Hendersonville Standard
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Resident has different take on gun deaths




LTE

LTE

I agree that Len Assante knows his guns, but he is exaggerating the gun related deaths in the USA by combining gun suicides with gun homicides which is typical anti-gunner rhetoric making it appear that gun violence (homicides) were 3 times more than they actually were……11,008 is the actual gun homicide count for 2016. 

Gun suicides are violent as well, but gun suicides are not what is all over the news.  Gun suicides barely get a mention on the nightly news, even when there is a celebrity involved.

Len’s editorial implies that these 33,000 (32,394 was the actual, he rounded up ??) deaths were all homicides when in fact 66 percent of those deaths were suicides. 

See website links and images below from the same CDC website that Len refers to in his editorial.

In other countries that have limited gun access, their suicide rates did not decrease.  The suicides just switched to other methods like jumping off bridges, over dosing, etc. 

And finally, don’t be a part of the Fake News, which is really poor investigative journalism re-named.  It was Len’s statistic and it was his editorial exaggeration and incorrect rounding to the not so nearest thousand, but The Gallatin News printed it without checking the facts.   It is editorial, but allowing someone to misrepresent the facts is irresponsible reporting.  

The solution is to bring back mental hospitals and enforce the laws we have, not more laws to restrict gun ownership by law abiding citizens. 

www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm

Greg Bumb,

Gallatin

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