GUN CONTROL: GINNING UP SCARY NUMBERS TO PROMOTE REVEALS EXTRAORDINARY FACTOID
I have often said that there appears to be an institutional bias in institutions who conduct research that favors the political views of their paying patrons. So why should I not be surprised when the John Hopkins “Bloomberg School” of public health issues a media release claiming “Ninety-Three Percent of Homicides of U.S. Law Enforcement Officers Result From Firearms?” A scary number!
But the truth is far different …
If you take the 796 officers murdered by firearms on the job between 1996 and 2010, a span of fourteen years, and divide – you will find that it produces an amazing factoid: ONLY 57 officers were murdered on the job each year. So while the author of the press release would have you believe that “it remains a dangerous and demanding profession,” when the truth appears that it is probably more dangerous for average citizens to live in a democrat-governed inner city in Chicago or Detroit.
Bearing in mind the thousands upon thousands of law enforcement encounters and the thousands of law enforcement officers, here is the progressive spin on law enforcement homicides by firearms …
Ninety-Three Percent of Homicides of U.S. Law Enforcement Officers Result From Firearms
Released: 5/29/2013 2:00 PM EDT
Embargo expired: 5/30/2013 6:00 AM EDT
Source Newsroom: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public HealthWhile occupational homicides continue to decline in the U.S., law enforcement remains one of the deadliest jobs in America. A new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that 93 percent of homicides of law enforcement officers between 1996 and 2010 were committed with firearms. Among those homicides, 10 percent were committed using the officer’s own service weapon. The findings, published May 30 by the journal BMJ Injury Prevention, could help develop new procedures to reduce risk to officers.
“Law enforcement officers across the U.S. are highly trained, yet it remains a dangerous and demanding profession,” said study author, David Swedler, a PhD candidate with Bloomberg School’s Department of Health Policy and Management and the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy. “We owe it to our law enforcement professionals to make their jobs as safe as possible. By analyzing the circumstances of these homicides, we can improve training and procedures to reduce risk to officers.”
According to the study, 796 officers were murdered on the job between 1996 and 2010, excluding the deaths of the 72 law enforcement officers killed during the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Over 90 percent of these homicides of officers were committed using firearms, with short-barreled weapons being used 72 percent of the time. In 43 percent of incidents in which an officer was killed, the officer was working alone. In 58 percent of the incidents, the officer was wearing body armor for protection.
The most common encounter that resulted in homicide of an officer was response to a “disturbance call.” In 29 percent of these cases, the assailant was waiting to ambush the officer. Eighteen percent of all response calls resulted in a “secondary ambush” of the officer after the initial encounter had begun. More than half (52 percent) of these “secondary ambush” encounters involved high-powered, long-barrel weapons. The highest rates of law enforcement homicide occurred in states in the southeastern United States. The lowest rates occurred in the New England states.
“This study allowed us to systematically explore the circumstances of these law enforcement officer fatalities, which can help develop targeted policies and practices to keep officers safe in the line of duty,” said Keshia M. Pollack, PhD, MPH, author of the study, and associate professor of Health Policy and Management and director of the Occupational Injury Epidemiology and Prevention Training Program.
The analysis was based on crime statistics available to the public: the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) reports from the FBI.
Source: Ninety-Three Percent of Homicides of U.S. Law Enforcement Officers Result From Firearms
The real research that would assist in reducing officer deaths is, unfortunately, judged to be not politically correct as it involves minorities and gangs in democrat-controlled inner cities. Afraid to provoke the gangs or their core constituency of victims, the progressives refuse to designate gangs as domestic terrorists and enforce the existing laws on the books. No, the government spends millions on equipping law enforcement agencies with military-style weaponry and allows SEAL wannabes to attack innocent law-abiding systems with tactics more at home in a war zone. Thus, producing an unacceptably high number of civilian deaths.
Out of control police officers killing innocent little girl …
Police who carried out a raid on a family home that left a 7-year-old girl dead over the weekend were accompanied by a camera crew for a reality television show, and an attorney says video of the siege contradicts the police account of what happened.
Geoffrey Fieger, an attorney for the family of young Aiyana Jones, said he has seen three or four minutes of video of the raid, although he declined to say whether it was shot by the crew for the A&E series "The First 48," which has been shadowing Detroit homicide detectives for months. Police have said officers threw a flash grenade through the first-floor window of the two-family home, and that an officer's gun discharged, killing the girl, during a struggle or after colliding with the girl's grandmother inside the home.
But Fieger said the video shows an officer lobbing the grenade and then shooting into the home from the porch. "There is no question about what happened because it's in the videotape," Fieger said. "It's not an accident. It's not a mistake. There was no altercation." "Aiyana Jones was shot from outside on the porch. The videotape shows clearly the officer throwing through the window a stun grenade-type explosive and then within milliseconds of throwing that, firing a shot from outside the home," he said.
Police arrested the target of the raid, a 34-year-old man suspected of killing a 17-year-old boy, in the upstairs unit in the two-family home. <Source>
Bottom line …
Wait for the progressives to cry that we need more expensive studies, more legislation, and new public policies which disarm law-abiding American citizens. The facts that they do not want to hear is that most gun-related crime occurs in minority inner cities and involves gangs and the gangsta culture. One need only to look at the news to see how the progressives are spinning the story. Or how hard they are fighting to keep the fact that Trayvon Martin in the Zimmerman shooting incident had a self-designed gangsta persona, pictures of guns and drugs on his social media accounts – and was known as a fighter. Progressives will not tell the truth if it interferes with their agenda.
You want fewer police shootings, curtail gang and drug activity. Quit allowing youthful offenders, or anyone, to plea bargain away gun-related charges. Above all, provide more training and decent leadership to the law enforcement officers who sometimes forget who they work for: civilians. And, stop the sensational research stories that mean diddly-squat!
-- steve
“Nullius in verba.”-- take nobody's word for it!
“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.”-- George Bernard Shaw
“Progressive, liberal, Socialist, Marxist, Democratic Socialist -- they are all COMMUNISTS.”
“The key to fighting the craziness of the progressives is to hold them responsible for their actions, not their intentions.” – OCS "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." -- Marcus Aurelius “A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves, and traitors are not victims... but accomplices” -- George Orwell “Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt." (The people gladly believe what they wish to.) ~Julius Caesar “Describing the problem is quite different from knowing the solution. Except in politics." ~ OCS