Monthly Archives: February 2013

Fact Checking on Gun Statements

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PolitiFact has been tracking various statements about guns from advocates of new regulations on guns and those opposed to new regulations. to see Click Here

But some statements are just wrong:  About homicides–“There’s more with hammers than with shotguns and pistols and AK-47s,” said Georgia state Sen. Bill Jackson.

PolitiFact provided these numbers from  the 2011 FBI totals (the most recent year available) for the types of weapons used in homicides:

Handguns:        6,220

Rifles:            323

Shotguns:        356

Blunt Objects:        496

Words matter.  And once you include pistols, as the state senator from Georgia did, his claim became pants on fire wrong. The number of homicides dramatically increases. Keep in mind that these are homicides. Once gun suicides are included, the number of deaths by guns more than doubles.

They attributed this statement to Mark Twain:   “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – it’s the difference between a lightning bug and the lightning.”

 

CBO: Means Test Programs

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CBO just released a report on means-tested programs: See full report:Click Here “The federal government devotes roughly one-sixth of its spending to 10 major means-tested programs and tax credits, which provide cash payments or assistance in obtaining health care, food, housing, or education to people with relatively low income or few assets. Those programs and credits consist of the following: Medicaid, canadian pharmacy la roche posay The low-income subsidy (LIS) for Part D of Medicare (the part of Medicare that provides prescription drug benefits), The refundable portion of the earned income tax credit (EITC), The refundable cheap viagra online portion of the child tax credit (CTC), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly called the Food Stamp program), Child nutrition programs, Housing assistance programs, and The Federal Pell Grant Program. As shown in this report and an accompanying infographic, in 2012, federal pharmacycanada-rxedtop.com spending on those programs and tax credits totaled $588 billion. (Certain larger federal benefit programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, are not considered means-tested programs because they are not limited to buy viagra online people with specific amounts of income or assets.) Total federal spending on those 10 programs (adjusted to exclude the effects of inflation) rose more than tenfold—or by beta blockers and cialis an average of about 6 percent a year—in the four decades since 1972 (when only half of the programs existed). As a share http://cialisgeneric-toped.com/ of the economy, federal spending on those programs grew from 1 percent to almost 4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) over that period. (For ease of presentation, this report frequently uses the term “programs” to encompass both the spending programs and the tax credits.)” Check out chart:Click Here    

The Reemergence of Liberals Among Youth?

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The New York Times ran a story about the views of young people: Young, Liberal and Open to Big Government. They wrote:

“It is no secret that young voters tilt left on social issues like immigration and gay rights. But these students, and dozens of other young people interviewed here last week, give voice to a trend that is surprising pollsters and jangling the nerves of Republicans. On a central philosophical question of the day — the size and scope of the federal government — a clear majority of young people embraces President Obama’s notion that it can be a constructive force, a point he intends to make in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
‘Young people absolutely believe that there’s a role for government,” said Matt Singer, a founder of Forward Montana, a left-leaning though officially nonpartisan group that seeks to engage young people in politics. “At the same time, this is not a generation of socialists. They are highly entrepreneurial, and know that some of what it takes to create an environment where they can do their own exciting, creative things is having basic systems that work.’”

Read article:Click Here

 

More killed by guns since 1968 than in all U.S. wars

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Commentator Mark Shields said more Americans have been killed by gunfire since 1968 than in all the wars in the nation’s history. Is that correct?

Politifact checked it out and confirmed:
“Since Shields’ comparison was otherwise accurate, with about 1.4 million firearm deaths to 1.2 million in war, we rated his claim True.”

 
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