Posted October 4, 2018 8:30 am by Comments

By Tom Knighton

When journalists or activists want facts, they look for authoritative sources. When it comes to injuries and illnesses, you go to the Centers for Disease Control. The CDC compiles all the relevant information, including data on gun injuries and fatalities.

They’re supposed to be the authoritative source.

However, FiveThirtyEight took a look at the CDC’s data on firearm injuries and found something very interesting.

For journalists, researchers and the general public, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention serves as an authoritative source of information about Americans’ health, including estimates of how many people are killed or injured by guns. The agency’s most recent figures include a worrying uptick: Between 2015 and 2016, the number of Americans nonfatally injured by a firearm jumped by 37 percent, rising from about 85,000 to more than 116,000. It was the largest single-year increase recorded in more than 15 years.

But the gun injury estimate is one of several categories of CDC data flagged with an asterisk indicating that, according to the agency’s own standards, it should be treated as “unstable and potentially unreliable.” In fact, the agency’s 2016 estimate of gun injuries is more uncertain than nearly every other type of injury it …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms

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