That’s not quite right. I don’t think they lied. But in their social media output the methodology isn’t disclosed - only the soundbyte. My opinion - which you clearly disagree - was that this was intentional. Do you disagree with Politifact’s assessment? They laid out the reasoning very clearly. If you do, that’s fine. YMMV and all.
I think you’re in the minority though but I have no way to demonstrate that. I’m okay agreeing to disagree on this point.
Actually, I’m not so sure that Politifact do consider it to be intentionally misleading. They rate it as false, certainly, and they cite several people who agree with them that it is misleading, but they don’t actually accuse Everytown of doing so deliberately.
The soundbytes being intentionally misleading are still reliant on those definitions, really. Soundbytes by nature are necessarily briefer, and I’m generally skeptical of short blurbs like that when they come from advocacy groups. However, in this case, I find I don’t disagree with the underlying reasoning. Too much, anyway.
Well, I think I have Politifact on my side, as far as maliciousness goes. But you’re right, I’m not sure how we can prove the point either way generally speaking.
Both you and Damuri seem to disagree with my definition of “lying”, which is interesting in and of itself. If I agreed with you on Everytown’s actions, I’d have no problem calling an intentional deception like that a lie. I might have to start a new thread on what counts as lying. 
Population numbers aren’t nearly as important as *gun owning population numbers. *And what we know is that the percentage of households with guns has generally *fallen *over the last 40 years, from near 50% in the early 70s to a bit over 30% today. We should expect that fewer households with guns = reduced gun violence.
What hasn’t changed? The basic fact that having a gun in the house represents more danger, not safety, for every family member in that house.
If the number of gun victims was declining despite *more *households owning guns, the gunners might have a point about ‘more guns = safer!!’. But it’s not, and they don’t.
Nope, I’m asking in what way does catagorizing one as a school shooting and the other as just a shooting advance or inform the debate at all?
Lets assume that it is for the sake of argumetn because if people generally think of a gang shooting taht occurs ina schoolyard in the middle of the night as a school shooting and they understood the statistic to refer to these sort of shootings then I’ve got no more argument. So for the sake of argument…
Is that what obama did when he repeated the statistic in his speech? is that what people who repeat that statistic does? Or do they use the statistic and link it to newtown and Columbine?
I think they did read my mind and the minds of the vast majority of people who hear the words school shooting and think of Newtown and Columbine. But I guess I could be wonr. I don’t actually know what everyone is thinking.
Cite?
I don’t know that more guns=safer but the states have increasinly been liberalizing their concealed carry rules over the years and it hasn’t increased murder rates so more concealed carry guns/=less safe, or so it seems. But I don’t know how you have a controlled experiment on this sort of thing.
And it’s arguably necessary for the Swiss to have such a militia, considering the wars that have been fought all around them for centuries.
The Americans, though, are more likely to go to war with themselves again than be invaded, so I’m not clear that a militia serves any viable purpose, though it has made it a lot easier for them to kill each other in large numbers.
Some researchers think that game difficulty is as (or possibly more) important than ‘violent’ content:
Research also suggests that heavy users are *less *impacted by violent video games:
And that’s before we get to the crux of your ridiculous ‘movies and video games’ idea, there isn’t a shred of research or evidence linking video games and movies to crime rates. In fact, violent juvenile crime in the US declined by over 70% between the mid-90s and late 2000s, even as video game sales sky-rocketed.
However, answering the door with a game controller in your hand can get you shot. Maybe the police officer was playing too many violent video games.
It informs us as to location, I suppose. I think the point being made is “look how possible it is for people to get and use guns on school property”, effectively.
Surely those instances of other people and organisations using those statistics are… down to those other people and organisations? I’ve been arguing about Everytown. If you’d like to make a case for other groups misusing or misrepresenting those statistics, certainly. But I don’t see how if other people use them wrongly that’s something we should be putting at the feet of Everytown.
Maybe we should hire the Everytown staffers to stand outside schools, then. Psychics would be useful for picking up intent before action, though I don’t know how legal that would be.
Seriously, though - there’s a disconnect between “I don’t actually know what everyone is thinking” on one hand and then basing your judgment of Everytown on what everyone is thinking on the other hand. Unless you’re withdrawing your judgment?
The point is that while Everytown listed the details of their methodology on their website, on the other social media outlets that the information was posted on it was not readily apparent. Even still, Everytown would or should know that the information would be used in a fashion similar to what actually happened, that is the figure got repeated without disclaimer. That’s why it’s fair to say they didn’t lie - they didn’t. But they did know how the information would be used, and that it would be in a misleading way.
Politifact is not on your side of this issue (the truthiness of Everytown).
I agree with you that the figure would almost inevitably be repeated without disclaimer - a short snappy headline is good for the media. But, again, I agree with Everytown’s definitions, minus the suicides, which means that for me the number sans disclaimer is still fine. Again, you’re assuming intent to misrepresent and working from there. If Everytown feels that that number absent disclaimer is correct, then others cutting off their disclaimer doesn’t alter their point.
Politifact is not on your side of this issue (the malicious intent of Everytown).
I don’t think it was malicious. I do believe it was intentional. And it is a flase claim. Politifact agrees with that.
I suppose I’m wondering how it adds anything to the debate to point out that people with guns can access schoolyards after school hours in the middle of the night.
OK, maybe Everytown was just compiling data using transparent criteria and it was just misused by others. I still think the data is useless for any relevant purpose unless it is intended to be repeated without the caveats.
I can’t prove intent obviously so I would be satisfied if you agreed that everyone that repeated the statistic without the caveats were guilty of misleading their audience.
Perhaps even this wasn’t done intentionally but if they did it unintentionally then we have to ask how they could have believed what they believed unless they were somehow misled.
That’s true of Politifact. I was using “malicious” to mean “deliberately misleading”, but I’m happy to drop that. Regardless - Politifact don’t make a claim of it being intentional.
If your cause is gun control, why doesn’t pointing to examples of criminal activity on school property using guns make sense? It’s access. I can’t imagine the majority of schools have defences that work only during school hours. If anything, the opposite, since you could lock more up.
Everyone? Goodness. No, I can’t do that. Make your case for them, if you’d like to prove particular examples of wrongdoing.
As for your second point… I agree with the number. I would have no difficulty telling people that it was a correct one, minus the suicides. Do you believe that I have been somehow misled?
I guess I don’t see how examples of criminal activity that occurs after school hours adds very much to the debate about school shootings. After all its not all shootings throughout history, its all school shootings since Sandy Hook. The 74th shooting that triggered the article was a lot more like Sandy Hook. IMO, when they bookend the school shootings with Newtown and the one in Oregon, they are trying to make a link between these 74 shootings and shootings like Sandy Hook but no I can’t prove that was their intent. But YMMV.
When President Obama used the 74 school shooting number in the same speech that he mentioned Newtown and Oregon. That seems a bit misleading. I have heard the 74 number spill out of politician’s mouths and they never seem to add that this includes all shots fired on campuses and includes suicides, and self defense.
Includes the disclaimer but portrays the caveat as if it was a limitation
“The numbers, compiled by Everytown for Gun Safety, which has the full list, include any time, fatal or not, “a firearm was discharged inside a school building or on school or campus grounds, as documented in publicly reported news accounts,” and therefore may actually be under-counting.” Bolding mine
Here it look like the caveat was added as a clarification after original publication.
The internet is replete with examples of articles like this.
No you have not but I think the vast majority of people who hear this number have been if my facebook feed is any indication.
If I thought that what was on Facebook was a true representation of what the vast majority of people think I would move to Antarctica.
I absolutely agree that they were trying to make a link between these 74 shootings and shootings like Sandy Hook - that they were all school shootings.
I wouldn’t have, if I’d been one of those politicians or media figures. Again, you’re assuming their definitions agree with yours.
Right. Because it is a limitation. They limited what they counted by a particular definition. The Politifact article Bone** brought up gives an example of one shooting that I’d tend to suggest even he and you would include under your definitions of “school shooting”, but that Everytown didn’t, because it didn’t match their criteria. I’m not sure I understand what you’re criticising this particular article for when they seem to go into detail about the definitions and suggest what they could mean. After all, your point is that the caveats make a massive change to the data in and of themselves, right? They completely change your understanding when you find them out? And they put that information there for you.
I agree it looks that way to me, too. And yet, I still don’t see this as obviously deliberately misleading, because again, to do so we need to make assumptions about the writer based on… well, nothing, apparently. And they ended up making the clarification - what, they only wanted to mislead some people, and not the rest?
The internet is replete with examples of articles declaring everything you could imagine. It’s the internet.
Again, internet, as Czarcasm points out.
Also, even if your Facebook feed was filled with geniuses of great note, I can’t imagine there’s enough people on there to get any kind of representative sample. Let’s say 200 as a high for anyone? Even a thousand people wouldn’t be anywhere near a good enough sample to judge “the vast majority of people who hear these numbers”. Are they also what you’re basing the idea of how widespread your definition of school shootings is?
So you think most people who hear this number understand that it comes with the caveat that it includes any time someone is shot on school grounds including suicides or gang shootings in the middle of the night?
Ya think? I thought that second amendment rights trumped that.