Last year, just in time for tax day, actress Julianne Moore made a small splash after Everytown for Gun Safety [sic] hired her to read their scripts. This year she’s back for more, lighting the Empire State Building for Gun Violence Awareness Day, sharing pictures of “gun violence” victims on Instagram, and releasing a PSA with more lies and distortions facts and figures from the GunViolenceArchive and the Brady Campaign.
A couple of things about the young victims of “gun violence” of whom she took advantage to promote EveryTown’s agenda. In the People magazine piece about the pictures, she said
“On an average day, seven kids or teens are killed by guns,” Moore said. “With regulation, you reduce deaths.”
“We’re not talking about something outrageous,” she said. “We’re talking about closing the background loophole, when guns are allowed to be sold without background checks, so there are fewer illegal guns in the world.”
One problem with Ms. Moore’s so-called solution; in at least two of the three cases she cites, closing the (non-existent) “background loophole” would have made precisely zero difference. Her first victim, Tyrone Lawson, was killed in Chicago, which currently requires background checks on all firearm transfers.
Her second “victim,” Jeffrey Banish, was 21 years old and committed suicide with a gun. The only thing gun control advocates like the Brady Campaign, Everytown and Ms. Moore do is divert resources which might otherwise help people like Jeffrey get the help they need since, as we have pointed out so often here on TTAG, limiting “access” to firearms does nothing to reduce overall suicide rates.
Regarding her PSA, Ms. Moore says:
It’s a safety issue. It’s not pro-gun or anti-gun, it’s not anti-Second Amendment, it is a safety issue; it is simply that.
She then offers an emotional appeal, saying that it was the Newtown shootings and trying to keep her 11-year-old daughter “safe” from the news that motivated her to get involved in the “gun safety” movement. Bote that once again, nothing she proposes would have kept the Newtown shooter from murdering his mother and stealing her guns.
We then start getting some “facts” mixed in with Ms. Moore’s commentary:
Guns have killed 6,303 in 2017 [1]
It looks like those are the figures as of May 31, 2017, so we’re looking at the first five months of this year. But, as with most of the antis’ “facts,” there no context or background are provided. If they are counting all firearm related deaths, then 2017 is starting out quite slowly compared to previous years.
Looking at the WISQARS data from 2011 – 2015 and assuming the rates stay the same over the course of the year (they don’t, but this will give us something to compare to), in an average year 5/12ths of all gun related deaths was a little over 14,000. So, either we are having a really peaceful year, or the antis have finally stopped including suicides to bump up their numbers.
If we pull out the 105,183 suicides from those five years and recalculate we get 5,351.5. A closer examination of the GunViolenceArchive.org data seems to show that they are cheating, just not as badly as usual. It looks like they are counting suicides as “gun deaths” when they are part of a murder/suicide, but not counting stand-alone suicides. So they are only lying a lot, instead of hugely.
The PSA’s next stat is how many people have been injured (12,447) to which I once again reply so what? From 2011 – 2015 the 5/12ths annual average for non-fatal dog bites was almost twelve times that many at 145,611 and there were thirty-eight times as many accidental poisonings (477,796 2/3 on average). Really, people, there are more serious issues out there.
But of course, it wouldn’t be the obligatory tear-jerking, heartstring-pulling BS if we had the proper perspective on that statistic.
Every day 7 children are killed by guns
And once again they are calling anyone aged 0 – 19 “children” and including suicides, whereas if we look at actual children children, you know, the ones from birth to puberty (ages 0 – 13), and remove the suicides, we get 241 per year, or 7 children every 10 ½ days. Still too many, but not nearly as heartbreaking and therefore useless to the antis.
One final number from the PSA that I was certainly shocked to see (again from GVA.org):
So far this year, there have been 143 mass shootings
Holy guacamole, PacMan! That is a huge number of mass murders! Why haven’t I seen anything about this on the news?
The answer is quite simple; they said mass shootings not mass killings. You must scroll all the way down to the bottom of their home page and click on Methodology, then scroll down to the bottom of that page to find their definitions, and they do have some interesting definitions. For mass shooting, we find:
FOUR or more shot and/or killed in a single event [incident], at the same general time and location not including the shooter.
So even though the vast majority of the public sees “mass shooting” and thinks “mass murder” GVA’s definition would include four or more people accidentally peppered with birdshot at a skeet range. This would also be considered an instance of “gun violence” because their definition of that term is:
Gun Violence describes the results of all incidents of death or injury or threat with firearms without pejorative judgment within the definition. Violence is defined without intent or consequence as a consideration. To that end a shooting of a victim by a subject/suspect is considered gun violence as is a defensive use or an officer involved shooting. The act itself, no matter the reason is violent in nature.
This is how they would justify counting suicides and self-defense shootings as “gun violence,” because they are oh-so-nobly avoiding “pejorative judgement”.
Nick Leghorn has already dissected GVA.org so I won’t continue with them, but I find it sad that Ms. Moore is using her not inconsiderable talent and fame to bring attention to an almost non-existent problem and call for a completely irrelevant “solution.”
[1] Source: http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ (hereinafter GVA.org)
It’s not a safety issue.
It’s a “we’re F’d up, we need to fix you so that we can do tyranny with impunity” issue.
And, she was pretty (she acting?) gross in Boogie Nights.
Like Bruce states there are more serious health and safety issue out there than “gun violence.” “Gun violence” is closer to the bottom. The amount of money wasted on these anti 2nd amendment campaigns could be used to actually save lives. Reduce poisoning deaths amoung children that have risen because of e-cig liquid and the laudery detergent pods. Summers here promote pool safety as 300 kids drown in pools every year not including lakes, rivers and oceans in the US. These are real innocent kids 5 years old not 17 year old gang bangers.
“Like Bruce states there are more serious health and safety issue out there than “gun violence.” “Gun violence” is closer to the bottom.”
COMMUNISM is way up there at the top. It’s an un fixable scourge, sickness and social deforming attack. Stop sh[~ting on the US lives lost fighting communism around the globe and start making commie mfs here live in hiding or exile.
Anyone else use their tax refund for a new gun purchase? It’s a tradition I started during the Obama administration; bought an AR-15 and it felt soooooooooo good.
Sure did. Bought another 1911.
Why do you CHOOSE to LOAN your $ to the Federal Gov’t?
I had to pay the bastards. Just missed the penalty for underpayment.
With regulation you reduce deaths? Why not just make murder illegal then? That should fix it.
Actors and Actresses aren’t paid to deal in facts. Their livelihood depends on their ability/willingness to follow the script with absolute conviction. Ever noticed how movie stars end up living out their lives ‘in character’? Tom Hanks (Band of Brothers), Val Kilmer (Tombstone -Doc Holiday), Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side), the list goes on…
Why are we expected to care what someone who is paid to live in a make believe world thinks? For better or worse, these folks live in a reality of their own making. So glad it isn’t mine.
Another insipid Hollywood ditz commenting on things she doesn’t understand. I fully expect that next time, she’ll lecture us on why we should all join hands and sing Kumbaya or join Scientology or something.
Julianne who? I guess washed up actresses don’t just just fade away they do voice overs…
“Julianne who?”
She played Burt Reynold’s wife in ‘Boogie Nights’.
She looked best when she was out-of-costume in that movie…
Yep, the high point of her career was fucking Dirk Diggler.
Naw, it was The Big Lebowski.
Was Ms. Moore one of the loons leaving AMERICA because of Trump?!? Just askin’…
I’m stunned, stunned I tell you – that a person who has spent her whole life playing dress up and make believe doesn’t know what she is saying/talking about….. I’m stunned
She had better prepare her children to fight. The class/race warfare ramped up by Obama is simmering below the surface and will come busting out in a decade or less. The 21st Century will likely be the most violent in the planet’s history.
I’m really glad she’s doing this, because like most Americans, I like to take advice from a woman who’s only real talent is getting naked on camera *cough* *Kim Kardasian* and doing soft porn for virtually every movie she’s in.
She probably only hooked up with Everytown because they offered her a free tshirt…and she seems to lose her clothes a lot.
I’m so damn sick of elitist, paid-liar, snapper-head, brainless, hypocrite, commie, human trash lecturing me about my human rights. These people live in literal armoured redoubts and get pissy when a pleb buys a pistol. F**K Hollywood. These people have a special place in hell.
She should stick to showing her tits and leave constitutional issues to people who actually live in the real world.
Wait, they consider a threat with a firearm an act of gun violence? So, if some lowlife breaks into my home in the middle of the night, and I aim my gun at him and threaten to shoot if he doesn’t leave, I’ve just committed gun violence? What’s next, including hunting in their gun violence “statistics?
Now, see, that there is an example of “pejorative” language.
“Lowlife” has absolutely no place in this discussion, because it’s about the gun, not the person, and certainly not the victim. Unless, of course, the victim is a child.
Why? Because *I* am the arbiter of what goes into this discussion.
[/sarc]
It’s broader than that. Any implied threat will do. Just lift your shirt at the gas station when some punk is approaching you. Gun violence. (I accidentally started typing “Fun violence”).
Looked at this way, they are vastly under reporting “gun violence” because they don’t want to include the hundreds of thousands to millions of DGUs a year.
Safety. Safety is the new gun control pivot from CONTROL, a wisely chosen, focus grouped phrase that allows gun control to march at a faster speed for far longer because it’s adherents understand that gun CONTROL is a politically losing issue, at least at the national level. Which is why the Bloomberg traveling Circus arrives in each state with well paid actors like Julianne Moore to spout prepared lines about SAFETY.
Well, Mrs. Moore, to you and your new employers I say, NUTS!
As a member of the American gun community, I want to promote safety as well, safety from gun control adherents like your employer, and your Hollywood media bosses, studio executives, and liberal politicians. I want to be safe, I want my CIVIL RIGHTS to be SAFE, so in the spirit of SAFETY, with all due respect go jump in a lake and take the Bloomberg circus with you. We will not stop fighting for our rights to return to us, so bring it on, cause the US Constitution is on our side not yours.
p.s. you are a great actress/”actor”, but take your BS to another place.
The good thing about them arguing for “gun safety” is that in a debate you can totally slam them. Agree that you’re in favor of gun safety, then ask them to define it, disagree and give your own definition of gun safety that would actually prevent accidents, then ask what they have done for gun safety and tell them what groups like the NRA or 4H have done for gun safety.
Maybe focus on the drug problem (est. 62,000 over dose deaths in 2015). Drug trade fuels gangs, fuels illegal (stolen) gun trade, fuels gang related killings. On the ‘legal’ drug prescription problem look to the psycho tropic/anti depressants that probably has attributed to more suicides than any other factor. Moore is another celeb ‘faker’ IMO (hand her a line/cue card and she’ll fake for a dollar).
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/47/0e/95/470e95210ad6745db47520a549a37cb5.jpg
It’s too bad that the guns being falsely accused of all this violence (and reckless sentience) can’t pick up protest signs, march in the streets and get CNN to cover it.
Actors literally live in a world of make-believe. Why on Earth anyone would put any weight at all on their opinions baffles me.
I don’t think anybody listens to the gun grabbers anymore. The beat it to death, just like the boy who cried wolf.
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