Op-Ed: VPC = Very Petty Con

Analysis performed by gun control groups is about as thoughtful and deep as Miley Cyrus’s song lyrics. The Violence Policy Center, one of America’s oldest and most conniving Joyce Foundation funded institutions, is this week’s example.

Keep in mind that the VPC has called for the banning of all handguns, declared that confusing the public about “assault weapons” is good policy, and even insinuated that the average concealed carry licensee is a murderer waiting to happen. In their myopic crusade to castrate the Second Amendment, VPC seems immune to statistical purity, much less inclined to peer critically beyond numbers that grant them easy headlines and media interviews.

Such is the case with their recent claim that gun deaths are lower in states with strong gun control laws.

In an overly simplistic selective scraping of stats, VPC looked at ten states – five with the highest rate of gun fatalities and five with the lowest. Without honestly quantifying the nature of “strong” gun laws, nor legitimately examining the causes of the gun deaths, the VPC instead anchored their claim on superficial causal analysis, and promptly issued press releases. Sadly, some in the media parroted VPC’s canned PR by employing parrot sized brain power.

In VPC’s review, the five states with high gun death rates were either in the deep south or in the rugged northern territories (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alaska, Wyoming, and Montana). The five states with the lowest gun death rates were all autocratic North Eastern asylums plus a tropical island (Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Barack Obama’s Hawaii). Anyone not in the propaganda business would instantly see the VPC presented an apples-to-kumquats comparison. Culturally, economically, politically and recreationally, these states have only one commonality, and that is being in America.

As usual, suicides have been lobbed into the “gun death” total, despite endless analysis showing that guns are not a determinant suicide variable – that gun availability does not change the likelihood of a successful suicide (if it did, Lithuania would have a suicide rate 1/100thof the United States because they have fewer than 1/100th the number of guns per capita, yet their suicide rate is three times ours). This is important because three of the five states that the VPC claims have high gun death rates due to lax gun laws also have very high suicide rates (Montana, Wyoming and Alaska top the suicide charts for American states). Conversely, the five states with low gun death rates are in the bottom six states for suicides (Connecticut beat out Hawaii by a nose).

This alone is reason enough to toss the VPC report into the circular file. Failing to compensate for suicides – which are 62% of gun deaths nationally – is a propaganda ploy. After all, one of the most effective ways to lie is to mostly tell the truth, but manipulate the inclusion or exclusion of selected facts that make all the difference.

Click here to read the entire op-ed at CalGunLaws.com.

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