Politifact Gun Suicide ‘Truth-O-Meter’ Needs Independent Calibration

By David Codrea

ScreenHunter_03 Apr. 12 14.33
When it comes to guns, if you can’t believe the Politifact Truth-O-Meter, the Brady Campaign, Mark and Gabby, and a gaggle of anti-gun academics and researchers, who can you believe?

USA – -(Ammoland.com)- “Mira Signer says state with highest gun ownership rates have highest suicide rates,” Politifact tells those relying on it for accurate assessments of high-profile, politically-charged claims. “[W]e rate Signer’s statement True.”

Who? What?

Signer is executive director of the Virginia chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. She was speaking at a “Coalition for Common Sense” gathering featuring Gabby Giffords, Mark Kelly and “[a]bout a dozen community leaders and law-enforcement experts.” They were there to “help set strategies” for more infringements on the right of the people to keep and bear arms, especially registration-enabling “background checks.”

Signer derives her conclusions “in part” from a Brady Center “report.” While doubts about source objectivity are not in themselves proof of their claims being invalid (after all, just because a boy has falsely cried “Wolf!” doesn’t mean there is no wolf this time), they shouldn’t just be ignored, either. We can’t forget that, protestations of “common sense gun safety laws” notwithstanding, the Brady group’s founder was initially not so cryptic about the “common sense” goals he envisioned:

We’re going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily — given the political realities — going to be very modest. . . . [W]e’ll have to start working again to strengthen that law, and then again to strengthen the next law, and maybe again and again. Right now, though, we’d be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal — total control of handguns in the United States — is going to take time. . . . The first problem is to slow down the number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition-except for the military, police, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors-totally illegal.

The Brady document in turn “is based on a series of studies by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center in Massachusetts.” Curiously, that’s part of the same School of Public Health from which then-dean Deborah Prothrow-Stith, proclaimed:

“My own view on gun control is simple. I hate guns — and can not imagine why anybody would want to own one. If I had my way, guns for sport would be registered, and all other guns would be banned.”

Are we starting to see a pattern here? And it’s not exactly like the Politifact Truth-O-Meter hasn’t needed pounding before due to a needle stuck on “BS.” For some reason a Goldfinger quote comes to mind.

And we’re not done. The rest of the cited “authorities” also have motivations worth considering.

Of note is the Centers for Disease Control, where Mark Rosenberg, then-director of the National Center for Injury Prevention advocated:

“We need to revolutionize the way we look at guns, like what we did with cigarettes. It used to be that smoking was a glamour symbol — cool, sexy, macho. Now it is dirty, deadly — and banned.”

“The CDC,” Politifact continues, has been “under congressional demands to stop researching gun issues…”

That in itself ought to bury the old Truth-O-Meter in the red, but it’s been a talking point parrotedby the citizen disarmament lobby and its media partners to great effect. Timothy Wheeler, MD, corrected the record for any who will listen:

Congress in fact simply directed the CDC to stop promoting gun control. To reasonable minds this is not at all controversial. Congress should ignore the tricksters and continue holding the CDC to its mission of objective research, not pushing for gun control.

Likewise, aside from also working for the Harvard gun-grabbers, David Hemenway is long on conclusions but short on sharing how he derived them. The New England Journal of Medicine, per the Foundation for Economic Education, “routinely excludes articles that dissent from its well-known, strident, and inflexible position of gun-control advocacy.” And as for Bindu Kalesan’s ludicrous claim that “[i]mplementing three state gun control laws at the federal level could reduce the rate of American gun deaths by more than 90%”:

[L]eading gun violence researchers have called that result “implausible,” and said the study’s design is so flawed that some of its findings are not believable.

And Columbia University? The place partnering with Michael Bloomberg to train “journalists” in the Everytown-preferred method for reporting on guns?

So much for the impartiality and credibility of the people Politifact is relying on to coax its Truth-O-Meter to register in the green. Which means, in the absence of expert analysis from researchers without a long history of self-interest-advancing citizen disarmament advocacy, those of us who are not statisticians must rely on that thing Mark and Gabby claim to represent, “common sense.”

First and foremost, the truism that correlation does not imply causation can’t be stressed enough. Gun ownership does not cause suicide, no matter how artfully readers are being led to that conclusion. For someone who has called “‘stigma-slinging’ one of the worst practices in American politics,” Signer’s triggering of this whole pile-on hardly seems consistent.

Other factors to consider:

Would you tell a pollster you own guns?  Maybe we should do a poll on that.

Rates are not the same as total numbers. Low population areas with fewer incidents can have significantly higher rates than high population areas with more incidents.

“[S]uicide rates, both overall and by firearm, are higher in areas where gun ownership is more widespread,” the Brady “report” claims. So now they’re implying correlation/causation between owning a gun and sticking your head in the oven or jumping off a bridge? Then why include them in their rates?

“Ownership” is a moral and legal term, and is not the same as “possession.” How are the totals skewed by aberrant societal segments? What happens to the rates/numbers if criminal/substance-abusing gun “possessors,” who have higher incidents of all kinds of violence, including suicide, are screened out? After all, they can’t, by law, be included as gun “owners.” Similarly, what conclusions can be drawn about police suicides, where studies from years past showed a rate over double that of the general population in some locales?

Oh, and explain “gun-free” Japan. Just to prove that’s not a fluke, explain why the U.S. isn’t even in the top 25 “Countries With The Most Suicides in The World.”

Then make sure you check out those countries’ “common sense” gun laws. Go ahead, do it. Right after you challenge Politifact to reset the Truth-O-Meter needle.

David Codrea in his natural habitat.

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.

In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

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Carl

The anti-gun crowd need a good dose of common sense (Oxymoron?) Pol Pot, Mao, Robespierre, Chavez, Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin and Castro all had opinions and all were despots. Truth vs Opinion, Fact vs Fiction–
I suspect Politifact would take issue with the above statement.

oldshooter

My research on the topic indicates that suicide rates are also highest in states with the highest rates of dog ownership, and lowest in the states with the highest rates of cat ownership – coincidence? And I stand by my made up sources just like Signer does.

Aardvark

I would think that would be the reverse! : )

5WarVeteran

Politifact – just because the word “fact” is part of the name does not mean it is actually “fact” after all how much of the “Federal Banking System is actually “Federal”? (Hint: none of it)

POLITIFACT LIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just like all politicians… Is that hard to understand?

3ftAlien

Exactly. Any time politics and facts get near eachother, it ends up in an explosion of bull$hit.

Aardvark

All socialists use neuro-linguistic programming in their socialist schemes. Politi”fact”, “Affordable” Care Act, Alliance for “Justice” (a George Soros group), Center for American “Progress”, “Common Sense” gun laws, etc. The people with limited critical thinking abilities can not see past the warm and fuzzy phrases used by the left.

Michael Twidle

Don’t let the facts get in the away. If there was any correlation between guns and suicide it wouldn’t even be a contest the US would rank number one. When the fact is we rank somewhere near 50, how does the CDC explain that.

Witold Pilecki

“Would you tell a pollster you own guns? Maybe we should do a poll on that.”

Here’s my response to such a question, “I do not own or possess a single firearm.”

See what I did there?

hijinx60

That was my first thought exactly. I don’t tell doctors, teachers, polls, politicians, or anyone else whether or not I own ANYTHING.

jamie

I have noticed several inaccuracies in politifact they apparently don’t like Bernie Sanders.

Eric

Only know 2 that used firearms for suicide , I have known plenty that drank to death , used tylenol , methadone, cars , heroin , cocaine , 3 jumped in front of trains , When a person really wants to go die they will.
Their choice , their time.

durabo

Japan, where gun ownership is virtually unknown, has a higher suicide rate than the US. They jump off high places, swim out to sea, stab themselves, jump in front of trains, etc. So much for gun ownership.

BillyR

Yep…but don’t expect facts to get in the way of a good narrative.

trumped

These fools can never understand a Psych 101 principle – correlation does not equal causation. If it did, then the suicide capital of the world, Japan, would be proof that banning guns leads to suicides. They also do not seem capable of learning another basic Psych 101 principle – surveys are worthless because people say all sorts of things, and there is no way of knowing who was honest and who was not. There isn’t a way to know the actual gun ownership rape in a state because we do not have firearm registration. And even if we did, what… Read more »

Mack

Wonderful critique of the Tampa Bay Progressives, David.

For more support, see this interview with Dr. Gary Kleck. He discusses the Substitution in Methods of Suicide, the Shortcomings of Surveys on Gun Ownership, and the expense of phone surveys when attempting to determine gun ownership.

Criminologist Gary Kleck on Guns, Crime, and Their Study
https://ariarmstrong.com/2015/11/criminologist-gary-kleck-on-guns-crime-and-their-study/