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Saw this wil looking at Star-Telegram online

http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/1114700.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Officer deaths this year totaled 140, compared with 181 in 2007.

Gunfire deaths dropped to 41 officers, compared with 68 in 2007

After Texas, the states with the most deaths were California with 12, followed by Florida and Pennsylvania with eight apiece.

I'm curious to see how the anti-gun crowd can spin this. I find that this curiously comes up right as the next legislative session is scheduled to start. I can see this used to impede any new laws being proposed to widen gun rights.

BigBlueDodge wrote:Saw this wil looking at Star-Telegram online

http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/1114700.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Officer deaths this year totaled 140, compared with 181 in 2007.

Gunfire deaths dropped to 41 officers, compared with 68 in 2007

After Texas, the states with the most deaths were California with 12, followed by Florida and Pennsylvania with eight apiece.

I'm curious to see how the anti-gun crowd can spin this. Texas had more gun fire related deaths alone than California, Florida, and Pennsylvania had for ALL types of deaths combined. I find that this curiously comes up right as the next legislative session is scheduled to start. I can see this used to impede any new laws being proposed to widen gun rights.

Let's not go off the deep end here.

1.The report is an unofficial compilation by the National Police Memorial Fund, a police advocacy group.

2.More officers are killed every year in traffic accidents than by gunfire, including this year. The report does not break out how many of the 14 Texas officer deaths fell into each category. I would bet that the majority were vehicle related.

3. Officer deaths by firearm are the lowest since 1956 at a time when gun ownership and expansion of the right to carry are at their highest points ever.

4. The report does not state that Texas had more gunfire related deaths than California, Florida, and Pennsylvania had for deaths from all causes. Texas had 14 total deaths, which is down from 22 in the previous year - a 36% improvement. California had 12 and Florida and Pennsylvania each had 8 deaths from all causes. That adds up to 28 with the old math I learned in school.

I don't see reason to push any panic buttons over this. In fact, I see a lot here that could be used to support further expansion of gun rights.

post removed....

Okay, I am mistaken. Here is what confused me.

Officer deaths this year totaled 140, compared with 181 in 2007.

I thought that statistic was for Texas alone, but after reading another article, it is the total for the Nation. So you are correct. It was my misunderstanding.

BigBlueDodge wrote:Okay, I am mistaken. Here is what confused me.

Officer deaths this year totaled 140, compared with 181 in 2007.

I thought that statistic was for Texas alone, but after reading another article, it is the total for the Nation. So you are correct. It was my misunderstanding.

I can see now why you were alarmed - 140 on duty officer deaths would have made a very bad year indeed for Texas. Fortunately, that wasn't the case.

Don't be embarrassed - it's easy to misread reports like this, and news reports on the reports are even worse because some of the information is spun in a way that's designed to mislead.

To help reduce the confusion, I try to make it a point to go back to the source material and read over that document carefully. I also look at who wrote it, who sponsored it, and who funded it when that information is available. That often corrects my initial misimpressions and answers a lot of questions for me.

In this case, the National Police Memorial Fund appears to be trying to do a public service by publishing preliminary figures that may be meaningful to folks who don't want to wait for the FBI's official report on officers killed. You can expect that the figures provided at this point will change some by the time the FBI finishes cleaning up the raw data.

The FBI's reports are the best source for this information, but they run nearly a year behind because of all the fact checking and verification that goes into their compilation. This year's report won't become available until fall 2009.

Excaliber wrote:I don't see reason to push any panic buttons over this. In fact, I see a lot here that could be used to support further expansion of gun rights.

That's the same point being made by Alan Gottlieb of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20081229/p ... ays_ccrkba" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

BigBlueDodge wrote:Saw this wil looking at Star-Telegram online

http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/1114700.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Officer deaths this year totaled 140, compared with 181 in 2007.

Gunfire deaths dropped to 41 officers, compared with 68 in 2007

After Texas, the states with the most deaths were California with 12, followed by Florida and Pennsylvania with eight apiece.

I'm curious to see how the anti-gun crowd can spin this. I find that this curiously comes up right as the next legislative session is scheduled to start. I can see this used to impede any new laws being proposed to widen gun rights.

All sorts of statistics come out at the end of each year.