CNN’s Piers Morgan has for days cited U.S. and British gun homicide statistics in an attempt to get stricter controls on firearms here in America.
On Tuesday, Cincinnati Fox affiliate WXIX thoroughly debunked many of Morgan’s claims (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
After playing a clip of Morgan’s interview with radio host Alex Jones, WXIX’s Ben Swann said, “The stat that Piers Morgan was continuing to cite, one that Great Britain which banned guns about fifteen years ago had only 35 gun-related murders in 2011 compared to the United States which had 11,000. Let’s start there because that number is not correct.”
Swann then broke down the FBI crime statistics for 2011 showing that there were 12,664 homicides in the U.S. Of those, 8,583 were caused by firearms.
“But of those,” said Swann, “400 are listed as justifiable homicide by law enforcement, 260 justifiable homicide by private citizens.”
Morgan was also misstating Britain’s gun-related homicide rate in 2011 which was actually 59 NOT the 35 he repeats over and over again.
Not surprising that facts really aren’t important to folks such as Morgan.
But that’s just the beginning, because what anti-gun media members such as Morgan completely ignore is the differing crime rates relative to the population.
“The U.S. has the highest gun ownership rate in the world, an average of 88 guns per 100 people,” Swann stated. “That puts it first in the world for gun ownership.”
If there was a significant correlation between gun ownership and homicide, America should therefore be one of the highest nations in the world in terms of gun-related murders per fixed number of people.
Not so said Swann. “Honduras, El Salvador, and Jamaica have higher rates. So do 24 other countries. The U.S., despite being number one in gun ownership is number 28 in gun homicide with a rate of 2.97 per 100,000 people.”
But here’s where it really gets interesting.
“The UK has the second highest overall crime rate in the EU,” Swann said. “The UK has the fifth highest robbery rate, the fourth highest burglary rate. But more importantly, the EU named Britain as the most violent country in the EU.”
Swann noted that in the UK, there are 2,034 violent crimes per 100,000 people. By contrast, there are 466 violent crimes per 100,000 here in America.
“We’re not even in the top ten,” Swann said.
This means that Britain’s violent crime rate is over five times that of the U.S.
Not surprisingly, Morgan chooses to ignore this statistic.
Also of note, Swann’s sources for some of the numbers he cited were Britain's Daily Mail and Guardian.
Maybe that will convince Morgan – but don’t hold your breath.
(HT Bob Parks)
