The New York Times, much, much smarter than you.

So you have a segment of the population that commits crime at a rate far less than the general population. You'd normally consider said segment to be responsible and relatively law-abiding.

From Gleen's link Robert VerBruggen does some basic math that the NYT couldn't be bothered with.

North Carolina has a statewide murder rate of about 5 per 100,000. Even without counting manslaughter, that’s 25 murders committed per 100,000 North Carolinians every five years. There are about 230,000 valid concealed-carry permits in North Carolina, so by pure chance, you’d expect these folks to be responsible for nearly 60 murders over five years. And yet only ten of them committed murder or manslaughter. Instead of “rais[ing] questions,” the Times has demonstrated yet again that permit holders are more peaceful than the general population.

That's New York Times. They can use innumeracy to justify their paranoid hand wringing and calls to restrict civil rights of people that have committed no crime.

Consider that you have a mainstream and "respected" press organ taking the actions of 0.08% and blaming the whole group. Interesting bigotry at work.

So they're not just bad at math, but monstrous too! They consider the worst of the law abiding while excusing the actions of the criminals.

And speaking of monstrous siding with criminals over others. Joan Peterson makes excuses for a man willing to commit armed robbery but casts a suspicious eye on the man that stopped him.


Bob Owens also reminds us that just because one area the news reports on is completely bunk doesn't mean the rest can't be too.

What would happen if all of the stories in the Times – or the Washington Post, or your local newspaper or television news – were subject to the sort of expert scrutiny as this Luo article, in a given day or week? What percentage of reporting would we discover is marginally biased, seriously slanted, or even fabricated?

I strongly suspect that the resulting scrutiny would reveal a dark and ugly secret that the media isn’t remotely interested in reporting the news, it’s interested in shaping the news, and your perception of the world.

...

If you doubt this, please tell me how much you’ve read (for example) about Operation Fast and Furious outside of the blogosphere, and ask yourself if a Republican government would still be standing after orchestrating crimes that left hundreds of citizens of a neighboring state dead.

Ah yes, Eric Holder. Guess who is using increased police deaths as an excuse for more gun control?