carefully to account for the fact that legal definitions of crimes differ across regions. The second example of this is when they draw a direct line between legal firearm ownership and gun deaths. Once again, their statistics are correct, but they forget to mention the fact that most of these gun deaths are not due to legal firearm ownership. The reality is that 80% of these homicides in the US are actually caused by drugs and gang violence. Last time I checked, these were illegal activities where approximately 98% of the guns are illegally owned.
The last claim made by Vox that is backed up by statistics in the incorrect sense is when they claim that other countries have had large victories whenever they enacted gun control. The data that they show you in the article and the video are completely correct. However, their interpretation of the data is misleading. The graph that they provide of Australian suicides clearly shows that the derivative of the graph levels of to an almost zero value after the gun buyback program. This means that the new regulations in place are actually slowing the decline in firearm suicides and homicides. This phenomenon is actually seen in every single country that has every enacted gun control. Even worse, however, is the fact that some of the countries that enact gun control actually see a rise in gun homicides and suicides. None of this factual information is shown in the article or in the video.
Overall, the Vox article was factually correct in terms of the statistics. The only gripe that I have is that they use the statistics and warp it to fit their liberal agenda. This perversion of data is seen throughout the entire mainstream media. It is just completely unavoidable to find a political news article that doesn't have some version of a leftist agenda routed into it. And this is why it is important to look at the actual facts in a sterile environment without any sort of agenda plaguing it. Left or right for that matter. Only then can you come to the conclusion that gun control is not the answer to our problems and that more guns does not directly equal more gun death and crime.
America's gun problem, explained
The state of gun violence in the US, explained in 18 charts
The first claim that Vox makes is that America's gun problem is completely unique compared to the rest of the developed world. They do this by comparing homicide rates between countries (in the article) and by comparing mass shooting occurrences between countries (in the video). After this claim, they then go on to claim that more guns means more death. They even show an entire chart of all of the states and shows that a larger percentage of legal gun ownership equates to more gun deaths and a chart of all of the countries that have a measurable amount of gun deaths and gun ownership. They then even go on to state that guns cause more violence and death than what guns prevent (which I have already debunked in depth in a previous article on this blog).
After these claims, German Lopez begins to go into some of the policies and restrictions of those policies from passing. The first organization that is attacked in this article is the NRA. First, they make the very true claim that crime was in fact at its peak during the 60s and 70s. Then, they claim that the NRA has changed its values based on the increase in crime and that it reacted to the new policies put in place in 1968. They claim that the perfect example of a politician being controlled by the NRA is Ted Cruz and his bacon cooking on a machine gun (they claim that it is a machine gun, but it is actually a perfectly legal ar 15 variant). The final claims that they make are that other countries have had huge success with gun control and that mass shootings are only a very small percentage of actual gun deaths.
My previous entry into this blog was very pro-gun. This time... nothing has really changed. All of the claims and statistics in this article and video are all true in some ways, but Vox uses the data in an abusive way to further push their agenda. The first example of this is when they compare statistics across countries when it comes to gun homicides. They "forget" to mention the fact that the term homicide is completely different across different countries. That is why comparing data between countries should be done very carefully to account for the fact that legal definitions of crimes differ across regions. The second example of this is when they draw a direct line between legal firearm ownership and gun deaths. Once again, their statistics are correct, but they forget to mention the fact that most of these gun deaths are not due to legal firearm ownership. The reality is that 80% of these homicides in the US are actually caused by drugs and gang violence. Last time I checked, these were illegal activities where approximately 98% of the guns are illegally owned.
The last claim made by Vox that is backed up by statistics in the incorrect sense is when they claim that other countries have had large victories whenever they enacted gun control. The data that they show you in the article and the video are completely correct. However, their interpretation of the data is misleading. The graph that they provide of Australian suicides clearly shows that the derivative of the graph levels of to an almost zero value after the gun buyback program. This means that the new regulations in place are actually slowing the decline in firearm suicides and homicides. This phenomenon is actually seen in every single country that has every enacted gun control. Even worse, however, is the fact that some of the countries that enact gun control actually see a rise in gun homicides and suicides. None of this factual information is shown in the article or in the video.
Overall, the Vox article was factually correct in terms of the statistics. The only gripe that I have is that they use the statistics and warp it to fit their liberal agenda. This perversion of data is seen throughout the entire mainstream media. It is just completely unavoidable to find a political news article that doesn't have some version of a leftist agenda routed into it. And this is why it is important to look at the actual facts in a sterile environment without any sort of agenda plaguing it. Left or right for that matter. Only then can you come to the conclusion that gun control is not the answer to our problems and that more guns does not directly equal more gun death and crime.
America's gun problem, explained
The state of gun violence in the US, explained in 18 charts
First of all, I want to say that I really enjoyed reading this because of the time and thoughtfulness you put into the post. Also, I like how you explain how Vox is trying to push their own ideas on the readers. That was very interesting but I am honestly not surprised.
ReplyDeleteYour analysis of the article is very thorough. I do agree that most media has political bias, so people should look at the facts ad come to their own conclusions; however, I do believe that people don't want to put in the work of analyzing the facts themselves like we do. I believe they let the news draw conclusions so they don't have too which makes them susceptible to political bias I the articles they read.
ReplyDeleteDespite our different opinions on gun control I was very impressed. In fact, I can tell you thoroughly enjoyed writing about this! Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteIt’s clear that you put a great deal of time into this. I definitely enjoyed reading and was impressed by your statistics and research-backed facts. Looks like you did your homework!
ReplyDelete