Think Progress expressed shock on Twitter Friday night that the U.S. banned romaine lettuce rather than firearms this Thanksgiving season.
Think Progress tweeted:
The organization bolstered its astonishment by claiming, “The number of Americans who die from food-borne illness every year — 3,000 according to the CDC — is dwarfed by the 30,000-plus annual fatalities caused by guns in America.”
The claim of 30,000-plus annual firearm deaths is a go-to tactic for the left, one whereby they combine actual homicides, of which there are approximately 11,000, with accidental gun deaths, of which there are approximately 500, and with suicides, which number roughly 22,000. The numbers are then simply presented as “30,000-plus annual fatalities,” giving the imprecision that the point is 30,000-plus deaths due to gun violence.
In fact, Think Progress takes pains to apply the 30,000-plus to gun violence deaths in general, writing: “Every day in America, 96 people are killed by guns and hundreds more are injured, according to Everytown for Gun Safety. It’s not something that has to happen. America’s gun homicide rate is 25 times higher than that of other high-income countries.”
Hillary Clinton tried the same tactic during her 2016 presidential run. On November 3, 2015, Breitbart News reported that she was employing stats that swelled “gun violence” numbers by 66 percent. The stats that Think Progress presented swell the actual “gun violence” numbers by approximately 66 percent as well.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.