What in the world does Hillary Clinton think about gun control? That depends on which Hillary Clinton you listen to.
Among the many revelations from the ongoing Wikileaks document dump is that Hillary Clinton told a group of Brazilian bankers that she believes it’s important for politicians to have both a public and a private stance on the issues. In other words, while flip-flopping politicians are for policies before they’re against them, Hillary Clinton is both for and against every policy.
When it comes to gun control, we could look to her public statements on the issue to try to see what she believes, but who knows what Hillary says about the issue in private.
Regardless of her actual stance, one of the statistics she cited at the third and final Presidential debate on the issue of gun control is commonly used to justify gun control. She claimed that there are 33,000 annual deaths resulting from guns.
Of course, that’s a bit misleading.
Gun control advocates often cite the statistic that there are 30,000+ gun deaths per year. While this is true, it is misleading because the majority of those gun deaths are completely voluntary. In 2010, the latest year for which data is available, the CDC documents 19,392 suicides by firearm.Additionally, the FBI reports that there were 8,874 homicides committed with firearms that same year. That means that 69% of firearm deaths in 2010 were suicides. However, even with the 69% of gun deaths being attributed to suicide, a few hundred more gun deaths are considered justifiable (e.g self-defense). In 2010 there were 617 justifiable homicides using firearms by police and private citizens.
This brings the true number of unjustifiable homicides committed with firearms to 8,257. However, many gun control advocates will argue that restricting gun ownership is a good thing since it could reduce the number of suicides. While it is true that gun ownership is positively correlated with overall suicide rates in individual states in the US, a Harvard study found that there is no correlation between international suicide rates and firearm ownership. For example, Japan has a suicide rate double that of the US despite having near zero gun ownership.
Many things correlate with suicide, that doesn’t mean that they cause it. Take for example a study which found that the amount of country music radio stations play is strongly related to the suicide rate, even when controlling for other variables like gun availability and poverty. Should we believe that country music causes people to off themselves?
H/T: Corey Iacono, Voices Of Liberty
Hillary also claimed that there’s an “online gun loophole” in need of closing. I must say, that’s a new talking point!
There’s a reason the NRA is endorsing Donald Trump, not Hillary Clinton.
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