We’re supposed be influenced by a statistically insignificant sample of losers and apply that judgment to young people, such as those involved in NRA Youth Interests programs…[More]
Half the article is just deconstructing the first sentence of this nonsense, it’s crammed with so much wrong. So naturally, the media runs with it and amplifies it.
The only time they admit that “correlation is not causation” is when confronted with the overwhelming percentage of mass shootings (school and non-school) that happen in so-called “Gun Free Zones”.
For all other details, they truly believe that legal, private gun ownership directly causes violent crime and mass shootings, even though at best there’s no correlation, and John Lott’s research even shows a slight-but-loose negative correlation.
“Correlation does not imply causation” is only half the concept; the other half is, “but causation cannot happen without correlation.”
Thus, “Gun Free Zones” may or may not cause mass-violence incidents — but with such strong correlation, I’d argue they are one contributing factor among many, for the chosen location of such events if nothing else. However, with the utter lack of correlation between legal gun ownership and violent crime rates, the antis’ “guns cause violent crime” over-simplification simply CANNOT be true.
“Guns cause crime the same way that flies cause garbage.” — Anon
As Lott points out, if availability of guns was a factor in causing crime, surely the dramatic increase of guns in circulation month after month for the last few years would have caused an equally dramatic explosion in crime stats.
https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/cjis/nics_firearm_checks_-_day_month_year.pdf/view