NRA lobbying skews gun violence data

[Jackson1999]

Check out the this column in the Sun Times.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/marin/1700838,CST-EDT-Carol05.article

Basically, it says that the NRA has prevented CDC from reporting on firearm deaths. The columnist even goes so far as to say,

"So much so that when it comes to suicides, the CDC does not break out its data with regard to the method used. Hanging? Drug overdose? Or gun?"

The problem is, the CDC DOES list that info. They have a great database of Injury Mortality Reports that allows you to filter by age, state, cause of death, etc. In fact, I have used this often to discredit phony claims by gun prohibitionists such as "3,000 children die due to gun violence."

http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html

I expect columnists to have opinions, but you would think she could spend 5 minutes looking at what information the CDC offers.

Or maybe I am missing something.

[slackmaster]

1. CDC Web-based Injury Statistics And Reporting System (WISQARS) lets you roll your own query

http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/index.html

Welcome to DU, and thank you for pointing out the inaccuracy of the Sun-Times editorial.

K&R

:kick:

[katandmoon]

2. Sound made when you read that editorial: WHOOOOOOOOSH

In all fairness, it doesn't sound like you did read the editorial. So let me boil it down for you so you you can understand it.

One of the NRA's missions is to prevent accurate reporting of gun deaths and according to this editorial, and the NRA's own admisison in it, that's exactly what it has succeeded in doing with the CDC.

Therefore, the CDC numbers, thanks to NRA pressure, say exactly what the NRA demands that they say.

Go ahead, keep spreading the lies. Guns on their own aren't reprehensible enough. Cover them in disinformation and lies.

[slackmaster]

4. The editorial presents only generalities and unsupported claims

For example:

"So much so that when it comes to suicides, the CDC does not break out its data with regard to the method used. Hanging? Drug overdose? Or gun?"

That is demonstrably false. The CDC provides highly detailed information about suicide methods.

No hard data that any hard information has been suppressed.

If you have a source of numbers to contradict those you can get from WISQARS and some proof that WISQARS data is not accurate or complete, please present it.

[Jackson1999]

5. In all fairness, you didn't read the editorial

She specifically says that you can't find out the method of suicides. Yes, you can.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

13. That swoosh sound was her running off before that facts were brought up.

[Statistical]

6. How? Please be specific.

CDC numbers show homicides by firearm, suicides by firearm, and accidents by firearm.

Every single person killed by a firearm is either the victim of a homicide (either criminal or justified), killed by themselves (suicide), or died as the result of negligence or accident.

[X_Digger]

9. Not "accurate reporting of gun deaths"

but biased 'research' that starts from a premise then sets out to prove it. That's completely separate from NVDRS.

NVDRS has _always_ been a state-by-state funded program (with guidance & funding from the CDC for 'onboarding'), and the CDC portion of it is still there, but was rolled into WISQARS in 2006. (as Slackmaster mentioned.)

[iverglas]

16. "biased 'research' that starts from a premise then sets out to prove it"

Gosh, that wouldn't be a bald and unsubstantiated assertion straight from the NRA's mouth, would it?

I think it would.

[raimius]

11. Not quite...

Look at the actual quote from the NRA person. They stated they don't want anti gun-rights biased studies. I really don't see how that quote equates to preventing accurate reporting.

The editorial is flat wrong on several points, besides taking innocuous quotes and spinning them against the organization making the statement (sadly, a common tactic).

The WISQARS system is a great tool for finding specific data. I've seen many people use it to disprove lies and distortions on both sides of the debate.

Guns are not "reprehensible." Assigning moral traits to a machine clouds the deeper issues of liberty, public utility, and crime control.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

21. Sound made when you read her retraction and apology. Smack.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/marin/2009/08/i_was_dead_wrong_about_cdc_and.html

[Statistical]

8. Yeah WISQARS is very comprehensive.

You can also create drill downs by using the leading cause of death functionality.

For example:

10 Leading Causes of Death, United States 2006, All Races, Both Sexes, Ages 1-17

Cause of Death Deaths
Unintentional Injury 6819
Homicide 1704
Malignant Neoplasms 1650
Congenital Anomalies 989
Suicide 940
Heart Disease 599
Influenza & Pneumonia 225
Septicemia 202
Chronic Low. Respiratory Disease 199
Cerebrovascular 184

Breakdown of unintentional by type
Cause of Death Deaths
MV Traffic 3845
Drowning 883
Fire/burn 429
Poisoning 310
Suffocation 293
Other Land Transport 191
Pedestrian, Other 189
Fall 107
Firearm 102
Other Transport 93
Natural/ Environment 79
Other Spec., classifiable 73
Struck by or Against 72
Unspecified 56
Other Spec., NEC 37
Machinery 29
Pedal cyclist, Other 24
Cut/pierce 7

Breakdown of homicide by type
Cause of Death Deaths
Firearm 1076
Unspecified 237
Cut/pierce 121
Suffocation 65
Other Spec., classifiable 63
Other Spec., NEC 48
Fire/burn 33
Poisoning 21
Struck by or Against 21
Drowning 11
Fall 5
Transportation- Related 3

Breakdown of Suicide by type
Cause of Death Deaths
Suffocation 465
Firearm 371
Poisoning 48
Fall 15
Other Spec., classifiable 15
Transportation- Related 7
Drowning 6
Other Spec., NEC 5
Cut/pierce 3
Unspecified 3
Fire/burn 2

Of course stats are kryptonite for gun grabbers.

They show for example that less than 1% of accidental deaths of children involve firearms. 60% of all accidental deaths of children are Motor Vehicle accidents.

Children do use firearms to commit suicide but strangely enough suffocation is the most "popular" method despite high firearm access in the country.

Even including the homicide number gives us 1549 deaths per year which given 74 million children in the US is 0.002% of the population.

Accepting reality wouldn't allow the VPC to come up with emotional but completely false stats like 13 children die each day from guns.

Simple math tells us that is not true. 365 * 13 = 4745. The VPC is inflating the number by about 300%.

Now 4.2 children per day isn't good but to put it into context 4 children die each day from parental neglect and abuse. How about we solve the root cause of problems rather than just blame guns.

[iverglas]

15. miss a few things, did you?

From the editorial, which you really don't seem to have bothered reading:

The NRA's fearsome clout goes a long way to explaining why only 17 states are part of the CDC's National Violent Death Reporting System. Begun in 2002, it ran out of funding by the time Illinois applied in 2004. Private money from the Joyce and MacArthur foundations came to Illinois' rescue as it tried to examine gun violence. Still that money covers only three counties.

And from the link you gave, something you apparently decided wasn't worth mentioning:

"Violent death data are currently provided for 16 NVDRS states and, therefore, are not nationally representative. Click here for more detail."

It's in red letters at the site you link to; hard to miss.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars/NVDRS/About-NVDRS.htm#disclaimer

2.2 Participating States

In 2002, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began implementing NVDRS. States that are funded for NVDRS operate under a cooperative agreement with CDC to whom all violent deaths are voluntarily reported. NVDRS funded six states initially. In 2006, CDC received funding to expand the system to a total of 17 states. The goal is to include in the system all 50 states, all U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.

For a list of the states currently funded by NVDRS and their contact information, see the National Violent Death Reporting System State Profiles. <and that link doesn't work>

Note: The data in this report are from 16 states, and these states or the data from them were not analyzed or chosen to provide a representative sample of the United States population. Therefore, these data cannot be generalized to the entire U.S. population. Any changes or fluctuations in rates could be as a result of different demographic or socioeconomic fluctuations in these 16 states as compared to the entire U.S. population.

Huh.

Any other inaccuracies in the editorial you'd like to falsely allege?

[X_Digger]

17. NVDRS is an correlation of WISQARS reported data..

The NVDRS correlation is not available for 50 states, but the things that the editorial states as not being available actually are, from WISQARS for all 50 states.

"So much so that when it comes to suicides, the CDC does not break out its data with regard to the method used. Hanging? Drug overdose? Or gun?"

What NVDRS does is-

# link records on violent deaths that occurred in the same incident to help identify risk factors for multiple homicides or homicides-suicides;
# provide timely preliminary information on violent deaths (e.g., basic counts of murders and suicides) through faster data retrieval-currently, vital statistics data are not available until two years after a death;
# describe in detail the circumstances that may have contributed to a violent death; and
# better characterize perpetrators, including their relationships to victim(s).

So WISQARS will have 2 incidents of murder by gun and one gun suicide, but NVDRS would tell you that it was a family annihilator who killed his wife and kid, then turned his gun on himself.

eta: clarified that WISQARS does cover all 50 states.

[Jackson1999]

18. You are confused

Wisqars is different. The other one has details like whether the person was homeless or not, but Wisqars will certainly tell you the method of suicide for national deaths.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

22. The author has some she'd like to allege. Here is her retraction and apology.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/marin/2009/08/i_was_dead_wrong_about_cdc_and.html

[Jackson1999]

23. Hey Iverglas--any apology or admission you are wrong?

The reporter admitted she was wrong and that her story was BS. How come we haven't heard from you yet???? Hmmm.....

Don't you feel a little squeamish about blindly supporting people who intentionally give out false information?

For the record, one of her sources for the original story was the CDC itself. I assume the other one was VPC.

[iverglas]

24. Huh. Looks like what I quoted from the editorial was CORRECT

The NRA's fearsome clout goes a long way to explaining why only 17 states are part of the CDC's National Violent Death Reporting System. Begun in 2002, it ran out of funding by the time Illinois applied in 2004. Private money from the Joyce and MacArthur foundations came to Illinois' rescue as it tried to examine gun violence. Still that money covers only three counties.

I mean, the bit about the NRA's clout, who knows? But the facts in that paragraph ARE CORRECT.

And that's what I was talking about.

I think you'll find that the information that NVDRS compiles is indeed compiled and reported in, oh, Canada, country-wide.

Quick fr instance: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/001018/dq001018b-eng.htm

Forty, or about 8% of all homicide incidents were murder-suicides. Ninety percent of murder-suicides were family-related. There were 52 victims of murder-suicide in 1999, up from 45 the previous year.

It really is kinda handy to know whether a suicide was also a (multiple?) homicide. And statistics really just aren't quite complete without that information.

[onehandle]

3. The NRA is an lobbying group working hard to line the pockets of gun manufacturers.

What's wrong with that?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

10. Actualy there is a different group that does that

[benEzra]

19. NSSF. (n/t)

[jody]

7. K&R Thanks for posting an accurate summary. I expect a few gun-grabber beetles will drop by to roll

their own balls of mis-truths.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

12. The columnist is an idiot. My gosh do some research or call it an editorial.

[Hoopla Phil]

14. Oh hell. Why let the facts get in the way of a good story.

[Jackson1999]

20. UPDATE: Article removed from Sun Times site

The author admitted she was given bad information. She also said that one of her sources was the CDC. Hmmm....