Not Everything You Read on the Internet Is True

Ever since, as a sophomore in college, I carefully forwarded that email chain-letter to twenty friends and didn't immediately become rich beyond my wildest dreams, I have been skeptical of information shared with me via the Internet.

Over the years, my BS-meter has become pretty finely-tuned and I can generally detect BS from a mile away.  When in doubt, snopes.com can be a valuable resource.  At this point, I pretty much know that the Nigerian prince doesn't really need my help, I didn't really win a $1,000 gift card from Wal-Mart, and perhaps a bit more obscurely, Dr. Benjamin Spock's son didn't really commit suicide.

So lately, I've seen this chart making the rounds on Facebook:

The numbers were questionable enough and the sources dubious or general enough that I decided to do a little research of my own.

Now let me preface by saying this has nothing to do with my politics.  While I do question whether current gun laws in this country are sufficient, I'm not trying to debate that issue.  What I do have a problem with is using made-up statistics to make an argument.

I also am not arguing that there are other causes of death that exceed those caused by guns, although I was not able to find figures that matched those claimed on the chart.  I also couldn't find anything that supported the claim that baseball bats are the number one weapon used in violent crimes.  But the claim that I really questioned was that there were more non-firearm homicides than firearm homicides.

Well, it would appear that according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics within the Department of Justice, that claim is false.  Note that the graph below separates handguns from other guns.  Here is the full report.

 Now I realize that this data is only through 2008 so I went to the FBI for some more current data.  The following is data for 2011.

By my count if 67% of murders are committed using guns, then there is no way that more murders are committed with weapons other than guns.

Again, I'm not debating the issue of gun control with this post.  Just making the point that using inaccurate facts to make your case only weakens your argument in my opinion.  Also, just in general, before spreading dubious information all over Facebook or your social network of choice, might not hurt to do a little research.

By the way, if anyone can find sources to support the claims of the original chart, I'd be interested in seeing them.