I know how you guys are sticklers for fact checking.

But not necessarily information integrity. For instance, the chart showing gun deaths compared to ownership does not tell you that the gun deaths include police shootings and self-defense.

(Side note: If you really want to cut down on accidental deaths we'd outlaw cars and swimming pools.)

Another example in this arena of information integrity was when Ms. Maddow said there was a man, "a witness to the shooting," who had a gun and it did not stop the shooting. Actually, he did NOT see the shooting. He arrived outside AFTER the shooting was over.

Now, do I believe he could have stopped 31 rapidly fired rounds had he been outside, probably not. The point is that Ms. Maddow and her show often slightly bend the information to make it say more of what they would like you to believe.

Most opinionated journalist do this. Unfortunately, I think it weakens their position/argument instead of helping it.

That said, I am for some gun control including the ban on the extended magazine as Ms. Maddow seems to be proposing.

Rob, you adding your "yeah, but's.." doesn't deminish the info's intergrity one iota... regarding ANY of your points. It was CLEARLY stated the man with the gun came in after the shooting was all over. Crystal clear he did not witness it... so what! That was in the segment. He SAID he was ready and willing to shoot the hero with the gun, who snatched it away. Point made. Another tragedy was narrowly missed via "too many guns", not enough guns.

As for her chart, how much more simple and straightforward could it be? You adding in all these " yeah but's"... caveats, says to me your take on the segment lacks some integrity if you're pointing fingers... which you are. There was no "cutesey" playing with the very simple table of gun registrations... and assault crimes. Just straight forward. TRMS gang assumes some intelligence in their audience for disserning that there was no straight one for one correlation demonstration. That would be idiotic, and Rachel infered as much. The stark contrasts spoke for themselves.

I think you hear what you want with a jaded ear. Lighten up. I really don't think Rachel has "integrity" issues. In fact, I would say Rachel is near the very top in integrity among her peers in the industry... AND her heart is definitely in the right place. That counts for a good deal. If we went by your stated standard, those with opinions... lack integrity.

Hey, I'll be one of the first to point out if they TWIST the facts. They did not in this case. Your examples don't hold ANY water here. Great segment.

My comments are not "yeah, but." Ms. Maddow made it clear, (paraphrasing) that it was proven that a responsible gun owner on the scene could not have stopped the shooting but there was no one on the scene when the shootings were happening. This is not a "yeah but," it was an example of Ms. Maddow intentionally or unintentionally misstating the facts.

Does that mean a gun owner could have stopped the shooter had he/she been a witness to the shooing as Ms. Maddow claimed this man was? No. But a man in the store with a gun coming out of the store after the shooter was subdued and the shooting over does not PROVE (as Ms. Maddow said) that it could not have happened.

I would say Rachel is near the very top in integrity among her peers in the industry... AND her heart is definitely in the right place.

I would a agree, especially, regarding Ms. Maddow's motives.

God, I love when people try to flame and then misspell something obvious--like a name that's repeated on the same page a dozen times. I feel like there should be a special Internet name for this kind of Fail. Fizzle?

Sorry. Yeah, I know I shouldn't play with my food.

Sigh. I wasn't trying to flame, or start a flame-fest. Geez.

I'm a liberal who disagrees with liberals on gun control. But I do agree with what Rachel called "common-sense" limits on gun ownership. I would strongly oppose resuming the so-called assault weapons ban, but my objection to a specific ban on high-capacity magazines is simply because I don't think it's something that's going to make any real difference and it's a waste of time and energy.

Also, I fear that the law might be written in ways that have unwanted consequences. Some handguns come with 17-round magazines standard. That's not a high-capacity magazine. A high-capacity magazine is one that holds more ammo than what is standard for the weapon. If you want to ban those -- like 30-round magazines for a Glock -- that's actually fine with me, I just don't think it's worth spending time on.

But I want to hear the discussion. So all I was trying to point out is that calling it a "clip" makes you sound ignorant and it makes it sound like, since you don't understand what you're talking about, that you might end up doing something other than what you really mean, like banning certain guns with their standard magazines.

I really didn't want for someone to glom onto my comment as a way to spew nonsense.

::poke:: i40, I didn't think you were trying to flame.

Thanks. It's also worth point out that Congresswoman McCarthy made the same mistake on the show tonight. I haven't read her proposed legislation yet, so I'll withhold actual judgement, but the fact that she doesn't know a magazine from a clip makes me question whether she's qualified to propose this legislation in the first place, and makes me worry that her legislation will have unintended consequences.

i40, I've live in Alaska most of my life, I grew up around guns and people in the military, and I say that in common usage a 'magazine' and a 'clip' are interchangeable terms. The NRA agrees with me. From the NRA's website:

Clip: A device for holding a group of cartridges. Semantic wars have been fought over the word, with some insisting it is not a synonym for "detachable magazine." For 80 years, however, it has been so used by manufacturers and the military. There is no argument that it can also mean a separate device for holding and transferring a group of cartridges to a fixed or detachable magazine or as a device inserted with cartridges into the mechanism of a firearm becoming, in effect, part of that mechanism.

I wonder, then, what they propose we call the things used to load cartridges into the magazine of an M1 Garand?

...

A clip.

O_o

I'm Capricorn (Sun), Saggitarius (Rising), Aries (Moon), and Scorpio (Venus)....is it just me or am I as screwed up as my chart says I should be?!

NY, it depends on whether you want to know which horoscope you want to believe or if you just think it's interesting to know how the stars were aligned in the sky when you were born. ;)

Lmao well if you're interested in amusing me; I'd love to know ;-) I'll take it all as a privilege...especially if you espouse the whole "I'm a butch/with a butch" thing...COULD IT BE?! like signs are compatible beyond femme/butch?! Oh Grrl...DUE tell ;-)!!!

Eh? I'm the latter and don't believe in astrology at all. I'm a butch with a butch and our signs are incompatible...so says the fortune cookie in the sky.

@Romeo...In my head, at least, that was the joke?

There's actually a different reason, for what it's worth, why this doesn't matter. The zodiac system to which Western astrologers ascribe (and therefore to which all those horoscopes in newspapers ascribe) doesn't care if the Earth has shifted relative to the constellations and the sun, and never has. Everybody that cares gets to keep their old astrological symbols because they're the same as their new astrological symbols.

Cripes, I can't wait for this story to die down and go away. I will never understand why astrology, of all the absurd superstitions, has survived so intact into the modern day, and remains so popular.

ETA: gah. The comment system stripped out my link. Go to news (dot) blogs (dot) cnn (dot) com and scroll down to the last article posted on January 13.

You can try leaving the http:// off in front of it. It won't work like a link, but at least we can copy and paste it into the address bar.

you have to get permission from newsvine to post links

Shovels are for digging. Hammers are for hammering. Cars are for driving. Knives are for cutting and are multi-use. Handguns are only for shooting people....it is a tool for shooting people. It is not just a tool that can cause deadly harm, it is a tool for causing deadly harm.

The more guns we have in our society, the easier it is for criminals to get them.

Thing 2: I would be satisfied with guns being regulated as rigorously as vehicles and driving are. If we can have speed limits for driving, we can have limits on magazine capacity. If we can say driving is limited to roads and lanes, and say which types of vehicles can be on which roads, we can say carrying guns and certain types of guns restricted in certain areas. If you can't drive if your blood alcohol level is over .08, you can't be carrying a gun either. And so on.

The driving analogy is great. Thanks.

Sure, guns don't kill people, people do, but to quote Eddie Izzard:

THE GUN HELPS.

Handguns are only for shooting people....it is a tool for shooting people.

The majority of handguns in the United States are not utilized for "shooting people"; a significant quantity of them -- greater than the quantity utilized for "shooting people -- are utilized for recreational target shooting. Your assertion, therefore, is demonstrably incongruent with reality.

Thing 2: I would be satisfied with guns being regulated as rigorously as vehicles and driving are.

Then you propose issuing licenses for carrying a firearm in public on a "shall issue" basis, where a license issued by one state must be honored by all other states in the United States, so that my license permitting me to carry a concealed firearm in the state of Kentucky also allows me to carry a concealed firearm in the state of Illinois, New York and California?

If we can have speed limits for driving, we can have limits on magazine capacity.

Limiting the action that an individual may take when using an item is not logically equivalent to limiting the capability of the item; motor vehicles are not legally prohibited from being capable of exceeding posted speed limits.

If we can say driving is limited to roads and lanes, and say which types of vehicles can be on which roads, we can say carrying guns and certain types of guns restricted in certain areas. If you can't drive if your blood alcohol level is over .08, you can't be carrying a gun either. And so on.

I am unopposed to prohibiting the carrying of concealed firearms when intoxicated.

Motor vehicles have all types of restrictions like weight, emissions and safety features. The speed of some vehicles are restricted. Mopeds can't go more than 30 mph with the maximum engine capacity at 50 cc. Additionally, different classes of vehicles require different types of licenses.

While some handguns are used for target shooting, that doesn't change that they are made for shooting people. I'm perfectly fine with handguns being restricted to firing ranges as many other types of guns are.

Although, I wasn't looking for an exact copy of regulations applied to driving applied to guns. It's an analogy. And I'm just sayin' that driving and vehicles are heavily regulated--mostly for the purpose of reducing car accidents and fatalities.

If you understand that regulating driving and vehicles isn't prohibition, than I expect you to understand that regulating guns isn't prohibition. We are actually talking about sensible regulations that society agrees on and not outright bans.

I'm perfectly fine with handguns being restricted to firing ranges as many other types of guns are.

Then you advocate repealing all "shall-issue" based concealed weapons permit systems without rational justification.

Although, I wasn't looking for an exact copy of regulations applied to driving applied to guns.

Then the analogy is invalid, and should not be invoked.

If you understand that regulating driving and vehicles isn't prohibition, than I expect you to understand that regulating guns isn't prohibition.

The "regulation" sought by civilian disarmament advocates frequently amounts to "prohibition". Such advocates frequently seek to prohibit sale and manufacture even of firearms that are rarely criminally misused.

We are actually talking about sensible regulations that society agrees on and not outright bans.

I cannot agree that restricting magazine capacity to significantly less than common standards is "sensible".

Remember that after Republicans bankrupt the United States the military will be unfunded. Massive military spending now is only a means to the eventual collapse of the US economy. Then the personal arsenals acquired by right-wingers will come in handy for street fighting against "socialists". Just like in Germany after World War One.

@GrrrlRomeo I've always been curious about that. If those who claim to be 'strict constructionists' when it comes to constitutional issues, why aren't they against a standing army? Under the powers of Congress it clearly states that congress only has the power to raise and support an army for a period of no more than two years. Obviously we 'elasticity clause' supporters believe that when the constitution was written no one imagined the close nature of foreign enemies.

From Article 1 Sec 8, powers of Congress:

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

VPR interviewed Bernie about the email

http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/89744/

I've just finished hunting down all of the cited data and graphing it (as opposed to showing the raw data from 1/5 of the data set). Your suspicion is correct, there's no direct correlation between the percentage of people who own guns and the rate of gun deaths. There is a general trend, but the deaths rise at a much shallower rate and the numbers jump all over the place.

Interestingly, the data cited is not just homicides, as Rachel implied. That data also includes suicides (which are enormous), accidental deaths and justified action (police and self-defense). When I reduced the dataset to just homicides, the trend is completely flat.

It's also worth mentioning that Rachel's source pruned the data a bit. Both of their sources included numbers for DC, but it wasn't included in cited report (either because it's not a state or because it utterly destroys their conclusion). Not only does DC have the lowest percentage of households with guns, it also has the highest rate of gun deaths and gun homicides per capita – by a wide margin. When DC is included it in the homicide dataset, the trend actually goes down as gun ownership goes up.

"What logic, reason or fact would cause you to change your mind on the issue?"

I will change my mind about Republicans when they stop lying.

Now your turn.

I will change my mind about Republicans when they stop lying.

Shamash's inquiry did not relate to Republicans.

The true core? Isn't that the culture of violence we raise our children in? The nature of the universe? The failure of identifying mental illness before it becomes a problem? Or even the failure of a person to see others as equal beings? Nope a dangerous person stems from guns. Even though in countries who have the strictest gun laws there is still mass murder? I hope the mental health industry isn't filled with "professionals" as yourself.

Will: Please check him everywhere on this blog...it's getting really old.

pathology

Calling me names doesn't help your case.

As I had acknowledged, my previous posting was unnecessarily inflammatory and posted without appropriate thought.

Serious astrologists (yes they do exist)

Many creationists are also "serious"; their claims are nonsensical regardless.

RELATED ARTICLE (POSTING LINKS TO OUTSIDE SOURCES IS APPARENTLY FROWNED UPON):

On June 2, the Violence Policy Center put out a press release titled “States with Higher Gun Ownership and Weak Gun Laws Lead Nation in Gun Death.” The full text of the press release is included below, followed by my comments:

—————

States with Higher Gun Ownership and Weak Gun Laws Lead Nation in Gun Death

Louisiana, Mississippi, Alaska, Alabama, and Nevada Have Highest Gun Death Rates

Washington, DC–States with higher gun ownership rates and weak gun laws have the highest rates of overall gun death according to a new analysis by the Violence Policy Center (VPC) of just-released 2007 national data (the most recent available) from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.

The analysis reveals that the five states with the highest per capita gun death rates were Louisiana, Mississippi, Alaska, Alabama, and Nevada. Each of these states had a per capita gun death rate far exceeding the national per capita gun death rate of 10.34 per 100,000 for 2007. Each of the top-ranking states has lax gun laws and higher gun ownership rates. By contrast, states with strong gun laws and low rates of gun ownership had far lower rates of firearm-related death. Ranking last in the nation for gun death was Hawaii, followed by Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York. (See rankings below for top and bottom five states. See http://www.vpc.org/fadeathchart10.htm for a ranking of all 50 states.)

VPC Legislative Director Kristen Rand states, “The equation is simple. More guns lead to more gun death, but limiting exposure to firearms saves lives.”

States with the Five Highest Gun Death Rates
States with the Five Lowest Gun Death Rates

Rank
State
Household Gun Ownership
Gun Death Rate per 100,000
Rank
State
Household Gun Ownership
Gun Death Rate per 100,000

1
Louisiana
45.6 percent
19.87
50
Hawaii
9.7 percent
2.82

2
Mississippi
54.3 percent
18.32
49
Rhode Island
13.3 percent
3.51

3
Alaska
60.6 percent
17.62
48
Massachusetts
12.8 percent
3.63

4
Alabama
57.2 percent
17.55
47
Connecticut
16.2 percent
4.27

5
Nevada
31.5 percent
16.21
46
New York
18.1 percent
5.07

The VPC defined states with “weak” gun laws as those that add little or nothing to federal restrictions and have permissive laws governing the open or concealed carrying of firearms in public. States with “strong” gun laws were defined as those that add significant state regulation in addition to federal law, such as restricting access to particularly hazardous types of firearms (for example, assault weapons), setting minimum safety standards for firearms and/or requiring a permit to purchase a firearm, and restrictive laws governing the open and concealed carrying of firearms in public. State gun ownership rates were obtained from the September 2005 Pediatrics article “Prevalence of Household Firearms and Firearm-Storage Practices in the 50 States and the District of Columbia: Findings From the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2002,” which is the most up-to-date, comprehensive source for state gun ownership rates.

————–

Focusing on “gun deaths,” rather than on homicides (or even firearm-related homicides), is a common ploy among gun control advocates. It’s their way of twisting and hammering statistics until the numbers finally relent and say what they want them to say. For example, if you want to suggest that Great Britain’s handgun ban has made England safer, you can’t compare the homicide rate before the ban to the homicide rate after the ban because England’s homicide rate has actually gone up since the ban went into effect (while, at the same time, the homicide rate in the U.S. has gone down). But you can compare the low “gun death” rate in England to the high “gun death” rate in the U.S. and suggest that this disparity proves that the handgun ban has made England safer (even though violent crimes and homicides in England have actually increased). To borrow Gregg Easterbrook’s famous line, “Torture numbers, and they’ll confess to anything.”

There are two main problems with focusing on “gun deaths.” The first is that the total number includes both lawful interventions (self-defense shootings and shootings by police) and, more significantly, suicides. According to the Center for Disease Control, 56.2% of U.S. firearm-related deaths in 2007 were suicides. Should the focus of the gun control debate be on protecting the people who want to die or on defending the people who want to live? I tend to lean toward the latter.

The second problem is that the focus on “gun deaths” doesn’t reflect the overall safety of the populace. Is someone who is killed with a gun any deader than someone who is killed with a knife or a baseball bat or any other weapon? In order to fairly assess whether or not living in a state with high gun ownership places a person at greater risk of meeting a violent end, we must compare not just the number of “gun deaths” but the number of homicides as a whole.

When the 50 states are ranked by homicide rate (highest to lowest), it becomes immediately clear that there is no correlation between a state’s murder rate and its rate of firearm ownership. Though Louisiana still holds the top spot, with a homicide rate of 14.2 homicides for every 100,000 persons, the number two spot is held by Maryland—the state with the ninth lowest rate of gun ownership, according to the VPC’s own source, and the fifth toughest gun control laws, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence—with a homicide rate of 9.8 homicides for every 100,000 persons. On the other end of the spectrum, the three states with the lowest homicide rates are New Hampshire (thirty-ninth highest rate of gun ownership, twenty-third most permissive gun laws, murder rate of 1.1 per 100,000), Iowa (twenty-first highest rate of gun ownership, thirty-first most permissive gun laws, murder rate of 1.2 per 100,000), and Montana (second highest rate of gun ownership, eighth most permissive gun laws, murder rate of 1.5 per 100,000).

The state with the highest rate of gun ownership, Wyoming, and the state with the lowest rate of gun ownership, Hawaii, are separated on the list by only eleven places—Wyoming at number 35, with 3.1 homicides per 100,000 persons, and Hawaii at number 46, with 1.7 homicides per 100,000 persons. Utah, the state with the most permissive gun control laws and the sixteenth highest rate of gun ownership, is ranked fortieth, with only 2.2 homicides for every 100,000 persons; whereas, California, the state with the strictest gun control laws and the seventh lowest rate of gun ownership, is ranked seventeenth, with 6.2 homicides for every 100,000 persons.

Clearly, the Violence Policy Center’s assertions are built on a pretty flimsy foundation. But wait—isn’t something missing? Isn’t the VPC study based on a report titled “Prevalence of Household Firearms and Firearm-Storage Practices in the 50 States and the District of Columbia”? Where is the District of Columbia? It shows up in the source article but is conspicuously absent from the VPC press release (and the accompanying chart).

When the District of Columbia (widely considered to have the strictest gun control laws in the U.S.) is included in the list, the VPC’s claims about gun ownership completely fall apart. With only 5.2% of households containing firearms, D.C. easily beats out Hawaii, where 9.2% of households contain firearms, as having the lowest rate of gun ownership in the U.S. And with a “gun death” rate of 24.50 “gun deaths” per 100,000 persons, D.C. easily beats out Louisiana, where the “gun death” rate is 19.87 “gun deaths” per 100,000 persons, as having the highest rate of “gun deaths” in the U.S. When homicide rates are compared, the difference is even more staggering. The homicide rate in D.C. (30.8 homicides for every 100,000 persons) is more than twice that of Louisiana (14.2 homicides for every 100,000 persons).

The numbers speak for themselves. And as usual, the Violence Policy Center’s claims hold about as much water as a noodle strainer.

My comment was deleted because of Lewis' or did I break a rule? Just want to know so I don't do it again; apologies if I did something wrong (and the "if" here is not I'm only sorry on occasion of- the if means I do not know what I did so I don't know what to say sorry for, but am sorry regardless).

@Mickey I didn't catch it, but I'm sure it had to do with Lewis' post. Sometimes when a single comment is deleted, it makes more sense to delete the replies, because they contain references to the original offending comment. Leaving your comment to stand alone without context would have been unfair to you.

Yeah I know sometimes if my comment is relevant to the other person's and the other person's is deleted, mine will go along...I just don't want to make Will or Laura or anyone else mad. I like this blog and I like being a part of it and I don't want to do something wrong to get myself banned. I've been in a pretty sarcastic/rude mood today and my hope is that people get it, but maybe they don't. If they don't then I can't blame 'em for taking my comments down- my hope would just be that it's recognized that this is a temporary situation.

I don't remember which of the two I was commenting on...but I didn't technically call anyone a name...I know where the ignore button is. Rambling is allowed, calling it what it is...is not...got it.

Not directly, but I found the original sources.

Gun ownership rates: (the first data column)

Gun death rates: Select "all intents", "firearm", "2007", "no age-adjusting" and group by state.

Too funny.