Hillary Clinton claims Vermont is a huge contributor of the firearms used in crimes in New York.

[Bubzer]

Vermont does provide the highest per capita number of guns tied to crimes in New York. This point resonated with audience members, who gasped when she told them this factoid. But as much as the Clinton campaign may want to blame Sanders or his home state for the guns in New York, this is a misleading data point.

The per capita calculation is skewed by Vermont’s small population (55 guns out of 626,562 people, or 8.78 guns per 100,000 people). When it comes to gun trafficking between states, the raw numbers indicate the actual volume of guns flowing out of a state, and the prevalence of dealers who may be selling guns that are tied to crime. If you take out the 55 Vermont-originated guns from all crime guns that came from outside of New York, the number of crime guns in 2014 would decrease to 2,556 from 2,611. That’s how much impact the flow of crime guns from Vermont has on the volume of crime guns in New York.


The number of crime guns in New York from Vermont is so small that it could even be attributed to one or two bad actors. Using the per capita measure of trafficked guns originating from Vermont is as pointless as counting guns trafficked per 100,000 head of cattle.

We wavered between Two and Three Pinocchios. Clinton has carefully crafted her talking point to find the particular government data that support her point, which gives a wildly different view than how trafficking flows are tracked. We do not find the per capita measure as a fair assessment of gun flows from Vermont into New York. The difference between this point using per capita calculation and the raw number (1 percent of crime guns with source states identified in 2014 came from Vermont) is so stark that it creates a significantly misleading impression to the public. Those factors tip to Three Pinocchios.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/04/12/hillary-clintons-claim-that-the-highest-per-capita-number-of-crime-guns-in-new-york-come-from-vermont/

[virtualobserver]

1. Using statistics to lie is a slimy art.....but they are willing to do that at Team H

[Fuddnik]

2. The Clinton Campaign is a huge contributor to greenhouse gases.

[Bernin4U]

3. The State of Vermont To Join Iran And Republicans

...as Hillary's proudest enemies.

Story at 11.