"It was a different story"

A big high five to the Canadian Press for attempting to torque a story and being completely incompetent at it.  At 4:38pm (the time I accessed the story) on Friday, June 1, 2007, this story, carried at the Toronto Star website, reads (in part) as follows:

The federal Conservative government has rejected Ontario's call for a ban on handguns. ... [Stockwell] Day argued that other countries where handguns have been banned have seen the numbers of gun crimes increase.  "In jurisdictions that have eliminated or tried to eliminate, to ban handguns – the United Kingdom, Ireland, other jurisdictions – in fact crime with guns has unfortunately gone up," Day said.

Here comes the torque:

Day's statements, however, don't appear to match with the facts.

Interesting.  And, dear Canadian Press, what evidence do you marshall to maintain this assertion?

There was a 16 per cent drop in the number of firearms offences in the United Kingdom in 2006 compared with the previous year, according to figures from Britain's Home Office.

I know this particular blogging tic is increasingly frowned upon, but permit me to indulge: You. Absolute. Morons.

Here is the UK Home Office page from which the Canadian Press seems to be getting their statistics.  And here is what it says:

In the year ending 31 March 2005 provisional figures show a:

• 16% reduction in the use of handguns

If you go to that website, and look three lines down from the piece I quoted, you will see the following:

Despite these figures, the number of overall offences involving firearms has been increasing each year since 1997/98.

So the Canadian Press has messed up in a variety of ways.  One, they got the time period wrong - the statistic they are quoting is not for 2006, but for the year ending March 31, 2005.  Two, they misrepresent the nature of the statistic: it is not the case that, as the Canadian Press characterizes it, "firearms offences" dropped 16%, it is handgun offences which dropped, which is only a subset of the larger category of "firearms offences".  Third, the Canadian Press takes a one year drop and tries to use that as evidence that Day's point, that handgun offences have increased in the UK since the handgun ban was introduced nearly a decade ago, is incorrect - the fact that they don't mention the trend in handgun offences in the UK for the entire period is a critical omission and a flagrant misrepresentation.  Fourth, and most important, they entirely ignore the statement of the Home Office that Day's point is entirely correct - since the United Kingdom enacted a handgun ban in 1997, gun crime offences have soared.

For further proof of the correctness of Day's statement, and the absolute mendacity of the Canadian Press, let's look at this Home Office report.  Here's what it reveals: there was a sixty percent (60%) increase in firearms crime from 1999/00 to 2004/05 (page 72).  Also see Figure 3.4 - although it is a bit difficult to tell because the gradations are not provided, firearms crimes involving handguns more than doubled from 1998/99 to 2001/02, before declining somewhat until 2004/05, though finishing at a number approximately 50% higher than in 1998/99.

Canadian Press: liars.  And incompetent ones at that.

Comments

[Shere Khan]

Nice catch Bob. 30 years ago we would have sucked it up as the truth.

Bastards.

[Dana]

So there's no hockey stick to the data? Or maybe the rate of increase is decreasing?!
'since the United Kingdom enacted a handgun ban in 1997, gun crime offences have soared.'
As in every state south of us that bans handguns, in a minority position as 38 or 39 states now have shall issue laws. Armed citizens is not a bad thing.
Dana

[WL Mackenzie Redux]

It's not a matter of "messing up"...firearm stat misquotes and misinterpretations in the Star is contrived and purposeful.

Having been involved in the politics of lawful/responsible civilian firearms use for 2 decades, I can state the the eastern media and particularly the GTA print media (epitomized by the Star and G&M), are viral civil disarmament utpoians...they routinely spread disinformation and have a running pipeline to Canada's prime anti-gun zealot Wendy Chukier.

The mindset of of the utopian editorial staff is that the perfect anthill society will come about with a disarmed civilian population under a fully armed statist martialism...creepy at best but they sell this Orwellian dream as "enlightenment" and "progressivist"...it is infact uncivil and promotes the dystopian concept of guit by association...hunters have guns...criminals have guns so hunters must be criminals in waiting...arrest them all.

The number of times I have personally caught the Star in an outright lie about firearms statistics and called them on it is too numerous to count...they never apologize and never print a retraction where a firearms stat is a misdirect or proven erronious.

The Star has lied by twisting statistcs for years and frankly, anyone who buys it to read it, other than the want ands and use it for packing material, is civilly/socially retarded.

[WL Mackenzie Redux]

It's not a matter of "messing up"...firearm stat misquotes and misinterpretations in the Star is contrived and purposeful.

Having been involved in the politics of lawful/responsible civilian firearms use for 2 decades, I can state the the eastern media and particularly the GTA print media (epitomized by the Star and G&M), are viral civil disarmament utpoians...they routinely spread disinformation and have a running pipeline to Canada's prime anti-gun zealot Wendy Chukier.

The mindset of of the utopian editorial staff is that the perfect anthill society will come about with a disarmed civilian population under a fully armed statist martialism...creepy at best but they sell this Orwellian dream as "enlightenment" and "progressivist"...it is infact uncivil and promotes the dystopian concept of guit by association...hunters have guns...criminals have guns so hunters must be criminals in waiting...arrest them all.

The number of times I have personally caught the Star in an outright lie about firearms statistics and called them on it is too numerous to count...they never apologize and never print a retraction where a firearms stat is a misdirect or proven erronious.

The Star has lied by twisting statistcs for years and frankly, anyone who buys it to read it, other than the want ands and use it for packing material, is civilly/socially retarded.

[L.J. Brooks]

I was reading the Brit papers last week (Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph) and one of them mentioned that in Feb 07 there were seven handgun related murders in London! That's right seven in one month. Doesn't sound like a drop myself.

[bigcitylib]

Seems to me you are quibbling. Most of the firearms involved in the increased firearms numbers are IMITATION weapons, as I read the report. So the increase is just a result of the fact that for the U.K. police firearms include fake firearms.

[Raging Ranter]

Good catch. The media, and CP in particular, has been getting away with this bullshit for years. With the advent of blogging, they can't get away with deliberately misrepresenting the facts quite so easily. I've seen CP make exactly these types of generalizations and fudging of the facts before. And CTV has often pulled the same kind of stunt - not surprising since many of their news executives are committed Liberals who actually booked time off during the last election to volunteer their expertise for the Liberal party. This little smudge job by CP is particularly disgusting though, because they're basically outright lying. Any of their apologists who attempt to defend them will have a tough time explaining why they changed the story so quickly.

[JR]

"Canadian Press: liars. And incompetent ones at that."

Bingo!!

[Brad in Waterloo]

Thanks for this. Good research resulting in a great dress down post.

[Pat]

It never ceases to amaze me that even in the face of cold hard facts that an armed citizen is the best defence against crime, the lefties still cry "Ban'em". They refuse to believe that criminals won't turn their guns in.

Either fools or very nasty people. Maybe very nasty fools. What else could it be?

[gord]

The Canadian Press has as much credibility as the Liberal Party. Makes sense as they are one and the same.

[Mike H]

“Seems to me you are quibbling. Most of the firearms involved in the increased firearms numbers are IMITATION weapons, as I read the report. So the increase is just a result of the fact that for the U.K. police firearms include fake firearms.”

Yes, but you read the report like a bigcitylib would read it. If you had actually read what the report said, instead of what you wanted it to say, you would have realized that offences involving imitation firearms accounted for only about 14% of the total firearms offences for the final year of the report (2004-05), and that 14% INCLUDED the anomalous looking 55% increase in imitation firearms offences from the previous year. (pg 71)

If you still have any doubts about the accuracy of your “quibbling” charge, have a look at Table 3b, on page 76 of the report.

The primary motivation cited by western governments for restricting the possession of firearms among the citizenry is to prevent death and serious injury arising from the criminal use of firearms. Since the British handgun ban took effect in 1998-99, deaths and serious injuries from firearms crimes have skyrocketed, and have remained far above the totals for the benchmark year of 1998-99 in each and every subsequent year.

In 1998-99, 49 persons were killed during crimes involving firearms, and 162 suffered serious injuries. In 2004-05, those numbers were 77 and 410 respectively. Clearly, the handgun ban has had no positive effect on the most consequential statistics for firearms related violence. In fact, things have gotten far worse. Whether this is directly related to the handgun ban is a matter for debate. In any event, the relative usage of imitation firearms is a non-factor.

[Gary Mauser]

The handgun ban didn't switch criminals to imitation handguns.

Home Office statistics show that since 1997 BOTH homicides and gun homicides have increased. Prior to 1997, there were around 700 homicides per year (1992-1996) in England, with approximately 54 involving a firearm. After 1997, homicides jumped to over 860 per year, with more than 60 with firearms (1998/99-2002/03). Over the most recent 5-year period reported by the Home Office (2001/02-2005/06), there was an average of over 850 homicides (with 68 gun homicides) per year.

It is true however that in the past few years, homicides have been declining. The peak of 1,047 was reached in 2002/03, with homicides dropping to 765 homicides in 2005/06. Nevertheless, more people are murdered each year now than before the 1997 handgun ban.

[anonymous]

Great work.....just more proof of the shoddy state of journalism in Canada.