PA Bill Number: HB2235
Title: Providing for regulation of the meat packing and food processing industry by creating facility health and safety committees in the workplace; ...
Description: Providing for regulation of the meat packing and food processing industry by creating facility health and safety committees in the workplace; ... ...
Last Action: Referred to LABOR AND INDUSTRY
Last Action Date: Apr 25, 2024
Perspective on Violence :: 11/18/2018
How big a problem is violence in the USA? We have answers, but the answers are not easy to explain. It is difficult to compare a violent crime that occurs millions of times a year with ones that happen once every few months. Here is some of the US crime data from the FBI for 2017. It surprised me, and it might surprise you. How do we improve one area without making another area worse?
- On average, a violent crime was committed every 25 seconds.
- A firearm was used in legal self-defense every 31 seconds.
- A firearm was used to stop sexual assault every 2.7 minutes.
- On average, one individual was killed in a mass murder every 4 days.
- A child under 13 years old was killed in a firearms related accident every 5 days.
- Someone was murdered at school with a firearm every 52 days.
- There were no mass murders on school grounds in 2017.
I bet you had to read that last point again. There were no mass murders on school grounds in 2017. I was surprised as well, and our surprise tells us something really important.
Given all the news we’ve seen, I assumed that the media would inform us about basic facts, and also put those facts into perspective. You might assume that too, and then we’d both be wrong.
The media operates with two competing tensions. First, we will change the channel if there is no exciting news. We also change the channel when we see that the media is making up exaggerations to make things look exciting. The media compromises on their degree of sensational reporting to balance between those two factors. The media gets their maximum number of eyeballs when the same number of people turn away out of boredom as turn away out of offended disbelief. Now that is an interesting perspective on the news.
That tension means the media has a huge incentive to spin the news. Their bias towards sensationalism is inherent in their product. We have to find the facts for ourselves. We have to do our own work to fit those facts into perspective because the media can’t do it for us.
Perspective is vitally important when we’re dealing with something as emotional as violence. How do we store guns safely while we keep guns available for self-defense? With millions of self-defense events a year, would gun control make us safer or put us at a greater risk from violent criminal attack? How many more rapes should we allow if we implement stricter gun-control? Should the relatively infrequent school shooting drive our social policy?
That is where perspective becomes vital. Sure, you’re welcome to your own opinion, but only an informed opinion will save lives.
https://slowfacts.wordpress.com/2018/11/15/perspective-on-violence/
