So, the other day I was thinking about writing a gun-control blog post because firearms are a very important subject to me. I live in the country and the daily conditions of my gun-ownership & usage is very different than that of most Americans but we just have the one constitution and there are two very divided sides to the modern debate and I think there’s a discussion to be had there and this is a run-on sentence.
However, when I saw a headline story on the drudgereport.com I started down a rabbit hole that turned out to be its own topic.
The drudgereport makes no bones about the fact that it is, first and foremost, a central hub for sourced news reports. No flies on them. But I clicked this link to a Breitbart story that turned out to be about a Washington Post piece about a Pew Research report about blah blah blah (who’s still paying attention?). So, why did the drudgereport not just link to the f%$king Pew Research piece?
Possible answer #1: I bet the answer has to do with advertising and click bait and link-whatevers.
Possible answer #2: Each additional story throws its own spin on the initial data based on what they think their readers want to hear. Which they do so that they can sell advertising and get clicks and blah blah blah illuminati.
The point is, if FACTS are what you want, you have to follow the rabbit down the rabbit hole. Being the cynical a$$hat that I am, I immediately assumed that these “news agencies” were spinning the Pew Research data to support a mindless pro-gun philosophy (verses my mindful pro-gun philosophy) so I headed straight to the opposing sides web sites for “the other spin”.
What I found was that gunpolicy.org took the EXACT SAME DATA as pewresearch.org and used a different start date point. If you look at the numbers pewrearch went back to 1993. Gun deaths dropped drastically from '93-'99. Then they rose slightly from '99 to today. (In this context the word "slightly" is quantified by the word "drastically", we are talking about deaths after all.) Those are the mother f^%kin facts, folks. Spin them however you want. Neither web site is lying to us but they are carefully choosing what they tell us. Now I could pass judgment on either side of this debate right now based on where they chose to start counting gun deaths but my true unrefined disappointment is for everyone who didn’t bother to do the research I did to see how we are being manipulated and pandered to by both sides of a debate that costs real lives and real liberty. Turn off the news. Turn on your brains.
Was that too preachy?
Don't worry, Norris, you'll get there.