CNN Shows Its Bias Against Guns
In yet another poorly written attempt to demonize American gun ownership, CNN published this piece about the first homicide to occur in Windsor, Ontario in just over two years. You know the story isn’t really about the homicide just by reading the first three paragraphs:
In his 60 years, Arnold Blaine has known only two people who’ve owned a gun: one a hunter, the other a nightclub owner.
“We don’t even have gun shops,” said the Windsor, Ontario, business owner.
The paucity of guns is one of three factors police in the city across the river from Detroit cite for its low homicide rate.
Those police are, quite simply, near-sighted fools—as are the authors of the hit piece article. Choosing one crime statistic and a single potential factor and tying them together is not only statistically invalid, it is entirely illogical. Let me demonstrate.
Mesa, Arizona, is a city of just under 440,000—close in size to Windsor at roughly 215,000. I pulled the 2010 crime statistics for both Windsor and Mesa for a direct comparison. When you look at these numbers, keep in mind that while it is very difficult to own a handgun in Canada, Arizona has some of America’s most permissive firearm laws. Having until recently been an Arizona gun owner myself (I now reside in North Carolina—with guns—but my kids were in Mesa schools) I can guarantee there are thousands of legally owned firearms of all types throughout the city of Mesa. Handguns, rifles, shotguns, bullpups, “assault weapons”—you name it, there are a whole bunch of ’em in Mesa. If guns were the primary (or even a significant) problem in and of themselves, you would expect Mesa to be a fearful place to live. So let’s see the numbers in residents per crime:
| Crime | Windsor | Mesa |
| Sexual Assault | 1396.1 | 3548.39 |
| Assault | 172.97 | 385.96 |
| Robbery | 1009.39 | 861.06 |
| All Personal | 76.76 | 245.67 |
| Arson | 5000 | 7457.63 |
| MV Theft | 500 | 436.08 |
| Theft from MV | 95.9 | 228.1 |
| All Property | 22.09 | 29.57 |
[Note: MV = motor vehicle.]
That paints a little different picture, now, doesn’t it? You are more likely to be the victim of a property crime in Windsor than in Mesa, and far more likely to be the victim of assault or sexual assault. I don’t know how you read those numbers, but I can tell you with certainty that you would be safer in the city that has all those evil guns. I’ll keep my freedom—and safety—thank you very much.