While Promoting Red Flag Bill, Denver Post Gets Their Suicide By Firearm Facts Grossly Wrong

Posted on by Lesley Hollywood

On Monday Feb 25th, journalist Anna Staver over at the Denver Post released an articled titled “What Colorado can learn from “red flag” gun laws in other states as lawmakers debate passing their own version”.  This article discusses how the opposition and support for Colorado’s proposed “Red Flag” Emergency Risk Protection Orders (ERPO) bill varies, as well as goes into some detail about the effects of this law on other states.

The bill being considered in Colorado, HB19-1177, passed the State House Judiciary Committee last Thursday after nearly ten hours of testimony for and against it.  The opposing sides continued to testify well into the night, with dozens of gun rights activists being called well after they had left.  Had they all stayed, testimony undoubtedly would have continued into the early morning hours.  The bill will be heard in the House Appropriations Committee this week where no public testimony will be taken, and it is expected to pass.  It could see a vote of the full House Chamber as early as next week.

Proponents of this bill are arguing it as a “suicide prevention measure”, as threat to harm self is one of the reasons for firearms confiscation allowed in the bill.  Never mind the chilling unintended consequences this law would have on those who are feeling suicidal – such as fear of reaching out for help, and escalating an already distressing situation.  But the suicide facts Ms. Staver used in her article are wrong on their face.  Here’s what her article says about suicide:

Suicide prevention

Suicide is the leading type of gun death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And supporters of Colorado’s extreme risk protection order bill claim it would prevent some of those deaths from happening in the Centennial State.

“What we are doing with this bill is giving law enforcement a tool that they need to save lives,” said Rep. Tom Sullivan, D-Centennial. “The majority of the time it’s going to be someone who is going to do harm to themselves.”

The data supports Sullivan’s assertion that if Colorado allows extreme risk protection orders, the majority of cases will involve suicidal ideation. About 80 percent of the gun seizures in Indiana and 60 percent in Connecticut arose from concerns about suicide.

But did removing those guns prevent violent self-harm?

Aaron Kivisto, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Indianapolis who studied suicide rates in both states, said the answer is yes in Indiana and no in Connecticut.

Kivisto found a 7.5 percent reduction in suicides via gun in the decade following the enactment of Indiana’s law and a 13.7 percent reduction in Connecticut in the “post-Virginia Tech period, when enforcement of the law substantially increased.”

But he found something else in Connecticut: An uptick in non-firearm suicides meant the overall suicide rate was essentially unchanged.

He said he doesn’t know why the two states got two different results, but one possible explanation is the cultural differences between them.

“Taking the gun isn’t the end of the situation. It doesn’t reduce the crisis,” Kivisto said. “It leaves someone in a crisis without a gun.”

Rally for our Rights supporter and gun rights activist, Mario Acevedo of Denver, thought the Indiana numbers didn’t seem accurate.  So he did his own research.  He found that not only were Ms. Staver’s numbers inaccurate, but they were wrong on the white paper she referenced.

Suicide Rates Red Flag ERPO Colorado Rally for our Rights

Here’s the letter Mario sent to Ms. Staver and the Denver Post.  I repeated the same research Mario had done on the CDC’s website and came up with exactly the same numbers he did.  Indiana has one of the fastest increasing rates of suicide in the nation.

Anna Staver
astaver@denverpost.com

February 25, 2018

Anna,

In your article “Colorado can learn “red flag” lessons from red states,” you mentioned that professor Aaron Kivisto found that Indiana saw a 7.5 percent reduction in gun suicides following the 2005 adoption of their “red lag” gun confiscation law. That sounded off to me since Indiana is a state hit hard by the opioid epidemic and suicides are an unfortunate consequence of such drug abuse. According to the Centers for Disease Control:

In 2005, Indiana had 416 gun suicides, 745 total suicides, and 11.82 suicides per 100K population Age Adjusted Rate.

In 2017, Indiana had 604 gun suicides, 1092 total suicides, and 16.36 suicides per 100K population Age Adjusted Rate.

I don’t know what numbers or methodology Kivisto was using but his findings appear to be completely bogus. You are more than welcome to confirm my numbers at the CDC WISQARS Fatal Injury Reports.

My issue with red flag laws is that there’s a lot of hand waving over the results that cause me to question the purpose of such law. Effective policy, in this case to reduce fatal self-harm, must be based on reality and facts, not simply good intentions or wishes.

Sincerely,

Mario Acevedo
Denver, Colorado

Think they’ll bother to do the research themselves and correct this glaring inaccuracy?  We really shouldn’t have to fact check the fact checkers.  

Mario also contacted the author of the white paper, Aaron Kivisto.  Mr. Kivisto did respond!  But his response gave us a big WTF?  Basically they decided the rate of suicide has decreased because it’s lower than what the projected rates were had the bill not passed.  Do these people have a crystal ball?

Mr. Acevedo,

Thanks for your email. You’re absolutely right that in absolute terms suicides have increased. Our study approached the issue not in terms of absolute reductions, however, but in terms of reductions from the number of suicides that would have been expected in each state had the lot not been passed. In other words, our statistical approach utilized a technique known as the synthetic control methodology. It’s an approach developed by MIT economists to study the effects of policy changes and is currently considered among the most robust methods available to study the impact of policy change. In short, the approach provides a counterfactual – that is, an estimate of what the suicide rate would have been in Indiana had they not enacted the law, as well as in Connecticut had they not enacted the law. These estimates are compared to observed rates, and reductions represent the difference between these estimated and observed values.

The apparent contradiction you were noticing comes from the fact that suicide rates can indeed rise, but not rise at as rapid arete as would be expected. Similarly, there could be an absolute reduction in suicide rates, but a reduction not as fast as would be expected, which would be interpreted as a problematic impact.

I hope that this is helpful.

Aaron Kivisto, Ph.D., HSPP

We here at Rally for our Rights certainly don’t take suicide lightly.  In fact, many of us including myself and Mario have lost loved ones to suicide.  It’s an issue near and dear to our hearts.  Which likely makes this even more infuriating.  Suicide is a serious problem in society and manipulating stats to pass bad legislation is despicable.

Watch this testimony given by 19 year gun rights activist, Haley Marcantonio, during the Red Flag ERPO hearing last week.  What she doesn’t mention in her testimony is her family has been personally touched by suicide, as many of ours have.  The anti-gun community does not get a monopoly on suicide.  This issue has touched millions deeply.

 

A Pro-Gun Minority Calls Out Tom’s and Gifford’s On Their Gun Safety Town Hall Agenda

Posted on by Mario Acevedo

Tom's Giffords Town Hall Denver Rally For Our Rights Colorado
On Saturday January 26, I attended the Gun Safety Town Hall held in the Washington Street Community Center of Denver. I’ll admit I approached with trepidation, into the belly as it were.

The anti-gun lobby is flush with cash and it shows. They can hire expert IT types to exploit social media and develop catchy websites, and they can afford big vehicles with custom paint jobs. My RSVP invitation was seamlessly handled through Eventbrite.

To enter the venue, I had to pass through unarmed security using wand metal detectors. Inside I couldn’t tell who were event sponsors or volunteers because they all wore identical flashy badges. Video cameras flanked the stage, complete with a big banner. About a hundred and fifty or so from the public filed in to occupy the rows of folding chairs arranged in the main meeting room. The crowd included the usual suspects: a few middle-aged women in MDA or Cease Fire Colorado t-shirts. One man wore a Parkland High School t-shirt, although I never found out if he hailed from there or wore it out of solidarity.

The event was moderated by a rep from the Giffords: Courage to Fight Gun Violence, who shared the dais with an anti-gun writer from New York City, someone from Tom’s Shoes (who was footing the bill, pun intended), Congressman Joe Neguse from Colorado, and Tom Mauser. The town hall began with the speakers discussing mass shooting to include the usual hate speech against the NRA.

The actual point of the town hall was to drum up support for HR 8, the new bill for expanded background checks, advertised as needed to close the infamous gun-show loophole, because as you all know, as we were told, any Colorado resident can simply drive to New Mexico or Wyoming and buy a gun, no questions asked. Ignoring of course that such an act is already a violation of federal law.

The town hall was scheduled to last an hour and at the halfway point, the public was invited to approach a microphone and share. One young woman said she was a Parkland survivor. A couple of older speakers expressed their gratitude for the campaign’s effort to end gun violence. A young man said he was from New Hampshire and rambled on about that state’s proliferation of guns, but I couldn’t tell if he was anti- or pro-gun.

Finally it was my turn. My question was that since both the DOJ and the FBI have established a direct correlation between drug trafficking and gun violence, how come the Giffords campaign, or MDA, or Everytown for Gun Safety, or any of the prevent-gun-violence groups do not once mention drug trafficking as responsible for gun violence?

I could tell my question blind-sided them. The only one who answered was the woman from the Giffords campaign, who said that they are focused on gun violence, not drug trafficking. My rebuttal was that even the CDC concludes that the highest risk factor for homicides, especially those with guns, is drug trafficking. I stressed that the anti-gun people were ignoring one of the biggest causes of gun violence. Though I went way over my three-minute time limit, the brief back-and-forth exposed a gaping hole in their agenda.

After the meeting, I did attempt to debate HR 8 with the woman from the Giffords campaign, but she wouldn’t let the facts interfere with her talking points. She’s paid big bucks to toe the company line, not acknowledge the truth or promote effective policy that provides for public safety.

Interestingly, on my way out, one of the event’s African-American volunteers, a big man named Stevon, congratulated me for my comments. Before the town hall, he had brought up the same points, which were summarily dismissed.

So what did I learn?

ONE: these public venues are a great opportunity to make our case. Unlike in social media or through the news outlets, the anti-gunners can’t easily delete our comments. They have to respond.

TWO: focus on an issue that exposes the weaknesses of their agenda. What I noted at this town hall but didn’t mention was that they got everyone stirred up over mass shootings, then segued into expanded background checks even though they admitted that these checks wouldn’t stop mass shootings. It was a bait-and-switch that needed to be spot lighted.

THREE: we can’t rant about rights because that gets little traction with this crowd. You have to call them out on their failures to address the big problems stoking gun violence such as drug trafficking, gangs, and incompetent bureaucrats. Use government sources such as the DOJ, FBI, and CDC to back you up.

FOUR: we must actively engage the various communities to make our case. For example, meet with communities of color to explain that since less than one percent of violent criminals get their guns from a gun show, and more than forty percent get their guns through the black market, then why are we wasting time on expanded background checks to close the gun show loophole? Emphasize that when the local government and the police pursue effective programs that address violent crime, as opposed to gun control, then homicides decrease and as a result we get safer communities.

FIVE: meet with our legislators and make our case. Make them explain why they endorse flawed proposals while ignoring effective policy.

Preserving our Second Amendment rights will take work, but we have truth and reality on our side.

Actually, David Hogg…It’s Illegal To Use Tax Money To Fund Gun Control Research

Posted on by Lesley Hollywood

On another episode of “Things Anyone Can Say On Twitter” gun control proponent, David Hogg, recently tweeted: “Congress ought to create a federal tax on gun sales to fund gun violence research.”

For someone who cares so much about laws, and creating new laws (even while current gun control laws are failing at the fault of the government), Hogg himself fails to understand there are currently laws in place that would make it illegal for tax money to be used to fund research into what he calls “gun violence”.

In fact, it is illegal for the arm of government responsible for researching risk and prevention, the Center For Disease Control, to use funding to advocate for or promote gun control.  This is due to 1996’s “Dickey Amendment“.  Most recently, in March, 2018, President Donald Trump addressed the Dickey Amendment in his $1.3 trillion spending agreement, but did not include a change in funding.  Instead it clarified that the CDC can conduct research into gun violence, but cannot use government appropriated funds to do so.

But this brings to question, what would the CDC find if they did unbiased research?  They might find that while gun crime is going down, public perception believes otherwise.

It’s Illegal To Use Tax Money To Fund Gun Research gun crime rally for our rights colorado

David Hogg rose to fame along with fellow classmates as they politicized the February, 2018 Parkland High School shooting and used it as a platform to call for stricter gun control under the guise of March For Our Lives – an organization that works under the umbrella of the Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety.  Since it’s inception, some of Hogg’s classmates have left the movement citing a change of heart when actually talking with gun owners and gaining a better understanding of why they those choose to own firearms.

So, Mr. Hogg, before you continue asking for government to make more and more laws, I’d suggest you learn more about the ones that we currently have on the books.