{"id":77001,"date":"2019-08-12T12:20:09","date_gmt":"2019-08-12T18:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=77001"},"modified":"2019-08-12T12:20:09","modified_gmt":"2019-08-12T18:20:09","slug":"of-guns-shootings-and-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/08\/of-guns-shootings-and-facts.html","title":{"rendered":"Of guns, shootings, and facts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"several<\/a>
Celebrate diversity! \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)
Just for the record: I\u2019m neither a hunter nor a member of the National Rifle Association, and guns and gun control are very far down my list of major interests.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFacts,\u201d said Aldous Huxley, \u201cdo not cease to exist because they are ignored.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is entitled to his own opinion,\u201d said the late great Harvard sociologist and Democratic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, \u201cbut not to his own facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGet your facts first,\u201d advised Mark Twain, \u201cthen you can distort them as you please.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Well, you get the idea.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

So here are a few items regarding crime that are worth keeping in mind:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMass Shootings Aren\u2019t Growing More Common\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

It often seems that they are, but the evidence to support the perception is evidently actually somewhere between ambiguous and absent. \u00a0Incidentally, please note that the claim that mass shootings are caused by exposure to violent video games also<\/em> lacks supporting evidence.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJoe Biden Is Wrong. There Is No Compelling Evidence That Assault-Weapon Bans Work.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

There is a lot of obviously true common sense about guns and gun control \u2014 to say nothing of a vast amount of posturing and virtue-signalling by politicians \u2014 for which there is no actual supporting evidence.<\/p>\n

A very courageous figure in disputes about gun-control policy in the United States is Dr. John Lott, who is now an independent scholar but who previously taught at such institutions as\u00a0the\u00a0University of Chicago,\u00a0Yale University, the\u00a0Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and the\u00a0University of Maryland, College Park, and who was previously affiliated with the\u00a0American Enterprise Institute:<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn Lott\u2019s Website\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Crime Prevention Research Center<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFrightened by shootings, appalled at Trump, Americans are voting with their feet \u2014 to leave\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

I get it. \u00a0I am \u2014 in case anybody has failed to notice \u2014 not an uncritically enthusiastic fan of President Donald J. Trump. \u00a0But I\u2019m also somebody who has traveled a bit, and I have to say that, for all of the flaws that indisputably still exist in my country, anyone who leaves the United States of America in search of utopia is bound to be disappointed. \u00a0Even places that I love such as Norway and Switzerland have their negatives and present their challenges. \u00a0Are you leaving America for Israel because you feel insecure? \u00a0Really? \u00a0Hmmm. \u00a0I personally know people who have fled the United States and Mr. Trump for places such as Lima, Peru, and . . . well, I think that I\u2019ll leave it at that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cElizabeth Warren\u2019s Ferguson Lie\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cOn Ferguson, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris Told a Terrible Lie:\u00a0Their falsehoods were immoral, divisive, and quite possibly unlawful.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt isn\u2019t what we don\u2019t know that gives us trouble,\u201d observed Will Rogers, \u201cit\u2019s what we know that ain\u2019t so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cFacts,\u201d said Aldous Huxley, \u201cdo not cease to exist because they are ignored.\u201d \u00a0 \u201cEveryone is entitled to his own opinion,\u201d said the late great Harvard sociologist and Democratic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, \u201cbut not to his own facts.\u201d \u00a0 \u201cGet your facts first,\u201d advised Mark Twain, \u201cthen you can distort them as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nOf guns, shootings, and facts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    "Facts," said Aldous Huxley, "do not cease to exist because they are ignored."   "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion," said the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, 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