John Lott has a new piece on Bloomberg’s push for gun control at The Daily Caller that starts this way:
On “Meet the Press” earlier this month, Michael Bloomberg claimed that what he is doing “is nothing about gun control.” But host David Gregory, acting as a cheerleader, not a probing questioner, let that statement go unchallenged. Unfortunately, Bloomberg is used to overwhelmingly uncritical media coverage.
Bloomberg, who is currently spending $50 million per year on his various gun control organizations, has pushed for everything from assault weapon bans, magazine size limits, gun-free zones, fees on people buying ammunition or guns, and a long list of other regulations. He now wants to convince us that he is very reasonable.
Unfortunately, Bloomberg is the worst type of gun control true-believer: the type who believes his goals justify making up facts.
With groups such as Moms Demand Action and Mayors Against Illegal Guns getting virtually all their funding from Bloomberg, take some of the claims these groups have pushed.
– In “Get the Facts About Gun Violence in the United States” from Bloomberg’s Moms Demand Action, the very first link goes to a report from the Violence Policy Center entitled “Concealed Carry Killers.” As I pointed out in April, the report double and triple counts cases, many of which should be classified as defensive gun uses and thus not counted. Many suicides that don’t involve guns are also counted in these killings. The numbers are grossly inflated, but despite commentary pointing out such gross errors, Bloomberg’s group still lists the unaltered report as the first report that they cite.
– After the Santa Barbara attack, Bloomberg’s Moms Demand Action asserted: “84 percent of female firearm homicides in 25 countries are in U.S.” However, they never told the reader that many of the other countries were tiny nations, with as few as 2 million people. That makes a huge difference. And the data is decades old. Recent data has only total homicides, but it is clear that women in the U.S. are not at greater risk than women in other countries. According to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, women are not at a greater risk of being killed in the United States. Indeed, in 2012, the U.S. actually has one of the lowest female homicide rates in the world. . . .
The piece is continued here.
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