44% of Americans Know Someone Killed by Gun Headline (seriously?)

[awshoot]

I've been seeing a headline that 44% of Americans know someone killed by gun. Example: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief...ercent-of-americans-know-someone-who-has-been The full report and the questions asked are here: 1. The demographics of gun ownership The specific question being reported can be seen in context here: http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-co...W25-W26-combined-topline-chkd-for-release.pdf

ASK WAVE 26: INJUREDA
Not counting yourself, has someone you PERSONALLY KNOW ever been shot, either accidentally or intentionally, or not?
Apr 4-18 2017
Yes: 44
No: 56
No answer: *
​

I see two major problems with this question right off the bat:

1. How many knuckleheads answered "yes" because they read about Dick Cheney loading a buddy with birdshot. Yes it says "personally" but people often hear what they want to hear. Antis may also be prone to lie about this because they are so emotionally invested in the issue.
   
2. Worse than that, it does not distinguish between war related shootings and non-war shootings, and that's a huge problem if the point is to assess gun safety in America. What this question does is push a narrative that says guns make us unsafe and suggests as evidence that basically half of America knows someone killed or wounded by a gun. But if we are talking about gun safety in America, what happens in Iraq or Vietnam is not pertinent to the question and without that added detail, it is impossible to know that the answers refer to incidents that happened inside or outside of America.
3. Aside from veterans' likely increased exposure to shootings while at war, It also fails to take the simple expedient of asking where the shooting took place. It is entirely possible that an immigrant from or a non-military visitor to a chaotic and violent region was included in the survey and without knowing where that shooting took place, this question is simply importing foreign gun violence thus padding the numbers.

Given these structural flaws to the query, it is totally clear that it was designed to make this look like much more of a problem than it is.

Anyway, I know one's personal experience is not data, merely anecdote, but as a non-vet, I don't personally know anyone who has ever been killed or wounded by a firearm (beyond slide bite) and so far as I know, neither do any of my long time friends with one exception, and that all relates to his experiences in Vietnam.

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[edslhead]

Well how about this one The Hill's got some top notch news!!!!

President Trump drove his golf cart on the green in a video released Thursday.

 

[CamoDeafie]

More than half of Americans live in "urban centers"' which is also where the vast majority of gang shootings, crime shootings, and strong anti-gun laws are in place...... 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon...its pretty easy to know a friend of a friend of a friend's cousin who got shot by a gangbanger in the MS13 areas.....

 

[IronMonster]

Well... Two members of my immediate family have been shot. A good friend of mines little brother shot himself. I don't know that I would call him a friend but an acquaintance of mine was shot by a pissed off boyfriend (he was doing the girlfriend) standing on his front step. A friend of mine from high school was killed in a hunting accident. There are probably others but yeah. I can believe that 44% personally know of at least one person who has been shot.

 

[Ura-Ki]

Sounds like a reasonable number to me! 4 Cousins of mine were shot to death in New Mexico and the perps were never found, all to steal 4 brand new quads. Another cousin was murdered with a knife, stabbed 34 times, A good friend in high school accidentally shot himself with a .22 pistol and died right there in his girlfriends arms!

 

[CLT65]

The whole idea is kind of ridiculous, in my opinion, and just intended to stir up emotion for gun control. I get tired of those kind of slanted, meaningless articles and studies.

How many people have you known personally in your lifetime? Including elementary school classmates, teachers, army buddies, old coworkers and random acquaintances? It's a lot.

Off the top of my head I can think of a kid I knew in school that I heard later committed suicide, and a WWII vet that was a friend of the family when I was a kid who was wounded in the Pacific. Closer to home was my friend Morris, who was shot and killed in the line of duty as a county sheriff's deputy.

 

[Goosebrown]

Well... Two members of my immediate family have been shot. A good friend of mines little brother shot himself. I don't know that I would call him a friend but an acquaintance of mine was shot by a pissed off boyfriend (he was doing the girlfriend) standing on his front step. A friend of mine from high school was killed in a hunting accident. There are probably others but yeah. I can believe that 44% personally know of at least one person who has been shot.

Ok. 44% of the people Ironmountain knows...

 

[Diamondback]

Well, four of my friends were murdered by a scumbag who Tax Hike Mike Huckabee let loose on the world... part of me wonders if I might have been able to blindside the POS and take him down if I'd been there. THAT, in tandem with the matter of my ex's stalker ex, is why I carry... and am always in the hunt to buy or build the most effective weapons I can legally lay my hands on.

 

[Lilhigbee]

Actually I would think 44% might be low. I can think of three people right off that I know or knew personally that were shot. Two were accidental (both survived), (one of them did it twice, different incidences), and a high school acquaintance was shot and killed by her half-brother. Probably more if I think on it. This from a county larger than Rhode Island with a population of 8000.

 

[nammac]

So, I personally don't know anyone who has been shot, unless you count my anesthesiologist, who was shot a couple of times in Nam....

But a high school buddy of mine did off his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend... That was about 10 years post graduation...

 

[awshoot]

Wow. So many. I'm really kind of surprised. Maybe I am the outlier.

However, I wouldn't count the anesthesiologist who was shot in Vietnam (as much as that sucks) because that provides no information on violence in America.

 

[66PonyCar]

Not counting yourself, do you know anyone who has been injured in an automobile accident whether they were at fault or someone else was? The answer to this one must be about 90%, so logically automobiles are extremely dangerous and should be banned!

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer!

 

[awshoot]

Not counting yourself, do you know anyone who has been injured in an automobile accident whether they were at fault or someone else was? The answer to this one must be about 90%, so logically automobiles are extremely dangerous and should be banned! ...

I'd put it closer to 99.9% (assuming "injury" runs the gamut from "sore for a couple days" through "paralyzed")

 

[etrain16]

I know a few folks. One that committed suicide. Another was a son of a former co-worker that was accidentally shot by a friend, survived, but very messed up.

Honestly I don't see what this has to do with anything. I also know people that committed suicide by hanging. I know people that died in car accidents, by heart disease, from smoking, cancer, drug overdoses. I know people that have been raped. I know someone that was killed in an industrial accident. I know someone that tried to murder his family and is serving 20 years in the state penn. I know people with serious mental illnesses. But to all of that I say, so what? Should I extrapolate that because my life has been touched with a variety of different tragedies that each of these things, tragic as they are, demand more laws, more restrictions, more f'ing government in every damn aspect in our lives???

This is nothing more than fishing for another route to push for more gun control. It's a sh1t story and a sh1t statistic that mean, nothing.

I'm feelin' in a mood tonight

 

[308]

The Clinton's have probably skewed those results

 

[Goosebrown]

You guys want to be friends with me. I don't know anyone that was shot ever except a guy in the next. Bay at speed steel.

I'm lucky. You can rub my head if you like.

 

[Mikej]

However, I wouldn't count the anesthesiologist who was shot in Vietnam (as much as that sucks) because that provides no information on violence in America.

There in lies the rub!

Guess I'm in the 44%. Yippee! My one and only best friend was shot in a hunting accident when he was 20. Another friend got him with a stray pellet in the arm. Oh, there was "The Weatherman Eddie Morgan".
http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/12/23/eddie-the-weatherman-morgan

Wifey and I were close and live a half a block away from it all.

Stoopid polls!

 

[Kruel J]

Yup. I went to HS with a guy and knew him quite well. Popped himself right after graduation with an illegally acquired handgun instead of going to jail for a theft crime he was being investigated for.

 

[rick benjamin]

Military Service? When and where I learned life can be very short, loud. But I can't count that even though I remember it all, every day...

 

[Koda]

I bet 44% of Americans know someone who is a convicted violent criminal that shouldn't be out on the street...