ABC's If I Only Had a Gun

[warpedskydiver 0]

Dr. Bordson pointed out that ABC 20/20 had a piece of anti gun propaganda badly disguised as a news piece which aired last week.

Here is another review of how much a disservice was done to the American populace

http://backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/2009/04/13/thumbs-up-for-%E2%80%9C60-minutes%E2%80%9D-thumbs-down-for-%E2%80%9C2020%E2%80%9D/

At least 60 Minutes did show both sides.

[marks2065 0]

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Dr. Bordson pointed out that ABC 20/20 had a piece of anti gun propaganda badly disguised as a news piece which aired last week.

Here is another review of how much a disservice was done to the American populace

http://backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/2009/04/13/thumbs-up-for-%E2%80%9C60-minutes%E2%80%9D-thumbs-down-for-%E2%80%9C2020%E2%80%9D/

At least 60 Minutes did show both sides.

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Just goes to show how bad the lournalism has gotten and how hard it is to believe what they report. Most of the media is used to promote an agenda instead of reporting the news. The news should be reported no matter what your views are and shouldn't be slanted to promote the stations views.

[rehmwa 2]

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Just goes to show how bad the lournalism has gotten

I agree - bad lournalism is a complete drain on the rest of tociety.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[christelsabine 1]

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[JohnRich 4]

Good article.

I kept waiting for the show to offer the balance from the other side of the story. Surely it will come in the 2nd half hour, right? Nope. I heard only one tiny sentence out of the entire hour that represented the pro-gun viewpoint. That's it.

Hatchet job is the correct term. In one little hour, they've managed to resurrect a whole host of anti-gun lies, and perpetrate them upon an ignorant public once again, eager to believe that everything they hear on TV must be true.

In addition to intentionally setting up the self defense experiment to fail, here's a few more items I can remember.

There was the "30,000 gun deaths per year" lie, without bothering to explain that over half of those are suicides, which won't be stopped by any gun control.

There was the lie that cops train for months to learn how to shoot guns in stressful situations.

They showed a convenience store holdup, in which the robber and clerk exchanged 14 shots, without hitting each other, trying to demonstrate how useless it is for citizens to try and defend themselves. What they didn't mention was the thousands of such incidents that occur every year where clerks DO successfully defend themselves.

They told the story of a homeowner who heard a noise in his home in the dark, grabbed his gun, and accidentally shot his wife, thinking it was a burglar. What they didn't say, just like the store clerks, was that thousands of people successfully defend themselves from break-ins every year.

They destroyed any guise of journalistic integrity they might have had.

The piece must have been produced by the Brady bunch themselves.

ABC can kiss my ass.

[Capt.Slog 0]

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There was the "30,000 gun deaths per year" lie, without bothering to explain that over half of those are suicides, which won't be stopped by any gun control.

.

Are you now claiming that suicides don't die?

[rushmc 23]

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There was the "30,000 gun deaths per year" lie, without bothering to explain that over half of those are suicides, which won't be stopped by any gun control.

.

Are you now claiming that suicides don't die?

you really are kallend arent you!

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[warpedskydiver 0]

Did you have any doubt?

Who among us would stoop to masquerade as someone else?

[rushmc 23]

ABC and CBS are now in seeing who can be the best bottom feeder

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[JohnRich 4]

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...trying to demonstrate how useless it is for citizens to try and defend themselves.

News:

Robbery suspect killed

A robber who walked into the Columbia downtown Alcoholics Anonymous center, pulled out a gun and demanded money was killed in a burst of gunfire from an AA visitor’s gun, police said.

“Gimme what you got,” witnesses quoted the robber as saying when he entered the AA building about 10:48 p.m. Saturday. They said he brandished a .25-caliber handgun.

At that point, as one AA visitor dropped something on the floor — possibly his wallet — another AA visitor pulled out his own pistol and shot the robber “multiple times,” police said.

Columbia police reported that an 18-year-old man who attempted an armed robbery of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting was shot and killed by someone in the meeting who police say carried a legally concealed handgun. The AA visitor who fired his weapon and killed the suspect had a concealed weapons permit, police said.

This is the second time in five weeks that a person with a concealed weapons permit has killed a person in the Midlands.

Source: http://www.thestate.com/154/story/747998.html

Take THAT, ABC!

[Butters 0]

Another problem with using the number of gun deaths per year (besides suicides) is that it also counts criminals ...

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[SkyDekker 1,465]

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Hatchet job is the correct term. In one little hour, they've managed to resurrect a whole host of anti-gun lies, and perpetrate them upon an ignorant public once again, eager to believe that everything they hear on TV must be true.

First, 20/20 is not the news.

Second, it is not their fault that the public is ignorant. Your anger shouldn't be aimed at them, it should be aimed at an education system that allowes the public to be stupid.

[Capt.Slog 0]

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There was the "30,000 gun deaths per year" lie, without bothering to explain that over half of those are suicides, which won't be stopped by any gun control.

.

Are you now claiming that suicides don't die?

you really are kallend arent you!

According to the data reported by the feds to the UN, over 30,000 people die in the US annually due to gunshot.

So anyone who bothers to check can see that reporting 30,000 annual firearms deaths is NOT a lie, contrary to JR's claim.

[TomAiello 26]

Do you believe that people who commit suicide with firearms would be unable to kill themselves in the absence of firearms?

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[Capt.Slog 0]

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Do you believe that people who commit suicide with firearms would be unable to kill themselves in the absence of firearms?

Not only irrelevant to JR's comment about a lie, but also my (and your) opinion on other people's likely reaction to a hypothetical situation is irrelevant too.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Hatchet job is the correct term. In one little hour, they've managed to resurrect a whole host of anti-gun lies, and perpetrate them upon an ignorant public once again, eager to believe that everything they hear on TV must be true.

First, 20/20 is not the news.

Second, it is not their fault that the public is ignorant. Your anger shouldn't be aimed at them, it should be aimed at an education system that allowes the public to be stupid.

Wow - nice enabling there. Journalistic integrity is only necessary when the viewers are smart enough?

Also note that ABC considers it part of their news division:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020

[billvon 2,998]

>Do you believe that people who commit suicide with firearms would be
>unable to kill themselves in the absence of firearms?

Most people who kill themselves with guns would be unwilling to kill themselves in a slower, more difficult, less certain and more painful manner. Indeed, homes with guns see significantly higher suicide rates than homes without guns. From the Journal of Trauma:

========================
Household Firearm Ownership and Rates of Suicide Across the 50 United States.

Original Articles
Journal of Trauma-Injury Infection & Critical Care. 62(4):1029-1035, April 2007.
Miller, Matthew MD, ScD; Lippmann, Steven J. BS; Azrael, Deborah PhD; Hemenway, David PhD

Abstract:
Background: The current investigation explores the association between rates of household firearm ownership and suicide across the 50 states.

. . .

Conclusion: Household firearm ownership levels are strongly associated with higher rates of suicide, consistent with the hypothesis that the availability of lethal means increases the rate of completed suicide.
========================

From the NEJM:

===========
The New England Journal of Medicine
September 4, 2008

Guns and Suicide in the United States
Matthew Miller, M.D., Sc.D., and David Hemenway, Ph.D.

. . .

In our experience, many clinicians who care deeply about preventing suicide are unfamiliar with the evidence linking guns to suicide. Too many seem to believe that anyone who is serious enough about suicide to use a gun would find an equally effective means if a gun were not available. This belief is invalid.
===========

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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Another problem with using the number of gun deaths per year (besides suicides) is that it also counts criminals ...

There are about 600 justifiable homicides a year, about 60% from the police and 40% from private citizens.

[kelpdiver 2]

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>Do you believe that people who commit suicide with firearms would be
>unable to kill themselves in the absence of firearms?

Most people who kill themselves with guns would be unwilling to kill themselves in a slower, more difficult, less certain and more painful manner. Indeed, homes with guns see significantly higher suicide rates than homes without guns. From the Journal of Trauma:

...
In our experience, many clinicians who care deeply about preventing suicide are unfamiliar with the evidence linking guns to suicide. Too many seem to believe that anyone who is serious enough about suicide to use a gun would find an equally effective means if a gun were not available. This belief is invalid.
===========

You forgot the one that showed that buying a gun dramatically increased the odds you would kill yourself shortly after.

Duh. That's why you bought the gun.

The problem, Bill, is that the assertion falls apart when examining other countries, starting with Japan, which has no guns and a significantly higher suicide rate. Considering Canada, a culture far more similar to our own:


http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/147/3/342
Guns and suicide: possible effects of some specific legislation

CL Rich, JG Young, RC Fowler, J Wagner and NA Black
Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego.

The authors describe suicide rates in Toronto and Ontario and methods used for suicide in Toronto for 5 years before and after enactment of Canadian gun control legislation in 1978. They also present data from San Diego, Calif., where state laws attempt to limit access to guns by certain psychiatric patients. Both sets of data indicate that gun control legislation may have led to decreased use of guns by suicidal men, but the difference was apparently offset by an increase in suicide by leaping. In the case of men using guns for suicide, these data support a hypothesis of substitution of suicide method.

[billvon 2,998]

>The problem, Bill, is that the assertion falls apart when examining other
>countries, starting with Japan, which has no guns and a significantly higher
>suicide rate.

There are, of course, a great many factors (cultural, medical, emotional) that contribute to suicide, and these differ from place to place. Guns just make it easier, and thus people who would otherwise not kill themselves will do so if a gun is available.

[Butters 0]

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Another problem with using the number of gun deaths per year (besides suicides) is that it also counts criminals ...

There are about 600 justifiable homicides a year, about 60% from the police and 40% from private citizens.

30,000 Total Gun Deaths - (15,000 Suicides + 600 Justifiable Homicides) = 14,400 Unjustifiable Homicides

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[billvon 2,998]

>30,000 Total Gun Deaths - (15,000 Suicides + 600 Justifiable Homicides) =
>14,400 Unjustifiable Homicides

Suicides are not justifiable either. Suicide by gun is illegal everywhere in the US.

[kelpdiver 2]

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There are, of course, a great many factors (cultural, medical, emotional) that contribute to suicide, and these differ from place to place. Guns just make it easier, and thus people who would otherwise not kill themselves will do so if a gun is available.

I provided the counter study to that assertion. It's quite clear on the conclusion, whereas the snips you print merely indicate that people in the US use guns to kill themselves, without attention what would happen in their absence.

[JohnRich 4]

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it is not their fault that the public is ignorant. Your anger shouldn't be aimed at them, it should be aimed at an education system that allowes the public to be stupid.

ABC is contributing to making the public ignorant by feeding them lies in disguise as facts.

[JohnRich 4]

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According to the data reported by the feds to the UN, over 30,000 people die in the US annually due to gunshot. So nyone who bothers to check can see that reporting 30,000 annual firearms deaths is NOT a lie, contrary to JR's claim.

Context, kallend.

In the context of a show about accidental gun fatalities and gun crime, suicides are not part of the equation. To include suicide statistics in a show about accidents and crime is a lie. It's like including hang gliding fatalities in a show about skydiving safety.

It was cute the way you started out changing your character with this new personae. You did pretty good at it for a while. But then, over time, you reverted back to your same old habits of obfuscation and deception, as we see here. It's too bad. You had a chance to make something better of your online character, but you ended up playing the same old tired games. I guess that's really your true personality, and you just can't help yourself.