Inconvenient stats drive gun-haters crazy, and this one will anger them more than most.
On the surface, it looks like a harmless little bar graph. It has some short lines on the left, some bulges in the middle, and a tapering off at the end. What could this simple graph do to throw gun-grabbers into a panic?
Well, from their perspective, only the worst possible outcome: It could become public knowledge.
Once it is fleshed out with a few notes to provide historical context, this harmless graph becomes kryptonite to the gun-control narrative.
Worse, if this graph goes viral, it can strip them of their strongest weapon. It robs them of public panic. And without fear, they can’t drive their agenda.
Once you look at it, the only really frightening part of this graph is how big the gap is between the perception of rising gun violence, and the objective statistics.
Our self-appointed moral superiors are telling us we need new, better and tougher gun laws. Their reasoning for such laws is because gun violence is on the rise.
I could argue from a Pew Research chart measuring gun deaths from 1993 showing they dropped by 50% since that period. But I won’t.
I won’t because that’s a fairly small sample size, and small sample sizes (as everyone knows) can be self-serving, dishonest, and can skew the facts.
Rather than 20 years, or even 50 years, let’s go waaaaaaaay back to the 1800’s, so we can’t fudge the numbers.
The “dangerous” little graph measures homicides all the way back to 1886. For historical perspective, that takes us just 5 years out from 1881’s gunfight at the OK Corral.
We’ve seen a lot of changes in society since that gunfight. We’ve become (some claim) more “civilized”, and more humane.
So, how much do you really know about historical murder rates?
If I were to list out a few historical events on that graph, how accurately could you guess the murder rate per 100,000 in each period?
JFK’s assassination? Prohibition (both beginning and end)?
How about the enactment of the first gun control laws (vs the numbers ten years before and after)?
How did “shall issue” concealed carry permits affect these numbers?
How does today rank against any of these? Or even the Wild West?
It’s all in there.
Check your answers against the graph below to see how well you did.
And if you liked making their heads spin with this graph, the data packed into this gem of an article might do even more than that.
