Still debating the Anti's.....

or "Say it over and over again".

Yes, this is still going on. CH likes using edited versions of reports to get numbers to make implied causality. He keeps referencing the 2000 ATF trace report. The problem? He keeps going back to the "highlights" and doesn't use the whole report. This is an important distinction. Anti's are always using the talking points of "1% of dealers", "guns from the South", etc. They selectively ignore the disclaimer in appendix B:

"For these and other reasons, the available data from
the participating jurisdictions does not yet constitute
a fully developed statistical series from which reliable
comparisons can be made from one reporting period
to the next or from one participating jurisdiction to
another. "

So then we go to the CRS report:

"At the same time, ATF’s findings might have undergirded the policies of a number of municipalities, under which civil lawsuits were pursued against the gun industry for gun violence in their jurisdictions. This is despite the fact that ATF has consistently stated that trace frequency, in and of itself, is not indicative of criminal activity by an FFL."

And:

"In conclusion, the ATF firearms trace database is an operational system designed to aid in ongoing investigations, rather than a system to capture “crime gun” statistics."

So, as we always point out, the Anti's have and continue to misuse the data by claiming absolute statistics even when the ATF said in the report that that's not what it's good for. It's just a summary of findings.

So what does that make any Anti individual or organization who uses those talking points as absolute statistics especially when the facts have been pointed out over and over? It makes them Intellectually dishonest. A nice way of saying "liars".

Edit:

In a little bit of coincidence, "wheredidtheguns.." posted a bit on trace data yesterday that I just read after I posted this. She's still new, so I'll give her the benefit of the doubt on the limitations even though she posted a link to the 2006 data. Now that it's been pointed out in a "still to be moderated" post (as of 9:32am CT 9/12), we'll see if my post makes it up and her response.

Update:
Well, the comment didn't make it through.
Updateupdate:

OK, it went up about an hour after I posted this.