Gun prohibitionists can�t be confused by facts
 

http://www.examiner.com/x-4525-Seattle-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2010m2d23-Gun-prohibitionists-cant-be-confused-by-facts?cid=exrss-Seattle-Gun-Rights-Examiner

Listening to the 4 o�clock hour of Monday�s John Carlson show on KVI with Ralph Fascitelli, president of Washington CeaseFire, was an exercise in verbal bait-and-switch, because what started as a discussion of the new law on firearms in national parks soon began bouncing around to homicides in Seattle and Washington State, gun shows and all kinds of unrelated issues.

Readers will recall that I discussed the parks-and-guns issue here Monday, with a link to a distorted KING 5 News story on the issue that included a short interview with me on Sunday.

The purpose of Fascitelli�s darting around on the issue of gun rights was a clumsily-veiled attempt to obfuscate the issue. KVI listeners were having none of it, and Carlson � ever the gentleman � passed up a couple of opportunities to go for Fascitelli�s jugular. It is a pity that KVI has yet to offer podcasts of its programs under its latest �Freedom 570� incarnation because this one-hour segment was one that the public, and not just gun rights activists, should hear just to understand how the mind of an anti-gunner works. (You can see Fascitelli in action during the public hearing on banning so-called "assault weapons" in the video below.)


During Monday's chat on KVI, Fascitelli went from discussing how bad an idea guns in parks will be to Seattle�s homicide statistics, which he grossly exaggerated. For a city of its size, Seattle has a remarkably low homicide rate, and a high percentage of legally-armed citizens with concealed pistol licenses. Last year, there were 26 homicides in Seattle, including the slaying of cop-killer Maurice Clemmons on Dec. 4. Earlier this year I wrote about the low number of Seattle homicides here and provided a link to a story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer�s on-line edition that detailed 21 of those killings, 14 of which involved firearms.


According to the FBI�s Uniform Crime Report, the years between 2000 and 2009 (Pay attention to "Table 5" data as you go from year to year) produced a total of 1,693 murders in Washington, and not all of them were with firearms. Different figures are available from the Washington State Department of Health that cover the years from 2000 to 2008, and they show 1,187 total firearm homicides.
The latest total casualty figures I could find for Iraq and Afghanistan is 5,346 American dead. This comes from icasualties.org and it is probably not up to date. - Seattle Gun Rights Examiner


Monday on Carlson�s show, Ralph was at it again, however, throwing a big smoke screen by claiming that in this state, we have had more people die from �gun violence� in the last decade than have died on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. Under prodding from Carlson, Fascitelli acknowledged that his estimate (he never provided figures as I did here to refute his asinine claim following a hearing in Olympia on so-called �assault weapons�) included suicide figures. That�s what anti-gun extremists do, they lump together a bunch of numbers to juice up their argument.

Well, the other day the editorial writers at the Charlotte, WV Daily Mail evidently had enough of this nonsense. Reacting to the Brady Campaign�s annual �score card� of states, which gives high scores to the states with the most restrictive gun laws, and low scores to states that lack what the Brady bunch believes are �sensible� gun laws.


Of the 21 homicides detailed...14 were shot to death, five were stabbed and two died in physical altercations. - Seattle Post-Intelligencer


There�s just one problem with this scoring system, as revealed by the Daily Mail. It does not reflect the true crime picture. For example, Brady gave California the highest score, yet the state has a homicide rate of 5.83 per 100,000 people, according to FBI statistics for 2008, the year for which the most recent data is available. West Virginia, on the other hand, was in the Brady basement, yet it had only 3.03 murders per 100,000 people.

Another revealing fact: 69 percent of California�s murders involved firearms, while 60 percent of West Virginia�s slayings were gun-related.


In June 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional the District of Columbia's draconian gun laws. Last year, the nation's capital enjoyed the lowest number of homicides in 43 years. Guns are not the root of the problem. Criminals are. - Charlotte, WV Daily Mail


The newspaper noted that West Virginia was also lumped in with North Dakota, which had the nation�s lowest homicide rate at 0.47 murders per 100,000 citizens, and none of the three killing that occurred in that state in 2008 involved a gun. To its credit, the Daily Mail also reported that, �Now, many states with low scores on gun control had higher homicide rates than California, and higher percentages of gun-related homicides.�

However, hitting the bottom in the Brady scoring was Utah, with a pitiful 1.5 homicides per 100,000 people, and only 46 percent of those involved firearms.

The punch line: In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Washington, D.C.�s �draconian� handgun ban. �Last year,� the newspaper noted, �the nation�s capital enjoyed the lowest number of homicides in 43 years. Guns are not the root of the problem. Criminals are.�