Hillary Clinton. (Photo: AP/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
As part of a recent “panel on gun violence,” Hillary Clinton made a surprising statement about presidential opponent Bernie Sanders’s home state of Vermont:
“[Sanders] frequently says, ‘We’re a small, rural state, we have no gun laws.’ Here’s what I want you to know. Most of the guns that are used in crimes and violence and killings in New York come from out of state. The state that has the highest per capita number of those guns that end up committing crimes in New York come from Vermont.”
Who knew? According to Hillary, the Green Mountain State is a bastion of gun running and the number-one supplier of guns to New York’s unsavory.
If that sounds unlikely, it should. The Washington Post put Hillary’s statement to the Pinocchio Test and dubbed it “significantly misleading” despite its technical truth.
It is true that, per capita, Vermont “supplied” more guns to New York than any other state in 2013 and 2014, according to ATF data that tracks a crime gun’s point of sale.
The problem with Hillary’s claim is that gun trafficking is never calculated on a per-capita basis.
“It doesn’t matter how many people live there. The issue is, how many gun dealers are there that are contributing to violence in New York,” said John Roman, senior fellow in the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, according to the Post report.
Roman has worked with New York officials on gun violence and gun laws for many years, and he told the Post that concerns over guns trafficked from Vermont were never brought up.
“I literally have never heard of Vermont coming up in this conversation. Literally never,” Roman said. “These conversations are always about law enforcement in places like New York being worried about Southern states with easy access to weaponry.”
Interstate gun trafficking isn’t based on how many people live in that state—it’s based on the number of “bad actors” and the networks that connect them.
The numbers clarify the misleading nature of Hillary’s statement.
Of the 4,585 out-of-state crime guns identified in 2013 and 2014 as originating outside of New York, a grand total of 55 came from Vermont. It’s the highest percentage of guns per 100,000 people, but the raw number pales in comparison to other states like Virginia, Florida, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, which each contributed between 300 and 450 guns.
Gun statistics can be tricky, and Hillary is taking advantage of a technical truth that has no real bearing on reality.
As the Post concludes, “The number of crime guns in New York from Vermont is so small that it could even be attributed to one or two bad actors. Using the per capita measure of trafficked guns originating from Vermont is as pointless as counting guns trafficked per 100,000 head of cattle.”
Hillary Clinton: “The state that has the highest per capita number of those guns that end up committing crimes in New York come from Vermont.”
This sentence tells you all you want to know about Mrs. Clinton. Guns are no more capable of committing crime in and of themselves than baseball bats, cars, ice picks or other objects which are lethal when misused. Crimes are acts which – as Mrs. Clinton ought to know, being an attorney, require “the ready mind”. They can only be committed by human beings.
What Hillary Clinton won’t admit is that her own political party is more nearly responsible for deaths in New York City and elsewhere than guns are, because in pandering to would-be voters, they have created unrealistic and immoral expectations that one ought to get money in other ways than by working for it.
“Progressivism” in American politics has created a client class in America who are no longer acting as citizens. They expect to be paid for doing nothing, receive benefits from other people’s wallets (though the Tax Code) they have not earned, and when they can’t afford the spice of life – meth, crack and other potent, violence-inducing drugs – a large percentage of them will kill either to get the money to buy drugs or simply because, not being citizens by the accepted definition, they don’t respect other people’s human rights.
For all the talk about Donald Trump, he is not stumping around the country pushing the progressive agenda which has given us a well-armed, chemically-enhanced, lethal criminal class. Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton are doing that..
Federal crime statistics show, actually, that blunt objects like baseball bats are involved on more murders than any firearm. The CDC’s statistics (before their WISQARS database was changed to “round up” all causes of death to ten instances a month from any county or equivalent jurisdiction – effectively inflating the gun death statistics from rural areas with no gun deaths) showed that cars kill more people than guns.
Clearly, Vermont and the “gun-running” southern States should be bringing suit against New York for exporting the demand for crime guns and raising crime rates there.
Did you know that all of the demonstrators protesting that horrible video is Benghazi got their guns in Vermont?
Well, good news for Virginia, anyway. Wasn’t VA the state that Bloomberg (and others) blamed as the source of most illegal guns in New York?
Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, who said after the 2000 elections that he'(as Democratic National Committee chairman) would “have everyone in America hating George Bush” for beating Al Gore, will find some way to squirm out of that one. He’s a very good liar, and his vow to have lots of people hate George Bush may be the only political promise he ever kept.
Please call it what it is; a lie.
You cannot believe anything a Democrat politician says unless he or she is talking about raising your taxes or imposing more regulations on businesses.
Ms. Clintons voice has got to be the most annoying sound on earth. I don’t condone violence against women but I was hoping Bernie would lose it and backhand her when she was hagging at him during last nights debate.
You too???? Can you imagine having to listen and look at this vile hag and her equally disgusting husband for the next 4 year???
Get used to it. Unfortunately, the press created Donald Trump so that, in all likelihood, they could destroy his reputation and public image by the November elections. Of course, the litigious Mr. Trump could do the nation a favor by suing some of the media outlets who, by their apparent malice toward him, are giving him a chance to shut them up in court.
This is amusing, and confusing. Doomberg said and says that most of these crime guns come from Virginia. I know these guys “don’t lie,” so what’s going on?!?!
Hillary has been lying for 30 years . Sadly CNN doesn’t want the truth.
Both Hillary and Bernie decried the get tough on crime movement . But they failed to note the dramatic reduction in murder and other violent crime when laws were toughened.
One example
LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA
MURDER RATE per 100,000
2001 – 15.5
2013 6.5
The problem is not guns but rather culture . There is only one road out of both the high incarceration rates and high murder rates. We must change culture . A place to start might be to reduce the 24/7 flow of entertainment which glorifies thuggery, violence, murder, drugs and the treatment of women as sperm dumpsters.
“… as pointless as counting guns trafficked per 100,000 head of cattle.” You just described her constituents to a “T”. Made my day.
Her lips are moving she’s lying, everybody knows that, even the stupid fools who will vote for her know it, I would vote for Sanders any day of the week over Clinton, at least he’s up front about what he believes and “Up Front” is two words never found with Clinton. She’s a liar, she is a crook, she left American fighting men on the ground to die without support, that alone is an unforgivable sin, she is not worthy of the office,any office any where.
Whatever comes out of her mouth is “significantly misleading”. AKA, BS lies.
Mrs. Bill Clinton lost all credibility with anyone who has half a brain after portraying her husband’s diddling of Monica Lewinsky as “a vast right-wing conspiracy” years ago. Add to that Bill’s statement of “I did not have sex with that girl” and you have a family that lies as easily as any criminal caught red-handed in an episode of Cops. What amazes me is the number of people who still listen to and believe whatever comes out of the Clinton’s mouths. And that is a sad commentary on the intelligence of the American people as a whole.
“She lost credibility with anyone who has half a brain”. Problem with that statement is that she lost no credibility. People who have more than “half a brain” are called “Conservatives” and never believed her in the first place. Liberals, who prefer to allow the media to do their thinking for them, are already too stupid to figure Hillary is Freedoms poison.
Regarding the intelligence of the American people as a whole – we can blame our liberal educators and most of the media. When we allow our educators to suspend a child for eating a pot-tart into a shape resembling a gun we contribute to the downfall. It is time to push for a change. It is no wonder other countries keep pulling our chain. We’ve become wussified wimps. The “Greatest Generation” must wonder, with a tear in their eye, why they sacrificed so many lives for what is becoming of this nation.
I think the reason so many people believes what she states is because of an absolute lack of personal responsibility. Free college, free health care, free phones, free this and free that. But someone has to pay for it – nothing is free – everything costs someone something. These hilldabeast followers just don’t understand that part. There are way too many “afluenza” afflicted or “I’m too stupid to figure it out for myself and it’s your fault for holding me down” people out there.
There is one place that is a liberal utopia, yet they seem to contradict themselves by talking against it. There is free housing, free food, free entertainment, free medical care, and you are surrounded by mostly like thinking people (if it isn’t free, I’ll steel it). Our PRISONS.
What a surprise shocker any statement from the Hiltlary is, if her mouth is moving you know she is telling a lie!
The times will have to give her another 99 Pinocchios for these statements.
consider the source. round two will be pushing the lawsuits through so that auto makers can be sued when a drunk driver operates an automobile and kills someone.
A lib never lets actual facts get in the way of a lie. And ol Cankles is proof positive.
The most evil of all democrats lied? This is my surprised face. 😐