What gets passed off as truth, especially in today’s electronic coffee klatsch known as e-mail, is sometimes anything but.
There was the “don’t buy Tommy Hilfiger clothes because the man is racist.” There was the alarm about proposed legislation to charge 5 cents for every e-mail. Both senders who alerted me to those “facts” had the good sense to fire off another e-mail when they found their information was false.
Another recent e-mail involved crime statistics in Australia and appeared in my file from two disparate sources. Because of the Star’s efforts to ensure fairness when covering issues involving firearms, I’m on correspondence lists of many new people, which is mostly a good thing.
The letter passed on from “a policeman friend in Australia” gave what it said were the first year results since Australian gun owners “were forced by a new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by our own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million.”
The e-mail said that “homicides are up 3.2 percent, Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent; Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent. … The Australian experience proves it. Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws affect only the law-abiding citizens.”
Any time you get such specific percentages and numbers, it looks as though someone’s done his or her homework.
Todd Rathner, a local guns rights activist and board member of the National Rifle Association, also received the e-mail originating from someone’s “friend.” I checked on the Australian Bureau of Statistics web site and he checked the site of the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia to see if the facts were true.
We both found that total murder victims decreased from 343 to 302 from 1999 to 2000 and that offenses involving firearms decreased from 62 to 59. Additionally, the victims of robbery involving a firearm (the Australian documents’ words) “decreased to an eight-year low of 1,328.” Other categories increased, including the number of assault victims and sexual assault victims.
“I get this type of junk all the time and sometimes argue more with the people disseminating it than I do with my political opponents,” said Rathner. “I try very hard to avoid stuff that is false and misleading to prevent it from becoming part of my base of knowledge. I can’t stand when my allies try to manipulate or stretch the truth. …
“It hurts the credibility of every gun rights advocate when this stuff is spread around.”
Rathner adds that the statistics don’t show a dramatic difference after the gun roundup.
“If that is true, then the gun guys don’t need to lie. It could prove that even confiscation of privately owned firearms doesn’t stop violent crime.”
As it turns out, the statistics being quoted in the currently circulated e-mail are the differences between 1996 and 1997, says Keith Tidswell, executive director for public relations and international affairs of the shooters association. He’s had “many hundreds of queries about these statistics. … Some people are quoting the figures without reference to time lines and that distorts the truth.”
The Australian stats e-mail also took a jab at the American media for not reporting these facts. Readers often ask why they haven’t seen stories in the paper and refer to important information they’ve read or heard elsewhere. We’re eager to check out why, but the answer may be that the facts aren’t as they’re billed.
All he can say is “Yes and no”
The most commented upon word since last we spoke was typed into the iMac by Ernesto Portillo Jr. The word was burro and it appeared in a column about city names that are frequently misspelled such as Tucson.
The now-famous line was “The list also includes Manhattan but Manhattan is not a city. It’s a burro.”
It’s also a joke.
Portillo said that no other word or words he’s written as a columnist here sparked more response. “Did he know he misspelled borough?” “Was he likening Manhattan to an obstinate beast?”
Squeezing in another channel
Just what difference does one-third of an inch make? In TV Week it’s enough room for another channel listing.
Beginning today the SCI FI Channel has been added to the listings, which will carry the designation SCI.
SCI programming is provided for basic-tier subscribers of the Comcast and Western cable systems in the Tucson area, as well as basic-tier subscribers in Sierra Vista, Bisbee and SaddleBrooke.
The inclusion of SCI was made possible by expanding the depth of the TV Week grids by 2 picas, a printing measurement that translates to one-third inch.
