Statistics, damned statistics, and liars

The media has been running and re-running an article about the odds of an American being killed by "gun violence." Business insider posted the story not once, not twice, but three times last year. This headline, along with the statistical math that supposedly supports the article, is complete tripe.

The article claims that the average American stands a 1 in 315 chance of being killed by "gun violence." This is a misstatement of statistical analysis. In order to take the number of "gun deaths" each year and divide that into the total population of the country to arrive at a "chance of being killed by gun violence" statistic, each American in the total population must be equally likely of being the victim of one of these events. In other words, the events must occur randomly.

That cannot be the case. Each year, about 60% of all deaths involving a firearm are suicide. If you do not commit suicide, your chances of dying from "gun violence" were just cut in half. More than half of all homicides in the nation were committed in a city that has a population of greater than 100,000. Nearly ten percent of firearm homicides were legal shootings by police and private citizens employing firearms in self defense.

What all of this means is that if you are not in a gang, are not dealing drugs or otherwise involved in a criminal enterprise, not suicidal, and live in a city of less than 100,000 people, you are about one 50th as likely to be involved in a "gun death."

The goal here is that the press want suburban moms to be afraid of guns. In order to do that, they HAVE to lie, because telly Suzie Soccermom that gang members living in inner city Chicago are dying over drug sales turf wars doesn't generate the fear they need in order to sway her opinion.