‘Butler’ Director Lee Daniels Inflates ‘Gun Violence’ Numbers By 66% in DNC Gun Control Plea

Top Hollywood producer-director Lee Daniels inflated “gun violence” numbers by 66 percent when he claimed that “33,000 people each year die from gun violence” during his speech at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night.

“Hillary has stood with families of people who died due to gun violence,” the 56-year-old Empire creator and Oscar-nominated The Butler director said. “She’s helped turn their heartache into action. I wish she was around for me when my dad died.”

“Hillary understands our right to bear guns, but wants to stop guns from getting into the wrong hands,” he continued. “You guys, 33,000 Americans die each year from gun violence. That’s 90 people a day. Enough. We need to take action, and we need to take action now.”

The actual number of gun violence-related deaths is literally one-third of that, roughly 10,000 to 11,000 a year, on average.

But Daniels did what Hillary Clinton and other gun control proponents have done throughout this election cycle —he quoted a figure that one can only reach by combining “gun violence” deaths, accidental gun deaths and suicides, then applying the term “gun violence” to the sum.

Clinton used the figure on April 11, 2016, when she claimed “90 people a day die from gun violence,” as Breitbart News previously reported. “That’s 33,000 people a year,” she added.

But official death numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tell a different story. According to the CDC numbers, the United States averages about 30,000 firearm-related deaths per year, only a third of which are due to gun violence. For example, in 2013, the number of firearm-related deaths was 32,888. Of those, 505 were accidental, 11,208 were due to actual “gun violence,” and the vast majority — 21,175 — were suicides.

To put these numbers in even great perspective, consider Drug Enforcement Agency numbers showing that the total number of car-related deaths for 2013 was 35,369. That is higher than accidental gun deaths, “gun violence” deaths, and firearm-related suicides combined. And deaths from drugs were even higher, with a total of 46,471 drug-related deaths during 2013. Yet Daniels and the majority of Democrat speakers on July 27 focused on all the gun control measures Hillary Clinton will pursue to save lives.

 

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.