Discovery channel special

[Sniper X]

I was close to being livid last night when I saw a discovery channel special about the gun culture in the US. I had to turn it off after about 15 minutes due to the utmost in lack of anything but Brady Bunch stats, and the total lack of professionalisim in reporting. It was so biased anti gun it was even painful to my girlfriend! She even voiced her disgust at the one sideed-ness!

Some of the stats (givin by them) were,

You are twenty times more likely to die by your own hand, or by the offender getting your gun from you, if attacked in your own home while using a gun for self defense.

AND

There is one person killed every minute in the US by gun violence.


Where do they get this crap and how do they get away with it?

 

[SoCalShooter]

Mostly because people are either to dumb or do not care enough since it does not affect their MTV or their American Idol. Either that or they do not know or care to know.

 

[Sinixstar]

There is one person killed every minute in the US by gun violence.

If that were the case, we'd have a lot less suburban sprawl in this country.

365 * 24 * 60 = 525,600

525,600 people each year killed by gun violence huh? That would make Iraq look like a kindergarten class....

 

[Sniper X]

I know~! It was horrid stats very overblown and way out of reality.

 

[Sinixstar]

To put it in even better perspective - the united states lost 416,800 soldiers in all of WWII.

Somehow - when I look out my front window, i'm not seeing WWII....

 

[Sniper X]

that stat and the one about you being 21 times more apt to shoot yourself in a self defense situation were laughable! If that were true, there would not be any cops as they would all be shooting themselves!

 

[SamG.]

Yeah I got a great laugh out of that. The Discovery channel makes me sick. All biased.

 

[dbarile]

Is this the same one that ran on the national geographic channel last week?

 

[Sinixstar]

I can also tell you right now - that shows like these are made to play to whatever public perceptions are out there.

There's a prevailing social current that is very up in arms over the gun issue right now. So - channels like discovery, history channel, etc - will produce shows (actually, they don't produce the shows, they just air them) that play on that public perception. People then talk about such shows, and it gets a lot of attention (which is good for a TV Network). Had McCain/Palin won the election - you'd be seeing shows about moose hunting in Alaska.

I know several people who work in TV, and I can tell you right now that the vast majority of the actual producers/executives could really care less about the vast majority of issues. TV isn't a social/political platform for most people, it's a way to make money - period. The fact that we're talking about it on here - shows their strategy works

 

[Pulse]

even with all the firearm related murders and accidents of the entire world, you barly reach ~200k per year, less then half what they claim for the USA.

(note: murders does not include kills related to War)

 

[Grizfire]

On their other shows (such as Time Warp and myth busters) they are shooting all kinds of things for the fun of it, whooping and hollering.

 

[ericyp]

To put it in even better perspective - the united states lost 416,800 soldiers in all of WWII.

Somehow - when I look out my front window, i'm not seeing WWII....

Because it's not all occuring outside your yard, the world goes beyond your front yard. And the U.S. population increases by about 5 million people a year, so around 500k is sustainable.

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

Because it's not all occuring outside your yard, the world goes beyond your front yard. And the U.S. population increases by about 5 million people a year, so around 500k is sustainable and believable.

Are you kidding? You think it's believable that half a million people in the USA die each year due to "gun violence"? I believe the number is in the 10-15 k range if that, and that includes justifiable homicides (self-defense), IIRC. So it's something like 1/40th or 2.5% of what you find believable. And what the CDC and Justice Department find as factual.

 

[ericyp]

Yes, it seems reasonable unless you have evidence to the contrary? What makes you believe its in the 10-15k, is that a number you just created on the spot? And yes I assume they are including justifiable homicides, cops shooting perps, etc. All forms in which bullet wounds was the cause of someone's death.

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

Well, ok. Here's the leading causes of death for 2004 & 2005:


http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005110.html

http://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe

Didn't even make the top 10, and #10 only killed 33,000.

AND. Yes, I realize that "Unintentional Injury" is # 5 on the list

But this breaks down in detail that unintentional injury #:

http://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/brok...=lcd1age&ethnicty=0&ranking=10&deathtle=Death

As you can see, firearms account for 0.7% of the total unintentional injuries of 117,809, for a total death toll of 825 people from firearm accidents - add this to homicides, justifiable or otherwise, and you're still well under 30K, probably under 20K.

Here - here is what we're looking for. This is an "All Injuries" table, regardless of whether or not accidental.

http://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe

As you can see under the all ages column at the right, you've got:

1. 17,002 Suicide by Firearm
2. 12,352 Homicide by Firearm

For a total of 29,354, and more than half of that is suicides, which I doubt can be fairly ascribed to being "gun violence".

 

[dbarile]

Awww beat me to it.

you can also find it at the cdc website.

http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html

About 30K in 2005. A little less than 4 an hour.

 

[ericyp]

It depends on how they compile it. If they don't count justifiable deaths, they break things that could be lumped in one up into 3 separate subcategories, etc. For all we know they could be counting the shootings in Iraq as part of their deaths due to gun violence stat. Lump reports like these don't mean much unless they define the categories too.
Maybe the OP even heard wrong, and it was talking about victims of gun violence per year and not actual deaths. I didn't watch the documentary.

 

[moooose102]

the stinking media is at least 1/2 to blame for all of the anti-gun crud circulating around. anytime they can get an "expert" to say guns are bad, they play it up for all it is worth, over and over again. so lets see. one shooting = at least three stories by every single facet of the media. played over and over again for at LEAST three weeks. it is no wonder over 1/2 of america thinks there should be some kind of gun control. if the press actually did their jobs as they should, and reported ONLY the FACTS, istead of sensationalizing it to death. the world would be a much better place. but, then what would they do to get their ratings up enough to make money? the ONLY thing the press is looking to do is make money. they could care less about the TRUTH!

 

[dbarile]

The CDC data is for all gun deaths in US regardless of intention age and race etc.

 

[JImbothefiveth]

the ONLY thing the press is looking to do is make money

And promote their agenda.

 

[ericyp]

Eh, then I'm fairly sure the OP misheard. I actually looked it up too and found a bit over 500k are injured due to gun violence per year.

It seems likely the program said 500k victims of gun violence, and OP just interpreted it to mean 500k dead from gun violence.

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

It depends on how they compile it. If they don't count justifiable deaths, they break things that could be lumped in one up into 3 separate subcategories, etc. Lump reports like these don't mean much unless they define the categories too.

Right but they DO define the categories in excruciating detail. The CDC is tasked with compiling this information, and they do so at the behest of Congress. If you dig into what each category means and how it is defined, you will find that "All injuries" means just that - ALL INJURIES - deaths caused by something other than an internal disease process. And "Homicide" is defined as including by justifiable and non-justifiable. They have very specific definitions, and these are the official government statistics that you are disputing.

So, supposing that "gun violence" DOES include suicides, then 29,354 compared with 525,600: If the show said one dies "every minute", then they overstated the accurate figure in excess of 1,800% - that's a one thousand, eight hundred percent overstatement of reality, even assuming suicides are "gun violence" victims.

And no they're not including Iraq - the death has to occur on US soil to be included in the USA statistic, I'm nearly certain. But supposing they DO include US citizens killed overseas in wars, then that would make the domestic (non-war) number even much much smaller than the 29K.

 

[ericyp]

Ok, I think it's reasonable now to say the OP misheard, and the program called 500k victims of gun violence or some sort, rather than 500k deaths.

I am not disputing the numbers, I was just pointing out the faulty logic you used. I said that the number is reasonable, and couldn't be immediately ruled out because you don't see WWII levels of death occurring outside your front yard. A 500k death rate is sustainable, and the actual leading causes of death are well over that.

 

[Sinixstar]

Quote:
the ONLY thing the press is looking to do is make money
And promote their agenda.

LOL - the "agenda" argument is (no offense here) very silly.
Have you met any producers or execs for any major networks? The agenda is making money - period. Somebody figured the anti-gun slant would make them money and get them exposure - and well, it's worked (what was the last discovery channel show that was discussed here?)
When you get into infotainment like foxnews, cnn, msnbc, etc - you might get a bit more political bias - but at the end of the day, the reason for that political bias - is because somebody thinks that appealing to that segment of the population will make money.

Very few of these shows are factually accurate. Facts don't matter. It's entertainment. It's a vehicle to drive ad dollars, and nothing more. Trying to read more into it then what is there - is a waste of time that will only leave you wanting to :banghead:

edit: the other half of the money thing, is it's entirely possible the executive producers just didn't want to spend the time/effort/money putting together a well balanced documentary. It was probably shot, cut, and canned in less then a week on a shoestring budget. Again, facts, balance, etc is irrelevent. It boils down to - how can we fill X number of minutes between commercials as cheap as possible, and get something that people will have a reaction to?

 

[ReadyontheRight]

Have you met any producers or execs for any major networks? The agenda is making money - period.

Yes I have. And no, it's not necessarily about making money. At least at the top of the heap.

IMHO - It's also not necessarily about pushing a political agenda. It's mostly about maintaining egos within a priviledged society, which can be supported by pushing certain political agendas.