Washington Post: propaganda at its best.

Another day, another piece of anti-gun propaganda in the American liberal press. This time the Washington Post throws their hat into the ring.

"How many people do you know who have been shot?"

"I was blown away," Hartley says. There were people he had been friends with for years without knowing they had been victims of gun violence. His number went up to 13.
As I read through the postings, I realized how lucky I was that my number is only one: Mark Hummels. Mark and I went to graduate school together at the University of California at Berkeley. Mark was a friendly guy with an easy smile who managed to be hardworking and laid-back all at once. He left behind a wife, two children and many, many friends.¶
I decided to take Hartley's question to people around Washington. About half the people I spoke with said their number was zero and they felt fortunate. Others revealed numbers reaching into three digits. For some, the number changed as they started thinking back, remembering incidents they had long put out of mind.
Here are some of the experiences of nine Washington area residents (portraits taken by Matt Girard):

The piece wanders predictably down memory lane, tugging the heart strings and stoking the moral outrage furnace with every fulsomely related incident. Completely information free, 100% emotional blackmail.

Personally I've met three people who have been shot. One accidentally shot himself through sheer stupidity, the other two were drug dealers/users in New York. Dangerous lifestyle, pretty much begging for it. All three were alive and kicking last I knew, although the two druggies are almost certainly dead by now. Its been 15 years or more, that's longer than the life expectancy of the average dirtbag in Yonkers NY.

What does that prove? Nothing. Its just happenstance. If I worked at the ER in Cook County Hospital Chicago, I'd know -hundreds- of people who had been shot. Because that's where all the shooting happens. Chicago.

Then there's this:

Gun deaths shaped by race in America

Yeah. No shit, Sherlock. Now, one would think that the bald fact that black people in large US urban centers are doing most of the shooting would make bad propaganda, but the Washington Post thinks otherwise apparently.

Gun deaths are shaped by race in America. Whites are far more likely to shoot themselves, and African Americans are far more likely to be shot by someone else.
The statistical difference is dramatic, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A white person is five times as likely to commit suicide with a gun as to be shot with a gun; for each African American who uses a gun to commit suicide, five are killed by other people with guns.

This is still the same old crap, despite the sugar coating of "data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." Guns cause blacks to shoot each other, guns cause Whites to shoot themselves. Correlation equals causation.
 Wet roads cause rain.
Plus that other, awesome proof: In 100% of shooting deaths a gun was present. Thank you Sarah Brady for your contribution to public life, the tedious tautology.
Just how sciency is that sugar coating? Lets take a look who got quoted.

• "Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore."  aka, a full time member of the anti-gun propaganda industry.
• Harvard anti-gun propaganda.
• "Janett Massolo, who is white, works at a suicide-prevention center in Reno, Nevada."  aka, some liberal lady.
• "Shanda Smith, who is black," and a member of  "Survivors of Homicide Inc."  aka, some liberal lady.
• "Sean Joe, an expert on suicide and violence at the University of Michigan."  Linkage to Mr. Joe's web page. 'Nuff said.
• "Eleanor Hamm works at the statewide suicide hotline for Colorado, which has high rates of gun ownership and suicide. Her suicide-prevention program is accredited by the American Association of Suicidology." aka, some lady.
• "Lanny Berman, executive director of the American Association of Suicidology." aka some guy with a title from some outfit nobody ever heard of.
  
• Oh, plus "a fact sheet from the NRA". aka the author couldn't even be assed to make a phone call. Because why? Because its horse shit, that's why.

There is no intention here to present a factual, scientifically sound picture of firearms and violence in the USA. The intention is to sell the reader on gun confiscation as a cure-all for what ails America. Can't go out at night? Ban guns!  Wife left you? Ban guns! Can't get a job? Ban guns! Banning guns will solve all problems, ease all pain, assuage all worries!

There's a name for guys who peddle cure-alls in public. They're called snake-oil salesmen. Hucksters. Shills. Hawkers. Pitchmen. Also, if a bit more bluntly, lying assholes trying to make a buck off the rubes without doing any actual -work-.

Just remember that when you read this newspaper. EVERYTHING you read in there is written by guys who lie with malice, forethought and intent, who's purpose is to fool you into doing things you wouldn't do if you knew all the facts.

The Phantom