CDC Finally Corrects Bad Data On Number of Firearm Deaths

By Tom Knighton

When we discuss firearm-related deaths, we need firm, reliable numbers in order to have a meaningful conversation. The gun debate isn’t served by nebulous ideas of how guns impact people in this nation. We need real, hard numbers.

For years, we’ve all looked to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta to compile those for us. While the CDC has a history of anti-gun bias, we still tended to trust them to at least be able to count.

However, in 2017, John Lott found a discrepancy. He noted that due to an error in Tennessee’s data, the total count was about 100 higher than it should have been. He notified the CDC and they acknowledged the mistake.

It just took them a year to finally fix it.

While the CDC acknowledged the error, they failed to correct it. Finally, in 2018 — two and a half years after being notified — they have corrected the mistake, but the error was even greater than originally thought. Instead of inflating the number of fatal firearm accidents by 100, the totally was erroneously increased by 125.

It’s not clear how the error occurred or why it …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms