Arizona reported more than 3,000 murders with guns over a nine-year span (1999-2007), according to CDC data. That amounts to six gun murders per 100,000 residents. The national rate was about four. [Read]Got any demographics for those residents? How many NRA members...? How many "prohibited persons"?
One of the best indicators of gun ownership is the level of gun-involved suicide rates, he said. The CDC numbers show Arizona ranked ninth in suicides with guns.Is it truly gun "ownership," which is a legal term, and not applicable to criminal class gun possessors suffering from addictions and a host of other poor life choices?
Y'know, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. I don't have time on what I'd hoped would be a simple blog post to go parse this article and find the data they left out in their presentation, but do note AZ seems to fare somewhat better than high gun control states like New Jersey, New York and California here--not that it establishes causality either.
For instance, guns would hardly seem to be a factor in gun-free Japan, and we still don't know what to do about the dreaded self-terminating "Only Ones" epidemic...
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers."
— Thomas Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow)
[Via Whitetreeaz]