{"id":14464,"date":"2023-06-26T03:12:43","date_gmt":"2023-06-26T08:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=14464"},"modified":"2023-06-26T03:12:47","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T08:12:47","slug":"selective-stats-tell-starkly-different-stories-about-shootings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=14464","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Selective stats&#8217; tell &#8216;starkly different stories about shootings&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As gun violence has spiked across the country, Republicans have pointed to the steady stream of shootings in Democratic-controlled cities such as Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis to argue that strict gun laws are not the main driver of mayhem.\u00a0\u00a0<br>In response, Democrats and their supporters have tried to turn the tables on the GOP by noting that gun violence is highest in Republican states:\u00a0\u201cGun Violence Worse in Red States. It\u2019s Not Even Close,\u201d\u00a0a headline in Politico proclaimed;\u00a0\u00a0\u201cRed States Have Higher Gun Death Rates Than Blue States,\u201d\u00a0Forbes reported.\u00a0<br>The conflicting storylines underscore how various data sets and definitions can be used to politicize and spin the problem of violent crime in the U.S., proving again Mark Twain\u2019s caution about \u201clies, damned lies and statistics.\u201d Depending on the framing, accurate sets of numbers can be assembled to tell starkly different stories about mass shootings, school shootings, and the overall correlation between gun ownership and gun violence.\u00a0<br>\u201cYou have two problems with these discussions,\u201d noted Carl Moody, an economics professor at the College of William &amp; Mary. \u201cEven if you are going to look at one year for state data, you have to be very careful that the results don\u2019t depend on the particular year that you pick. In addition, states don\u2019t enforce the laws, local governments enforce them\u201d \u2013 meaning success or failure in law enforcement lies with the latter.\u00a0<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wnd.com\/2023\/06\/selective-stats-tell-starkly-different-stories-shootings\/\">Wnd<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As gun violence has spiked across the country, Republicans have pointed to the steady stream of shootings in Democratic-controlled cities such as Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis to argue that strict gun laws are not the main driver of mayhem.\u00a0\u00a0In response, Democrats and their supporters have tried to turn the tables on the GOP by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3060,9082,1959,3206],"class_list":["post-14464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-gun-violence","tag-politicization","tag-surge","tag-violent-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14464"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14466,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14464\/revisions\/14466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}