Things that make you question what you read...

You know the feeling, you read a "news" story about this or that (mostly guns lately) and you come across something that really makes you question the knowledge behind the piece. Things that most people look over and accept as fact... What happened to citing sources and backing up your information?

http://news.msn.com/us/know-your-states-gun-regulations

Little slideshow on MSN (which I believe about .1% of what I read any more...almost all editorials, not news) about what the gun regulations are. Last slide is this:

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l2...psb605a3ff.jpg

Other: 20%? WTF is an "other" firearm? Handgun, rifle, shotgun...pretty much covers it from my perspective... Maybe I'm forgetting spit wad shooters or flare guns or something... In my experience, when dealing with statistics, if you have two categories that make up a total of 8%, and "other" is 20%, that "other" category better get broken down more or your numbers are worthless...but then, it is on MSN, so maybe they are going for worthless...

MSN, nuff said.

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Originally Posted by ColoFarmer

You know the feeling, you read a "news" story about this or that (mostly guns lately) and you come across something that really makes you question the knowledge behind the piece. Things that most people look over and accept as fact... What happened to citing sources and backing up your information?

http://news.msn.com/us/know-your-states-gun-regulations

Little slideshow on MSN (which I believe about .1% of what I read any more...almost all editorials, not news) about what the gun regulations are. Last slide is this:

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l2...psb605a3ff.jpg

Other: 20%? WTF is an "other" firearm? Handgun, rifle, shotgun...pretty much covers it from my perspective... Maybe I'm forgetting spit wad shooters or flare guns or something... In my experience, when dealing with statistics, if you have two categories that make up a total of 8%, and "other" is 20%, that "other" category better get broken down more or your numbers are worthless...but then, it is on MSN, so maybe they are going for worthless...

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The FBI crime statistics show a category called "Other". I believe it's when it isn't possible to determine what type of firearm was use, due to commonality of ammo or not enough evidence for forensics to determine the actual weapon.

+1 ^^^^ Sometimes the gun type is unknown because it is never found, some jurisdictions do not actually even track what type of gun. These numbers are collected from police reports, not from court evidence or verdicts. What you can do with "other" is surmise that it follows the same percentages as the "known" firearms so essentially, out of the 20% other, there would be something like 86% handguns, 6% Rifles, 6% Shotguns and yes there probably are a couple of shootings each years as "other". Flareguns and who knows what.