ABC News reports 48% firearm background checks denied.

[lourendo]

I was watching ABC news (i do not know why) and they were talking about how evil guns were or something and they quoted that an impressive 48% of people that apply for a gun transfer are denied. they made some comments of how bad people are constantly trying to get guns and whatnot.

If you look at the ABC article, they quote it correctly at .48%
http://abcnews.go.com/US/guns-americ...8#.UMgtSHPjksk

Either they do not understand how per-cents work, cannot read, or they are so giddy to make gun owners out to be bad people that they subconsciously misread the statistics.

Any thoughts?

[Curmudgeon]

It's the pompous, arrogant, elitist media. What did you expect, intelligence?

[fortysix]

The statistic amounts to half a percent of all NICS are denied. The other *alarming* statistic they quote is that in the five years 2006-2010 almost 50k persons were killed by firearms in the US, more than twice as many killed by all other means combined. It's true, the FBI statistics put Total firearms at 67% of the murder weapons used during that period. But let's be realistic. Add to this the number of people ASSAULTED by all types of weapons. Just because you weren't killed by your attacker doesn't make the attack any less bad.

This ~50k of persons killed by firearms during that period amounts to 0.3% of all NICS run in 2011. So yes, 47k murders committed over FIVE years with firearms may seem *horrible*, but of all firearms produced and imported in the US in 2010 (8.4m) there were just 8775 murders committed with firearms. Of course, of those, I'm sure less than 10% were legally owned by the operator, and even better, I'm sure fewer than 10% of the operators would have passed a NICS check. Get even cuter, and find out that I'm sure more than 50% of the operators were currently on suspended sentence, plea bargain, parole, probation, or something else that amounts to being an unpunished felon. If they were in prison like they should be, you can cut that murder number in half and 25000 people are still alive. Either way, of those 8.4m firearms that were *born* in the US or brought in during 2010, only 8775 murders were committed with those firearms. That's REALLY GOOD. Even if those were the ONLY firearms in existence (all previously produced and imported firearms disappeared), the percent of firearms that committed murder (remember, Bob Costas says the gun commits the murder, not the operator) was just 0.1%. That's GREAT.

Dishonest reporting is one of the 2A's biggest opponent.

[Yellowfin]

Maybe they misplaced a decimal point, and being ignorant and unAmerican as they are probably didn't know they were wrong. The actual number is probably .48% or at most 4.8%.

[Metz]

8 million more guns on the streets per year? On the streets? What the fuck are those morons smoking?

[darkhunter]

Its .48% it says it in the article

[steelerfan]

I was watching ABC news (i do not know why) and they were talking about how evil guns were or something and they quoted that an impressive 48% of people that apply for a gun transfer are denied. they made some comments of how bad people are constantly trying to get guns and whatnot.

If you look at the ABC article, they quote it correctly at .48%
http://abcnews.go.com/US/guns-americ...8#.UMgtSHPjksk

Either they do not understand how per-cents work, cannot read, or they are so giddy to make gun owners out to be bad people that they subconsciously misread the statistics.

Any thoughts?

That last sentence... "or they are so giddy to make gun owners out to be bad people that they subconsciously misread the statistics."
I don't think they "subconsciously" misread it at all, they know exactly what they're doing, they love twisting facts to fit their agenda

[Jim8300]

"In 2011 the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) ran 16,454,951 background checks for firearms purchases. Only a small number of these purchases (78,211 or 0.48 percent) were denied."


16,454,951 background checks
78,211 denied

78,211/16,454,951=0.004753037 to convert that to percent you need to multiply by 100 and brings the figure to 0.4753037 or about 0.48 percent, less than ½ of 1 percent.

It is not 48%.

ABC news is full of idiots!

[BimmerJon]

8 million more guns on the streets per year? On the streets? What the fuck are those morons smoking?

Sounds much scarier. Don't it ?

Lol

[Doughdaddy]

Funny how they make a final statement of:

According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, between 2006 and 2010 47,856 people were murdered in the U.S. with firearms, more than twice as many as were killed by all other means combined.

but they omit the fact that as their "8 million more guns per year" is resulting in a decrease of total deaths by firearms by 1450.

They would be better off, and would save more lives, if they pursued banning cars. In the same time period, DUI resulted in 59,230 vehicular homicides (http://www.centurycouncil.org/drunk-...nal-statistics). And I bet there are more than 8 million new cars on our streets every year.