Friday, February 1, 2013

Facts, Guns and Spin – What a Gun Control Advocate Learned Today

It all started with a statistic. While reporting on the senseless murder of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton in Chicago, a NBC Nightly News reporter referred to a Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence memo showing there had been over 200 violent gun acts in our country before 6:00 p.m. that day alone. Indignantly, albeit to myself, I said, “if the media would report statistics like that every day, we could get meaningful gun legislation passed in this country.”

However, statistics are fickle comrades. Just when you think you have uncovered the data needed to win an argument, your opponent co-opts the same fact and uses it to his advantage. Maybe, just maybe, this would be different.

Hadiya’s death and the Newtown tragedy are abominations that have, for good reason, fanned the flames of discord about guns in America. In full disclosure, I support measures that make it harder to obtain guns and the outlawing of some weapons, but don’t stop reading quite yet. I came across a few interesting additional facts as I researched the stat that stoked my outrage I think those on both sides of the debate should consider.

Let me start with the following found on the Brady Campaign website.

On an average day in America:
  • 223 adults are shot in murders, assaults, suicides, accidents, and police intervention

  • 47 children and teens are shot

  • 87 people die from gun violence, 33 of them murdered

  • 8 children and teens die from gun violence

  • 183 people are shot, but survive their gun injuries

  • 38 children and teens are shot, but survive their gun injuries

Painfully shocking, I know. Yet, one should not take these numbers alone. With the help of my friend Art Stanton, I found the National Vital Statistics Report, Preliminary 2011 Statistics from the CDC published October 2012 and calculated these others.

On an average day in America:
  • There are 2 accidental gun discharge deaths

  • There are 54 suicides by firearm and 50 suicides by other means (a total of 38,285 suicides per year!)
There are these other non-gun related tragedies
  • 73 people die as a result of a fall

  • 92 people die due to accidental poisoning

  • 72 people die an alcohol related death
Then, this tidbit on FactCheck.org, “The United States has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world — by far. And it has the highest rate of homicides among advanced countries. And yet, gun crime has been declining in the U.S. Firearm murders are down, as is overall gun violence – even as gun ownership increases.” Feeling my righteous anger receding, I thought of the precious lives lost in school and young Hadiya cut down in Chicago. There is something to be learned from these tragedies. They were unacceptable acts of murder all too easily brought about by people wielding weapons that cause instantaneous death. We should outlaw weaponry like assault rifles capable of mass destruction.

Freedom is not purchased with the lives of classrooms full of children. In the end, cold hard statistics reminded me of a human element that often goes unaddressed in the call for gun control. Gun violence is, well, violent. Images of schoolhouses on lockdown are easily captured and reported. All the while, so many other tragic deaths go unnoticed. I know why we (to be read I) make such noise about gun violence, but the perspective gained by considering additional facts helped me view the issue in a way I had not before. The media should report facts like those provided by the Brady Campaign as these figures help frame the debate, but such facts need to be presented in a way that provides the broader view. And, we need to seek it out when the media fails to do so.

If you are disappointed I am not closing this piece with a sweeping opinion about guns, I am sorry. My lonely point is there are plenty of facts out there to bolster both sides of the debate. It is time we starting looking for solutions to solve the problem, not the points required to win a political argument. Let’s agree to work together to stop madmen and reprobates before they act – making it a little harder for them to arm themselves is the reasonable place to start.
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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register online essay.

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