Remember when The Economist magazine had the headline in January 2015: “A gun is now more likely to kill you than a car is.” News organization after news made a claim similar to The Atlantic in early 2015: “Gun deaths are poised to surpass automobile deaths in the United States this year.”
The claim that total automobile deaths have fallen relative to firearm deaths can be seen in this figure, though it is also clear that the drop occurred during the recession of 2008 and 2009 (part of that drop is due in part to some reduction in driving). …
While the CDC has made some big mistakes exaggerating the number of accidental gun deaths, it is a common refrain that the CDC is missing out on accidental gun deaths for those under age 18. A new Associated Press report claims that the true number of accidental gun deaths for those under age 18 is 141, not 77.…
accidental gun deaths, Correcting government errors, media bias on guns
John Lott’s newest piece at Investor’s Business Daily is available here:
…Which are you more likely to be killed by: a car or a gun? We all know how many people die on the roads each year, so it would be mindblowing if there were actually more gun deaths than motor vehicle deaths.
John Lott’s newest piece at Fox News starts this way:
…Which is more likely to kill you: a car or a gun? Various publications, from The Economist to Forbes, and many others have been reporting that gun deaths are set to overtake road deaths before the year is up. But not only isn’t that going to happen.
The Economist magazine had the headline in mid January: “A gun is now more likely to kill you than a car is.” It is a claim that has been repeated over and over again (see Forbes, The Atlantic, Slate (question 9), Vox (also at MSN News), RT, college newspapers across the country, Mother Jones, Raw Story, Oregonlive.com, Tucson Sentinel, and related pieces in the Washington Post).…
Leonard Pitts, Jr. starts off his national newspaper column this way:
Tucker Carlson said on Fox that more children die of bathtub drownings than of accidental shootings. They don’t.
Yet, Mr. Pitts is the one who is wrong. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, between 2006 and 2010 a total of 303 children under age 5 years old drown in just bathtubs (see page 8). …
in 2001, there were 79 accidental gun deaths from hunting. That was about 9.9% of the 802 accidental gun deaths that occurred that year. If the share of accidental gun deaths from hunting remained the same in 2012, that would imply that there were 54 accidental deaths from hunting. But this might be a little high as the share of the population that hunts has declined (the number of hunters has remained virtually unchanged between 2001 and 2011).…
Patrice J. Lee, Christian Toto, and CPRC’s John Lott answered audience questions on a range of issues including guns (Australian gun control, guns in the home), zero tolerance, and media hypocrisy on violence.
On Fox News, the Stossel Show airs at 5 PM on Saturday, 10 PM EDT on Sunday, and 1 AM EDT on Monday.…
Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com
On Fox Business, the Stossel Show airs on Thursday at 9 PM EDT, Saturday at 9 PM and Midnight EDT, and Sunday at 9 PM EDT. On Fox News, the Stossel Show airs at 10 PM EDT on Sunday and 1 AM EDT on Monday.…
