Gun “Safety” Story Lacks Strong Counterpoint

Every month there are stories of how those armed were able to protect themselves. Yet any mention of this type of information is missing from Faye Flam’s story for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Instead, it looks at a study that chose various shooting victims to determine whether carrying a gun increases the chances of getting shot, with the results being published in the American Journal of Public Health. Among the “facts” offered:

“Researchers randomly chose 677 of those victims for the study. They came from various occupations – taxi drivers, bartenders, nurses, and drug dealers. Fifty-three percent had criminal records. Six percent had guns with them when they were shot.”

While this is a good sampling, how credible is information from “drug dealers” for example. More over these subjects are also only so credible, with 53 percent having criminal records – aren’t criminals the type of people we all agree should not have guns?

But the real problem with this article is that while it does include some pro-gun counterpoint that includes opinion from academia, the story still leans enough to agree far too much with the study. And that would be fine if it wasn’t passed off as news.