Washington, D.C.— A recent report has revealed that The Gun Violence Archive long considered a "go-to" statistical resource for politicians and anti-Second Amendment activists to draw upon to support their often groundless arguments has a fatal flaw. TheTruthAboutGuns.com released the bombshell Monday that the site has included "non-violent" incidents as "gun violence" within the website's category for "school shootings."
Citing the website itself, The Truth About Guns found that in the ten most recent incidents described as "school shootings" the number of casualties, killed or injured is zero. In one particular Texas incident, classified as a "school shooting," nobody was shot. In fact, the gun in question was found in a vehicle accidentally. Reportedly a student "drove [their] parent's car to school," and allegedly "did not know [the] firearm was in [the] vehicle."
The discovery has prompted questions as to how such incidents as the one in Texas could be considered a "school shooting," or further, how any incident in which no one was shot nor wounded could possibly be considered to be "gun violence."
A second dubious incident cataloged by the website stated that an "Unloaded gun [was] found in [a] locked bag;" while "ammunition [was] found nearby." The situation is hardly a unique one either the outlet observed as in April 2022, a RAND survey discovered that only 123 out of 27,900 gun control studies stood up to rigorous scientific scrutiny.
Rob Romano of The FPC Action Foundation posed the question directly to the Archive writing, "Hey while you're here, can you explain why your list of "school shootings" is overwhelmingly populated by incidents where no one was shot?"
Responding to criticism on X, the organization responded, "To your question of 'lying', I would think your comments are based more on not understanding our processes than being deceptive. We have been vetted by scores of professionals, media, academics, even those who hate our service. We are comfortable with the processes we have."
The cognitive dissonance that the two posts to X create is enough to effectively devalue any argument that is based upon the statistics presented by The Gun Violence Archive unless and until the conflation of these disparate statistics is corrected retroactively.
Citing the website itself, The Truth About Guns found that in the ten most recent incidents described as "school shootings" the number of casualties, killed or injured is zero. In one particular Texas incident, classified as a "school shooting," nobody was shot. In fact, the gun in question was found in a vehicle accidentally. Reportedly a student "drove [their] parent's car to school," and allegedly "did not know [the] firearm was in [the] vehicle."
The discovery has prompted questions as to how such incidents as the one in Texas could be considered a "school shooting," or further, how any incident in which no one was shot nor wounded could possibly be considered to be "gun violence."
A second dubious incident cataloged by the website stated that an "Unloaded gun [was] found in [a] locked bag;" while "ammunition [was] found nearby." The situation is hardly a unique one either the outlet observed as in April 2022, a RAND survey discovered that only 123 out of 27,900 gun control studies stood up to rigorous scientific scrutiny.
Rob Romano of The FPC Action Foundation posed the question directly to the Archive writing, "Hey while you're here, can you explain why your list of "school shootings" is overwhelmingly populated by incidents where no one was shot?"
Responding to criticism on X, the organization responded, "To your question of 'lying', I would think your comments are based more on not understanding our processes than being deceptive. We have been vetted by scores of professionals, media, academics, even those who hate our service. We are comfortable with the processes we have."
The cognitive dissonance that the two posts to X create is enough to effectively devalue any argument that is based upon the statistics presented by The Gun Violence Archive unless and until the conflation of these disparate statistics is corrected retroactively.
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