9 Mar

Justice Breyer -dissing on the antis or trouble with numbers?

Posted by Bob S. in Government, legal, myths |

Reading through Dennis Hennigan’s article at Jurist, I re-read a statement made by Justice Breyer during the oral Arguments.
(I’ll link to the transcript instead of Hennigan’s article – statement found on page 14)

I’m trying to decide if he is pointing out the patent — let’s be polite and call it “inflation” of the numbers or if Justice Breyer truly believes what he said:

JUSTICE  BREYER: There are two ways. One is that — look at — all you have to do is look at the briefs. Look at the statistics. You know, one side says a million people killed by guns. Chicago says that their — their gun law has saved hundreds, including -and they have statistics — including lots of women in domestic cases. And the other side disputes it. This is a highly statistical matter.

Now, I wonder what brief Justice Breyer was reading.

The CDC’s WISQARS reports that there were 859,170 firearm related deaths. That includes suicides, justifiable homicides, legal intervention — everything.

Consider just homicides? 361,285 for the same period.

Oh, that period covered; try 1981 to 2006 – 25 years.

So, was Justice Breyer dissing on the antis for their numbers, having trouble with his numbers or just engaging in hyperbole in order to justify restricting a right that should not be infringed?

Please join the discussion.

2 Responses to this post.

  1. Posted by the pistolero on 09.03.10 at 5:12 AM

    Considering it was Stephen Breyer, I would guess the latter.

  2. Posted by Bitmap on 09.03.10 at 5:12 AM

    I don’t see what the number of justified or unjustified homicides, suicides, and unintentional deaths involving firearms has to do with the Constitution of The United States.

    The Constitution doesn’t say “rights may be infringed for a really good reason”. At least the version of the Constitution that I read didn’t say that. There may be a new PC version out there that I haven’t seen.

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