Commentary: The NRA and basic math

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By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – In a few days, the National Rifle Association will come to Indiana for its big annual meeting.

John Krull, publisher, TheStatehouseFile.com

John Krull, publisher, TheStatehouseFile.com

Gov. Mike Pence and the state’s lawmakers decided to mark the occasion by giving the gun lobby a gift – a new state law that allows gun owners to bring their weapons to school.

Commentary button in JPG - no shadow(If this annual meeting is successful and the gun lobby decides to come back to Indiana, presumably the governor and state legislators will move to the next item on the NRA wish list – a state law requiring Hoosier pre-schoolers to pack heat when they toddle off to daycare.)

A lot of people and groups opposed the whole “bring your guns to school” idea. The Indiana State Teachers Association, the Indiana Association of School Principals, Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents, Indiana School Boards Association, Indiana Urban School Association, and the Children’s Coalition of Indiana didn’t like it.

Initially, I agreed with the folks who didn’t like the new law.

But then I realized that, if allowing NRA members to bring their guns to school was the only way to get them to continue their educations, it was a small price to pay.

They could start by taking a refresher course in math. They seem to struggle with simple things like counting and comparing numbers.

The author of the “bring your guns to school” bill, Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour, likes to point out that guns are not nearly the danger that automobiles are. Lucas proclaims himself a proud NRA life member and supporter. He says, correctly, that more than 32,000 Americans died in automobile-related incidents in 2011 – a number so significant and so threatening to public safety that, among other things, it justifies limiting drivers’ First Amendment rights to text while they’re behind the wheel.

Guns, Lucas says, accounted for “only” 8,583 deaths in that year, so we Americans really don’t have an issue when it comes to guns.

The problem with Lucas’s reckoning is that those 8,583 deaths were only a sliver of the number of gun-related deaths in the United States in 2011.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly 32,000 Americans died in gun-related incidents in 2011 – basically the same “huge” number as were killed by automobiles that year.

To keep his gun number low, Lucas opted to ignore the number of gun-related suicides and accidental deaths. To make it a fair comparison, Lucas should have included all the gun-related deaths – or limited his cars-to-guns comparison to people who were killed by others.

What Lucas did wasn’t a case of comparing apples to oranges. It was a case of comparing apples to door knobs.

At a conference committee meeting on the “bring guns to school” law, Lucas repeatedly said that people opposing the measure had manipulated data to support their arguments. Critics charged that he was bullying those offering testimony he didn’t like.

Maybe Lucas’s motives were misinterpreted. Given his own determined and selective numerical cherry-picking, it’s possible that Lucas intended his statements about witnesses’ data manipulation as a compliment from one practitioner of the art to another.

Once Lucas and his fellow NRA members have finished with basic counting, perhaps they could move on to story problems.

For example, they could try to answer this one: The United States leads the developed world in the number of gun-related deaths by a wide margin. In fact, America records 20 times – that’s 2000 percent – the number of gun-related deaths per 100,000 people than the average of the world’s other developed countries.

If America’s NRA-crafted policies of free and unfettered gun flow – bring your guns to school – isn’t part of the problem, then what is?

Is it that Americans are 2000 percent more evil than the rest of the developed world?

Or are we 2000 percent more careless than people in other developed nations?

Or is that, in giving a special interest group like the NRA such a disproportionate voice in our laws and public policies, we Americans are 2000 percent more gullible than citizens of other developed countries?

John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism, host of “No Limits” WFYI 90.1 Indianapolis and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

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43 COMMENTS

  1. You would rather every parent that has a vaild permit commit a crime when dropping their kids off at school?

  2. Wonder how our judicial system compares to the rest of the world when a “offense act” is performed with a fire arm as a intimation tool? Could our laws be lax on criminals that use the fire arm as such? Could it be that if one knew that by use of such, would led to life without parole, that “gun offenses” would be greatly reduced?

  4. Drivel, and “toddlers packing heat”, mixed with a few pertinent facts presents a growing menace to intelligent discourse, when idiots like this are earning real money for stupid talk.
    “Toddlers packing heat”? What a Looney statement!

  5. “But then I realized that, if allowing NRA members to bring their guns to school was the only way to get them to continue their educations, it was a small price to pay.”

    You pompous jerk. I loath intellectual arrogance. If you, Krull, would work at education rather than indoctrination, then you would be intelligent enough to admit that gun control has failed because of one systemic problem. GOOD GUYS DON”T KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE AND BAD GUYS DON”T OBEY LAWS!!!!!

    Krull is the prime example of how education can cure ignorance but not stupidity.

    • ….

      Actually, Indiana Enoch, there was a time when you would have felt uncomfortable embracing the extreme, gun-toting right who wants every American to carry a handgun on their belt like “the good-ole American West.”

      But you’ve been getting your hat handed to you on your advocacy for your religious intolerant social views….(which by themselves, I acknowledge, are totally fine, but they have no role in government policy).

      SO, I-E, you join the chorus of the ignorant, guns at all costs crowd.

      It’s just pathetic. You used to have some self-respect.

      • You forgot to squawk BIGOT!

        Here’s my take on this issue,(like you have never read my statement on firearm management but choose to create your straw man arguments instead to misrepresent me.)

        One should not have to buy a license to exercise a constitutional right.

        Firearm safety and self defense (not kung fu and cowboys)should be required courses in our schools. One would not have to even touch a firearm to teach firearm safety. To many people do not know how to be safe around firearms, how to avoid becoming a victim, and what constitutes legal self defense. (You with your “long guns” impress as one ignorant enough to become the next Ira Beumer.)

        When one becomes an adult, if she is of mental and moral stability, then she should have a card issued or an icon on her license indicating that she is of mental stability and character to posses firearms. if she breaks bad, then she loses the icon and can not buy or be in the presence of a firearm.

        Schools should first be 100% safe zones that cannot be penetrated by a bad guy. No firearms, not even one possessed by a LEO, should be allowed behind this safety screen. “Until we have 100% safety zones, legally possessed firearms should be allowed on school property.” Otherwise, with gun banns, we have only created a “100% killing zone.”

        Thank you for providing me this opportunity to express my ideas. Your hate and stupidity makes an excellent back drop for my logic and intelligence.

        BTW,just because I have different ideas than you does mean I have lost have self respect. It means you’re narcissist who has no tolerance for ideas other than your own.

        • “BTW,just because I have different ideas than you does mean I have lost have self respect. It means you’re narcissist who has no tolerance for ideas other than your own.”

          IE: Actually he has no ideas of his own, that’s why he totes the “party line”. If the leftist, government run media says its bad then he will adopt hat way of thinking. Life is much easier when someone tells you what to think and do.

          • Then that explains my confusion, letting other think for me. I have been believing Obama all the way with;

            1. You can keep your doctor… not.
            2. Drawing lines in the sand and not do anything.
            3. ACA insurance would only cost $2500… not
            4. Rail against the Patriot Act as a Senator but then expands it as President.
            5. Runs guns to Mexico, gets caught and blames Bush.
            6. Well you get the idea.

        • That’s cute, you present no ideas of your own and accuse me of repeating the party line.

          And just where have you heard the ideas I presented before?

          Even if I was repeating “the party line,” so what? Does that some how automatically make them wrong?

          So man up, what ideas do you have?

          • …In fairness to you I-E, that little boy Brandon was throwing the snowballs at me.

          • Your right, sorry Bradon. I saw the preface “IE:” and thought I was the pronoun’s referent.

  6. I beg to differ with Mr. Krull’s assessment of the NRA’s math capabilities. All they need to know is that the more guns that get sold, the more money they make. They have a great grasp on that. Some gun dealers even notify them of who buys a gun, so they can contact that buyer to join.
    It does seem odd that nobody worries about the NRA having a de-facto “gun registry”, but I’m not in it, so I don’t have a problem with it, either.

    • Sounds like the Union scheme to me LKB. The union cares little about helping people. hey want that new naive, non thinking individual to join so they can get a piece of their paycheck. They will do some spot events to make it look like they are on the up and up, but it is all show. A person can chose whether to join the NRA and weather they want to be registered with them. A person taking a unionized position has no choice but to pay. And most of the time the pay goes to support the unions cronies in office/power who will then keep the unions busy. So a viscous circle continues.

  7. This is good news. Good for Indiana! This law should also apply to faculty.

    I don’t recall any places getting shot up that weren’t “Gun Free Zones”. Might as well send out invitations to would be shooters.

  9. Nice…interesting Krull chose to use data from the CDC and not the report by the FBI who actually tracks the gun deaths, the CDC report includes all murders committed by every means including knives, baseball bats, hammers, you name it. Here’s a link to the truth.

    http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8

    If you want to get a true picture of gun deaths in the USA, you need to also do the research on gang related murders which account for well over half to the total deaths by firearms in the USA in 2011.

    Krull is just another liberal idiot who has no clue what he is talking about, a 15 min search of the FBI site tells anyone everything they want to know and does in fact prove what the NRA is saying. (and no I’m not a member of the NRA)

    JMHO

  10. I wish Krull would make up his mind whether the National Rifle Association, or the “gun lobby” is coming to Indiana.

    Of course it never entered Krulls mind that the pool of citizens who believe in the Second Amendment to the Constitution and who support legislation that upholds the intent of the Second Amendment is far larger than the membership roll of the National Rifle Association.

    Those non NRA members vote too, and they also send donations to politicians and candidates for office who they feel have the proper amount of respect for the Constitution of The United States of America.

    Krull knows this, but he will always attempt to make his case that the NRA is in control. That gives him a target to shoot at (pun intended). He knows the real target is much larger, and a true “grassroots” body of Americans in all 50 States, or 57 States if you go with the current President of the United States count.

    ___

  11. …..

    Yes! Bring on the gun nuts!

    “Let’s take that Krull out to the woodshed and teach him some backwoods manners!! YEE HA!!”

    If there was ANYTHING more important than GUNS!, MORE GUNS!…

    …and now, let’s talk about BRINGING GUNS TO SCHOOL NOW!….I would like to know what it is. (Actually, it’s business, jobs and efficient government.)

    But in there was anything the low-intellect, “No, I don’t read Newspapers or follow the News” crowd loves more than all else…it is “But let’s talk about having more guns, cause I love guns!”

    (Let me stipulate I am a dyed in the wool Indiana Lugar Republican with multiple long-barrel guns because my family has always enjoyed hunting. Otherwise, I don’t have a bunker full of handguns and assault rifles because I think the government or the commies are coming to take my farm.)

    But this absolute idiocy about GUNS!, GUNS!, GUNS!…and wanting to now debate public policy should take guns into schools….is pure overboard ignorant stuff merely popular because “the gun-bunker paranoid crowd” wants to get a rise out of “the libs”

    C’mon gun-bunker boys….let’s hear it.

    The rest of America knows you idiots can NOT be trusted to govern the country. You prove it more every time you bring this crap up.

    • Lugar man, the Second Amendment is not a constitutional right to hunt.

      Please were a yellow ribbon so responsible gun owners will know to not violate your right to become a victim.

    • +1000.

      Everybody is a law abiding citizen until the moment they’re not.

      Good guy with a gun one minute raging mass murderer the next. Why? We all experience stress. The boss fires us or lays us off, the little lady leaves us and takes the kids, we get into financial difficulty, drink to much, have unruly teenagers at home, get into domestic disputes, the list is endless.

      You guns haven’t hurt anybody?……. Yet.

      Stress plus a trigger equals big trouble. There are no second chances for the gunman or the victim.

      Gangs smangs. Take half the gun homocides as gang related and our gun homocide rate is STILL and order of magintude higher than any other developed country.

      Bunker boys is right. You can’t get anything done about guns because that would mean AH and Mao will pop up out of their graves and put all the law abiding gun owners in FEMA camps.

      The Western movie and its mentatlity has done an ungodly amount of damage to the this country the myth of the good guys swooping in at the last minute to kill the bad guys is a horrible horrible myth.

      The open carry soccer mom who got into a shouting match with her husband and he grabbed her gun and shot her then realizing what he had done in a moment of rage he killed himself too. That’s more representative of the truth about guns.

      • Then let’s take away every weapon because a good guy might go bad. Then we will all be safe from the bad guy.

        Of course you would be exempted.

        When bad guys take over governments, the first thing they do is take away the good guy’s weapons…to keep the good guy safe of course.

      • Brains Benton: Dude get a grip. Your ADD has you jumping from unrelated topic to another. We all get it. You have been told by your leaders that guns are bad and you automatically fall in line. You have no ability to reason out when to think for yourself. Just as you have no ability to state anything with out going way over the top on it. If you came in with some notion of listening to the other sides arguments, maybe an agreement can be reached, but Nooooo you are already to the they =bad, I =right position.

        You and your sanctimonious lefties, can’t seem to understand that having a weapon is a deterrent. If a bad guy decides he wants to get on the news and be famous, he knows he is more likely to get away with it at a school or a hospital or some other place that doesn’t allow weapons. See those aren’t safe zones, because the good guys follow the rules. They leave their weapons at home. So it is clear sailing for MR. bad guy to walk in and shoot the place up and have no fear until the police come along.

        If the were not “gun free zones” then there is a chance that Mr. Bad guy will get taken out before he could do his dirty deed. He won’t have the chance to be famous and on the news. he will only be a failed bad guy. So he will avoid the areas where he has a lesser chance of being a victim.

        Remember: Bad Guys Do Not Follow the Rules or the Law…..that is why they are bad.

  12. NSAIDS “only” cause 8,000 deaths a year…trust me; you’ll be fine with it.

    When a good guy with a gun is at a shooting spree, it stops. Either because one is THERE, or because someone waits 20 minutes for one held by the police to show up!

        • Yup Crash, system data coming in on the stuff we’re developing,time zones are for people, climate data,comes from an environment that never sleeps.
          Stupid laws seem to be similar to an creative innovation project in Indiana these days.
          Like any innovation that is going actually serve a purpose,and be economic enough to warrant its production,and “distribution viability” per,perceived market targeting objectives,or goals,laws are indeed set to a testing controls,as well…We would hope!
          As product Innovationists, We have,regulatory,usage,safety codes and environmental impacts,and methodology standards to meet or exceed,before production is released to the markets

          The stupid Laws must pass the United States Constitutional Testing per,review,one would assume.

          Unfortunate as it is,most Stupid Laws are never tested to meet or exceed they’re standard, until,someone shows they’ve been beaned by its design “affect” and therefore files a “product liability claim”..those claims usually multiply as the impacts become more under the sun so too speak,by classifications….Innovative product Gateways,usually are not approached until the tollgate at the beginning assures the passageway to the Gateway is assured and has standing viability.

          Meeting standards,does help qualify forward,as to any product liability claim need for a…recall,or refund to the customer base in the affected markets. So.

          Evansville and Indiana,seem to have a vision for innovative pathways sometimes,however they do have an habitual problem leaving the gateway entry is still up for review,due its tollgate viability’s forward aspects and conditional challenges.

          If an Innovationist repeatedly fails design reviews for the first tollgates they usually find themselves innovating for an different company,too bad the same doesn’t apply to the creators,and innovators,of stupid state law,it always seems, they sometimes have contracts that further extends they’re negative impact numbers forward onto the said system of reference.

          Tollgate/ #1 Fail, Impact/affect=loss projection,further review and design development required per standards met,to proceed.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_(business)

          “in volutpat vestibulum a nice”

          “have a nice weekend”

  14. My deceased grandfather would have loved this one from Tennessee,–“It is illegal for a woman to drive a car, unless a man is running, or walking in front of it waving a Red flag to warn approaching motorists or pedestrians.”

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